On this day, May 14, 2026, Tom Bukovac sold me Grady Martin’s 1956 Danelectro six-string bass. It is an instrument I’ve been chasing for fifteen years, and an instrument I’ve been listening to (and so have you) all my life.
I wrote a chapter about this instrument in my Strat in the Attic book. It was one of those “the one that got away” stories, and had a sad ending—until today. The short version of the story is that Grady Martin’s son Tal had this historic instrument for sale at Gruhn’s in Nashville back in 2011, and Chris Scruggs alerted me to the fact that it was for sale when I passed through Nashville. I just couldn’t swing it at the time. I passed on it, and shortly after that, Johnny Cash’s son John Carter Cash bought the instrument, and he had it until recently, when it was sold to Tom Bukovac (heavy-duty Nashville session guitarist—he’s played with EVERYBODY). When Tom posted that he had acquired Grady’s six-string bass, I emailed him and begged him to sell it to me, but he had just got it and didn’t want to sell. I told him—and this is true—I had literally thought about that bass EVERY SINGLE DAY since that day that I didn’t buy it in 2011. It really is that good! It’s the best one I’ve ever played, in addition to the fact that it was Grady Martin’s and was used on a ton of hit records. It is a magic instrument.
Well, last week Tom texted me and told me he’d sell me the Danelectro. I scrambled to get the cash together, and tonight we met up and closed the deal. If I could distill the sadness and regret and longing that I wrote about in that chapter in Strat in the Attic when I lost out on my chance to own this instrument back in 2011, I can tell you that all those feelings are now the EXACT OPPOSITE. Turn that frown upside down! It’s a good day! I didn’t have to use my AK!
So what is so special about Grady Martin’s 1956 Danelectro six-string bass? Well, let me tell you…
Grady Martin, if you don’t know the name, was the top session guitarist in Nashville from the late 1940s through the 1970s. He played on thousands and thousands of recording sessions, and most importantly, he was known as a “hitmaker” who could arrange sessions and come up with the perfect lick or the perfect sound to make a record a hit. He’s perhaps most famous for playing the nylon-string guitar part on Marty Robbins’s huge number one hit, “El Paso,” but that’s the tip of the iceberg. From the late 1940s, when he began playing with Red Foley, through the mid-1950s, when he distilled a rockabilly sound used on records by Buddy Holly, Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio, Johnny Carroll, Janis Martin, Mimi Roman, Johnny Horton, and countless other obscure rockabillies, through the 1960s, when he became famous for creating hooks for giant hits like the aforementioned “El Paso” to Little Jimmy Dickens’s “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose” to Patsy Cline’s biggest hits, Roy Orbison’s biggest hits, Elvis Presley’s 1960s Nashville studio recordings, Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” through the 1970s, when he became part of the Outlaw Country scene, recording and touring with Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard—the guy’s resume is longer than I would be able to write in a book (and speaking of which, there really ought to be a book). Grady Martin really was “the king.”
In 1956, Grady Martin brought the first Danelectro six-string bass to Nashville. The instrument was brand new, a concept that Danelectro touted as a cross between a bass and a guitar. Grady was known for pioneering many things in his career, but rarely gets credited for thinking up the uses for a Danelectro six-string bass in terms of Nashville recording sessions. He immediately began using it at recording sessions. The “tic tac bass,” as it became known, was a valuable part of the Nashville session arsenal, often doubling the parts played by the upright bass player and the left hand of the piano player, which created a thick, beefy, full-fidelity sound. It’s a sound you would recognize from a thousand hits; Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” is a perfect example.
By 1958, Harold Bradley (Owen Bradley’s brother) had a copper-colored Danelectro six-string bass, and Harold became known as the “tic-tac bass” guy, although Grady started the craze in Nashville. Today, it’s part of any session guy’s arsenal, usually as a baritone guitar (tuned B to B or A to A), but in the 1950s, all that was offered was the six-string bass.
Grady played this Danelectro six-string bass on some of my very favorite records of all time, records like Johnny Horton’s “Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor” (just listen to that intro!), and “The Wild One” and “Sugar Coated Baby.” Once Hank Garland came into the Nashville session scene (around 1957-1958) in a big way, Grady would often play six-string bass while Hank Garland played the lead guitar parts. During this time, Grady played this bass on records by Elvis Presley (CHECK OUT THE PHOTO OF ELVIS HOLDING THIS VERY SIX-STRING BASS—GOOD LORD!), Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, and at least a couple of Patsy Cline sessions in 1958–59 (I don’t think Grady played the six-string bass on any of her big hits, but this bass is on at least two or three sessions before Harold Bradley became “the guy” who played on all of her big hits).
And, perhaps most importantly, the very first fuzztone electronic effect was recorded with this bass, in 1960. Think I’m kidding? It’s true.
Marty Robbins was in Nashville at Owen Bradley’s studio, recording a song called “Don’t Worry About Me.” Grady was playing the tic-tac bass on the session. Midway through the session, one of the channels on the mixing board began to malfunction, and a distorted, overdriven sound came out of the speakers when Grady played the Danelectro. The engineer on the session was a man named Glen Snoddy. Snoddy went to replace the malfunctioning channel, but Grady Martin, in his infinite wisdom, said, “Wait a minute, it’s got an unusual sound—let’s use it on the record.”
Go listen to Marty Robbins’ “Don’t Worry About Me” and wait for the solo. When that fuzz six-string bass kicks in, it’s the funkiest thing ever. It’s just wild. And it’s Grady, playing THIS bass.
Grady used the malfunctioning channel and the six-string bass on a few other recordings of the era, and on a couple of his own solo singles, “The Fuzz” and “Twist and Turn.” By 1961, they had a name for it: FUZZ.
Glen Snoddy, the engineer who was on the 1960 Marty Robbins section, figured that it wouldn’t be too difficult to make a device that would replicate the fuzz sound. He designed a transistor circuit that was simple, battery powered, and could be mounted in a foot pedal. He took his design to Gibson in Michigan, and they licensed his design and released the first commercially available fuzz pedal, the Maestro “Fuzz Tone,” in 1962.
Gibson didn’t really know what to do with it—they released a demonstration record showing how the fuzz tone could be used to sound like various brass and woodwind instruments. It wasn’t until some young rock and rollers got their hands on a Maestro Fuzz Tone that they figured out the deal: It just makes a hell of a racket. Keith Richards used a Maestro Fuzz Tone on the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” in 1964, and soon every teenage rock and roll band was playing distorted fuzz tone guitar and annoying the crap out of their neighbors and their moms and dads. And it all happened because of Grady Martin, playing THIS bass, on a Marty Robbins country-western session in 1960.
This bass has a ton of history behind it, and Grady Martin is one of my favorite guitarists of all time. That would have been enough for me to lust after this instrument. But I can say this—I have an original 1959 Danelectro six-string bass. I have a reissue from the 1990s. I’ve played ten or twelve original 1950s and early 1960s Danelectro six-string basses over the years. They were all cool and sounded great.
But this one is magical. I don’t know what it is about this one. But it’s like the Danelectro guys made this one on the best day they ever had. The neck is magic. The pickups and the rest of the parts are the best ones I’ve ever heard. The body feels different, more solid, I don’t know how else to put it. What I remember is picking this one up at Gruhn’s back in 2011 and thinking, “holy moly—this is a SERIOUS instrument.” I got those same goosebumps today when I bought the guitar from Tom. The only difference is, tonight, it’s going home with me.
A tip of the hat to Tom Bukovac, a genuinely cool guy with mad skills. And a big tip of the hat to Grady Martin, one of my absolute guitar heroes. Now I have a little bit of that Grady magic to impart on my own recording sessions, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Today was a good day.
I sure wish I could hang around Nashville and party with my friends (sad to miss the East Side Boogie this year!). But I’m heading back to Memphis tonight, with a little bit of magic in the back of the car.
See more photos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
