After 50 Years, the Most Famous Bass in Bluegrass Changes Hands

In 1975, John Cowan, the newest member and lead vocalist of New Grass Revival, a band that would come to forever alter people’s perception of an entire genre of American music, walked into the Doo Wop Shop in Louisville, Kentucky, picked up a 1962 Olympic White Fender Jazz bass and immediately fell in love with the butter-colored instrument with “the thinnest neck on a Fender Jazz bass that I’d ever held.” When he asked how much they wanted for it, they said “a whopping $225!” (Nearly $1,400 in today’s dollars.) I didn’t have that kind of cash,” said Cowan. “But I did own a plexiglass Dan Armstrong bass. Thank goodness they agreed to trade ‘em straight up!” John left the Doo Wop Shop with the ’62 Fender, immediately named him “Whitey,” and commenced a love affair that would last for half a century.  If nothing else, Whitey the bass may have tried to address the age-old question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a