Fender ’59 Bassman Valve Amplifier 1999 Used and Signed by Buddy Guy! (2nd Hand)

Fender ’59 Bassman Valve Amplifier 1999 Used and Signed by Buddy Guy! (2nd Hand) – This is a mint condition Fender ’59 Bassman Valve Amplifier. This amp has had just one owner and was leant to Buddy Guy for a show that he played with Robert Cray back in 2006. Buddy signed the amp and marked in his settings on the control panel! There are also the tickets to the show that he gave to the previous owner also.

The Fender Bassman evolved as an amplifier designed to initially go along with the Fender Precision Bass. It’s perhaps a bit of an irony that this amp design is among the most revered from guitarists – not bass players. Add to this the fact that the first Marshall amplifiers were largely leveraged from the Bassman’s circuit design (which in turn spawned a countless array of further clones as time passed), and it’s easy to understand why the Fender Bassman was the first amplifier chosen as a tweed reissue in the early ‘90s.

Fender’s ’59 Bassman reissue takes the amplifier even further (or should we say backward?) closer to the original. Updates for the ’59 Bassman include a tube rectifier (original spec 5AR4), an internal bias pot, a pair of US-made Groove Tubes 6L6-GE output tubes, as well as a quad of Jensen P10R reissue 10-inch Alnico speakers.

To finish up the revised Bassman, the ’59 is housed in a cabinet constructed from solid finger-jointed yellow pine and covered in lacquered Tweed, just like the originals. The front covering is an attractive dark oxblood type cloth- again, like the originals.

Beyond the improvements themselves, the The Fender 59 Bassman shares the same four-input, two-channel design with independent controls for volume on each channel in addition to Presence, Bass, Middle, and Treble controls that go to 12. Each of the two channels (normal and bright emphasized) can be patched together with a short cord to combine the voices. Note that the two channels does not mean that this is a “channel-switching” amp. The ’59 Bassman is rated at 50 watts and certainly puts out the power. This amp is capable of being VERY loud, especially if your interests are in clear clean tones.

The Bassman design itself is straight up and simple with no preamp gain controls for low-level distortion creation. There are also no effects loops, reverbs, or extra buttons or lights. All said, blues and classic rock players tend to appreciate non-master volume style of amps as the volume can be set to a breakup point of natural distortion and the dynamics can then be controlled by a player’s technique. This touch-sensitivity indeed can really enhance the feel and mood of the music being played. To get an amp like the Bassman to distort, you’ve simply got to turn it up.