Humans of New York’s phenomenal Facebook page often catches my attention with intimate photos and insightful stories, but this portrait stopped me in my tracks:
The bassist’s spirit and determination also called to LedBelli Basses luthier Cleve Johnson. “In January of 2015 I was surfing the Humans of New York website and came across the photo,” he said. “I was very intrigued when I saw the photo of this random busker playing bass in the subway station in New York City and I immediately decided that I wanted to build him a bass guitar, for free. I then went on Facebook and set out to discover who he was. After a few days, through some intermediaries, I had a name: Kayhan Baratali. I was eventually able to connect with him via Facebook and we developed a friendship. I explained that I wanted to build him a bass and together we hammered out the details of what he would like.”
Our bass of the week is the culmination of that collaboration. The left-handed, six-string bass is LedBelli’s Noah model built with an ash body and curly maple top for a blond theme. Its seven-piece neck is made from quartersawn maple and purpleheart, all of which is topped with a cocobolo fingerboard.
The bass is loaded with a pair of Honey Badger single-coil pickups matched to a Nordstrand 3b-5a preamp. Other features include a Hipshot “A” style bridge, Gotoh tuners, and mother of pearl dot inlays.
For more information, check out the LedBelli Basses website.