Washtub bass

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Electric Washtub Bass

4 string washtub bass

The washtub bass, or "gutbucket," is an American folk instrument that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. Although it is possible for a washtub bass to have four or more strings and tuning pegs, traditional washtub basses have a single string whose pitch is adjusted by pushing or pulling on a staff to change the tension.

Variations on the basic design are found around the world, particularly in the choice of resonator. As a result there are many different names for the instrument including the "gas-tank bass," "barrel bass," "box bass" (Trinidad), "bush bass" (Australia), "babatoni" (South Africa), "tingotalango" (Cuba), "tulòn" (Italy), "laundrophone" and many others.

Ethnomusicologists trace the origins of the instrument to the 'ground harp' - a version that uses a piece of bark or an animal skin stretched over a pit as a resonator. The ang-bindi made by the Baka people of the Congo is but one example of this instrument found among tribal societies in Africa and Southeast Asia, and it lends its name to the generic term inbindi for all related instruments. Evolution of design, including the use of more portable resonators, has led to instruments such as the dan bau (Vietnam) and gopichand (India), and more recently, the "electric one-string."

The washtub bass is sometimes part of a jug band, often accompanied by a washboard as a percussion instrument. Jug bands, first known as "spasm bands," originated among African-Americans around 1900 in New Orleans and reached a height of popularity between 1925 and 1935 in Memphis and Louisville. At about the same time, European-Americans of Appalachia were using the instrument in "old-timey" folk music.

A musical style known as "gut-bucket blues" came out of the jug band scene, and was cited by Sam Phillips of Sun Records as the type of music he was seeking when he first recorded Elvis Presley.

In English skiffle bands and Australian and New Zealand bush bands, the same sort of bass has a tea chest as a resonator. Before the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney's band, The Quarrymen, featured a tea-chest bass, as did many young bands around 1956.

A folk music revival in the U.S. in the early 1960s re-ignited interest in the washtub bass and jug band music. Bands included Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions (spelling intentionally variable) which later became The Grateful Dead, and, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band featuring Fritz Richmond (1939-2005) on bass. Richmond was considered the world's foremost washtub bass virtuoso, and his work can be found on numerous recordings from America and Japan. One of his washtub basses is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

Currently, Brian Ritchie of the band The Violent Femmes plays a 'tubless electric washtub bass', and Les Claypool of Primus, often plays a variation called a whamola.