Danelectro (1956),
Fender (1961) and other manufacturers had produced
six-string basses tuned one octave below a guitar (EADGBE), and Jackson had briefly played a
Fender five-string bass tuned EADGC. Jackson first approached various
luthiers in 1974 about the construction of his idea for a "contrabass guitar" tuned in fourths BEADGC, and
Carl Thompson built the first six-string for Jackson in 1975. He first performed on the Thompson-built bass in 1975, recording with
Carlos Garnett and touring with
Roberta Flack. He later approached luthier Ken Smith to build him a six string bass before finally playing instruments made by New York-based bass makers
Fodera. Jackson said that the idea for adding more strings to the bass guitar came from his frustration with its limited range. When asked what he thought of criticism of the six-string bass, Jackson replied, Why is four [strings] the standard and not six? As the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family, the instrument should have had six strings from the beginning. The only reason it had four was because
Leo Fender was thinking in application terms of an upright bass, but he built it along guitar lines because that was his training. The logical conception for the bass guitar encompasses six strings. From 1982 onwards Jackson almost exclusively played a contrabass guitar. Prior to 1982 his main instruments included a 1973
Fender Precision Bass, a 1973
Fender Jazz bass fitted with a 1975 Precision neck, and a
Gibson EB-2D bass. In 1984 Fodera introduced their first Anthony Jackson Signature Model contrabass, followed in 1989 by a single cutaway model, the Anthony Jackson Presentation Contrabass Guitar. ==Death==