Fender Electric Jazz Bass Guitar Formerly Owned by Noel Redding

Musician Noel Redding (1945-2003) played this 1966 Fender Jazz Bass guitar for nearly his entire tenure as bassist in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, including most recordings and live performances from 1967 through the band’s dissolution in June 1969.  

In the fall of 1966, Noel Redding went to audition for Eric Burdon and the New Animals as a guitarist. The position was already filled, but Chas Chandler, the former bass player of the original Animals, needed a bass player to back up a musician he had recently brought over to London from New York. The guitarist’s name was Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970). Redding had never played bass before, but he tried anyway and got the gig. Redding used borrowed basses until he purchased this Fender Jazz Bass from the English music store Sound City on February 7, 1967. Redding favored the instrument’s slim neck, larger body, and big single coil pickups.