Restored Bass Guitar From ‘60s Pop Group Is Memento Of Dad

Thirty years after being abandoned to a Portland basement with a broken neck, the bass guitar that reverberated rhythm in “Windy,” “Never My Love,” and “Cherish” has been given new life in the Spokane Valley.

Jordan Cole, 35, whose father Brian played bass for the 1960s folk-rock sextet “The Association,” recently had his dad’s guitar restored.

“I don’t dare take that on stage,” says Cole, a musician who plays with a band called Safe Sax. “That thing to me is priceless.”

As musical instruments go, the Gibson semi-hollowbody is somewhat unremarkable. It was built around 1960 and, fully restored, is worth about $1,000.

But, oh, if its frets could only speak.

In the early 1960s, Brian Cole was living in Portland with his wife and two young boys. Jordan wasn’t yet three when his father blew off to Los Angeles with dreams of becoming an actor.

Instead, Brian Cole hooked up with the burgeoning folk-music scene and helped found The Association in 1965. The Gibson now in his son’s Valley living room was used on the first three - and arguably most succesful - of the group’s 10 albums.

“The Association interwove the folk sound with the pop sound,” said Beau Tyler, program director at Oldies 101.1 FM in Spokane. “It’s considered pretty much timeless pop music.”

Neither Cole or his mom can remember just when or how the guitar was cracked below its tuning pegs, but it was eventually banished to storage in about 1969.

Jordan Cole doesn’t remember much of his father from that era, either. At the time, Brian Cole was touring all over America and Europe. Even his death, from a heroin overdose in 1972, was little more than a footnote in Jordan’s youth.

In fact, when his mom sat him down on his bed one August day to break the bad news, he remembers thinking he was in trouble at school.

“I got a lot of his sense of humor and his talent, but not many memories,” Cole says.

Now, he’s got his dad’s guitar, too - along with about $2,000 or so in royalties he receives every year from album sales.

How he re-discovered the guitar is a classic story of a mother’s patience run out. She called Jordan last February and told him he’d better come and get his stuff from her home in Portland - or else.

There, he rummaged through two decades worth of music equipment he’d accumulated while working in a number of his own bands, including Portland blues outfit Jump Start and Spokane’s Shiner. From beneath everything else - old amps, miles of wires, miles of memories - Cole unearthed the Gibson.

Following his father’s death, Cole as a teenager had made one awkward attempt to repair it. The neck just twisted and the guitar remained unplayable. He’d forgotten about it - until last year.

“I remember pulling it out and saying, ‘Wow, that’s my dad’s bass,”’ Cole says.

Cole let his friend and fellow Valley musician Vern Vogel do the repairwork. Vogel, who owns Crosstown Guitar Works, was interested in the bass because it is something of a vintage piece.

“And then the added thing with The Association,” Vogel says. “In their time, they were a pretty big band. As you are repairing it, you’re thinking back to that era and to those songs.”

The repair work was tricky. First, Vogel re-heated the old epoxy Cole had used as a teen, then broke the guitar in four places. After fitting the pieces back together and filling in the gaps, Vogel says the guitar plays as good as new.

Its sound might be a little dated. After all, the bass is nearly 40 years old and is without the special effects of a more modern instrument. But plug it into an amplifier, and “Along Comes Mary.”

“It just has such a distinctive sound you can’t help but to think of the songs my dad played,” Cole says. “By now, I know every one by heart.”