Playing to the Bass


Dear Charlie Savage,

First of all, let me restate that you’re my favorite Globe reporter, the one man who has singlehandedly maintained the paper’s once vaunted national profile. That said, however, there’s an egregious error in your story on Mike Huckabee today repeated not once, but twice.

In the piece, you write: “Huckabee appeared on Leno, even showing off his electric guitar playing with his band,” and “Huckabee held a rally in West Des Moines with actor Chuck Norris and played guitar with a rock band.”

Of course, Huckabee wasn’t playing guitar, but, as is plainly shown in the photo on Page One of today’s edition, he was playing the electric bass. To the hopelessly musically ignorant, they may look roughly the same, but they are completely different instruments, serving completely different functions. This may seem minor, but, as a bass player myself, it’s heresy.

The first (and last) thing that impressed me about Huckabee is that his go-to instrument is made by Tobias, a fine line of basses made in Arkansas, one of which I used to own. To attest to the general badassness of these basses, here are some dorks.

Anyway, Charlie, if you can take the time to pore over Bush’s signing statements, you can take a moment to count the strings on whatever Huckabee’s weilding. Here’s a rule of thumb. A guitar has six strings, a bass usually has four. Now go and sin no more.