I just found out that one of my early rock n roll heroes, Glenn Cornick, the original bass player from Jethro Tull, passed away last week. Glenn epitomized everything that most of us straight, short-haired, album-buying, concert-going suburban New Jersey teenage guitar-playing garage band kids were prevented by our concerned parents prevented us from being. Glenn was a rock star in one of the great bands of the era, a freak (in the best sense of the word, one of the most inventive original bass players of his time, with incredibly long hair and an eccentric and wild sense of personal style and dress that defied description. My friends and I all loved and admired him and wanted to be as cool as he was. He was an individualist who went his own way, and we admired that quality in him. He quit Jethro Tull right after their greatest album Aqualung was recorded, at the point that the band was about to become huge globally, and formed his own band Wild Turkey. We all thought, what a bold thing to do, he could have taken the safe route, but didnt. He played a really cool red hollow-body double-cutaway Gibson electric bass guitar (Featured on the cover of the Tull LP Benefit) that we all wanted to get but couldnt afford. My band mates and musician friend all referred to it as The Glenn Cornick Bass. I thought about that bass for years! Every time I got in trouble for some prank, shoplifting, or bad grades in school, as punishment, I was marched off to Bills Barber Shop to get my hair cut ultra-short, and I was never able to grow my hair long like Glenns or my other hero from that era, Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath, who also had a unique, freakishly long haircut. I guess my folks knew me a lot better than I ever gave them credit for, and would hit back at me right where I lived in during the turbulent late 60s and early 1970s when having long hair was indeed a very cool thing to have. Years passed, life began happening to me, I stopped listening to Tull, and lost track of Glenn. I assumed that after his solo career didnt work out (I think he was in the band Paris with Bob Welch) he left to pursue other endeavors and live his life. There was no internet, no search engines back in those fairly innocent pre technology days, so it was difficult to keep track of your heroes once they dropped out of sight. But I never forgot about Glenn and that really cool red Gibson hollow body bass that he had made famous. We worked hard for a very long trying to make a name for The Smithereens, and after nearly six years of rejection, we finally got a break, landed a record deal, and inexplicably, were an overnight success. We stayed on the road for half a decade, touring non-stop, living on the bus, and putting out new albums on schedule. When it was time to record our 4th studio album for Capitol (Blow Up) we found ourselves in Hollywood for five months in 1991, renting houses in Laurel Canyon, and recording at Herb Alperts legendary A&M Studios, running into recording artists in the hallways there everyday during the five months it took to record the album. Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Metallica, Luther Vandross, Tom Petty, Alice Cooper, Stevie Wonder, Barry White, Motley Crue, it was an amazing time. One day, while recording an overdub for a song from Blow Up, I was looking for a unique bass sound, and I thought It would be great to use a Gibson Glenn Cornick bass on this track, it would be perfect! But I knew that at that point in time, they were almost impossible to find anywhere. So I called all the used guitar shops on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood to see if any of the many musical instrument stores there had one available, and impossibly, Guitars R Us told me that they indeed did have this extremely rare bass for sale. I asked them to hold it for me, and told them Id be there within a half hour to take a look at the Gibson Glenn Cornick bass, I could barely contain my excitement, as at least 25 years had passed since I had first developed my passion for this particular guitar and my love and admiration for the man who had popularized it. I arrived at the shop within the hour, told the owner that I was the guy from The Smithereens who had called about the Glenn Cornick bass, and asked him if I could see it. He replied Yes, I have it here for you. And by the way, thats Glenn Cornick standing right over there at the counter near the cash register, he came in about ten minutes ago to buy some bass strings.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 12:20:42 +0000
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