Despite being a presidential candidate, Huckabee wore his bass as a badge during the recent campaign. He played it at every turn and was asked to sit in with a bevy of famous bands and musicians. Whether it was playing “Crossroads” with a high school rock band or improvising on the Tonight Show, Huckabee proved his worth to musicians all over the world with a passion for his instrument and a hand on his fret board.

How did you get your start?

I started guitar at eleven. The Beatles came along and suddenly we all wanted to play the guitar. So I started begging my parents for an electric guitar but there was no way they could afford it.  They ordered an electric guitar from the JC Penney catalog for $99 and it included an amplifier and all the things you needed to get started.  It took them a year to pay the thing off; they paid so much per month. That was Christmas 1966; I played on that thing until my fingers nearly fell off.

I took some lessons from a Pentecostal preacher in Hope Arkansas by the name of Joseph Geno.  I thought I was going to be the next guitar star.

How about the bass?

It occurred to me that a lot of other kids were picking up the guitar but nobody was playing the bass. If I wanted to be in a band and if I knew how to play the bass, there would be a lot of opportunities. I saw some bass players around and I really thought I could do that. I found a used Vox bass in Texarkana, Arkansas. My first amplifier was built by my friend’s dad who was a fireman. He made it from the speaker of an old jukebox. Those old jukeboxes had those huge, 15” JBL speakers in them, a lot like the Peavey Black widows now. It was homemade, and it was the beginning of my bass playing.

Was Paul McCartney your main influence?

He was one of the main ones. In recent years I’ve come to understand what an amazing and innovative bass player he was. I think people thought of him mainly as a vocalist and a songwriter. If you go back and listen, he was very innovative on the bass. I think it was because he was a piano player and a guitar player before. He was not just a “ham and egg’er” bassist like I tend to be. His style was very cutting edge at the time.

I think everybody has hopes and dreams that one day they’ll be playing arena shows, and the truth is that I did.  I’ve played arena shows in front of 10,000 people but it was because my band opened for Willie Nelson. The reason my band was playing was because I was governor not because I was that good.  I’ve been on stage with Alabama and REO Speedwagon and other wonderful bands. I’ve always told people if you’re not that great of a musician, then you better run for office or something and you’ll get to play with some pretty cool bands and get some cool gigs.

Tell me about a few of your bands?

When I was in Junior High and High School, I played in a variety of bands. I played both rock and country. I played in my church as well. When I was fifteen, I was asked to play bass on a gospel album for a local gospel group in Hope, Arkansas. That had a major influence on me. It sort of helped me move more toward Christian music. And it helped me to see that as a Christian I could still play the bass. I grew up in a church where there were no guitars or drums. We had a piano and an organ and we sang old-fashioned, traditional hymns. That was the first time I saw that maybe there was a place for this type of thing. In the early seventies, people like Larry Norman, André Crouch and the Disciples came along. Suddenly, there were people that were Christians that liked the same kind of music that I did.  That was really the time when my musical stretch started to take place.

So have you played regularly ever since?

I didn’t have the time in college because I finished in two years and three months. When my first kid came along, I got down to groceries or guitars.  We were starving; I was going to graduate school at Southwestern Seminary.  I reached a point where I had to sell my guitars. I had a ’67 Gretsch Tennessean and a ’70 Fender Jazz Bass.  If I had those instruments today I could have paid my kid’s way through college.

I found a ’64 Gretsch Tennessean just like the one I had before, but even better. I’m still looking for a replacement for the Jazz. I have a Jazz, but it’s white and one day I’m going to find a Sunburst like the one I had. In the meantime, I’ve got more guitars than I know what to do with.

What’s your main axe now?

Mainly I use a Tobias; it’s the sweetest playing guitar in the world.  I’ve got a Dean Pro Edge, an Epiphone Acoustic Electric, and the old Fender Jazz. I’ve got a P-Bass, one of the modern ones. And just for the fun of it I have a Danelectro. I’ve got a 5-String Tobias and one day I will get to the point where I play it but I’m a four string guy.  There are just too many years and too much muscle memory of playing one instrument that the fifth string just seems like something that I don’t need.

What about your rig?

I’ve got an SWR stack that I normally use when I’m doing something large, when I need a lot of punch. I run them with a Genz Benz head. I actually have two stacks so I could dual stack the cabinets if I needed to. One cabinet has six 10’s.  The one that I mainly use has a 15” with the 4x10 cabinet.  I get the low punch that I need out of the 15” and the 4x10’s really offer a nice range.

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by Steven Douglas Losey