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Kong did some feasible studies for Lobue Guitars for some Marketing classes at San Francisco State Univ.
for his BS degree. He also took some photos of LoBues shop and forecasting for 1979. His forecasting indicated not
feasible, at that time because of the economy and the area where the shop was located. Unfortunately, this study was recently accidentally destroyed.
At least the photos are preserved and are displayed here. Kong scraped up enough extra cash to buy a LoBue bass like Johnsons but as musicians do, finally traded it for a new bass in 2001. He indicated that the bass never really fit him properly as it was designed to fit Johnson at 6’2” and Kong was more like 5’7. In describing the bass, Kong indicated that LoBue used to experiment with neck joints & different sections of the woods for his basses & was quite ahead of his time in the 70's. He used have the neck join the body - 2 inches
or so into the bodies. Radical for that time. Now everyone does that!!
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On Kongs bass he joined 2 jazz bass pickups together to act as a humbucking system (a Bart TNT) with single & double coil switch too. The pickups were positioned perpendicular and in the middle like a Precision bass. The G& D side of the pickups were slanted toward the neck and E&A sides were slanted towards the bridge. The effect was a string bass sounding instrument. Not a traditional Jazz bass sound like Jaco's.
As a side note: Kong finally met Johnson in 1985 as Johnson was searching for the other owners of LoBue Basses. Johnson was playing with the Meeting ( Patrice Rushen, Nudgu Chancellor, & Ernie Watts) and they became good friends since then. Johnson was always supportive and encouraged Kong to play. |
