Gets Real: Trailblazer who invented electric bass guitar getting more notice

SEATTLE — An unexpected connection between the city of Seattle and a bass guitarist from Finland. Yet, the trailblazing musician and inventor is little known in his own hometown.

Paul Tutmarc, actor, radio star and electric-guitar manufacturer, died in 1972.

And he was never fully recognized even in Seattle for his history making invention — the electric bass guitar.

Before Seattle’s greatest of all time, Jimi Hendrix. Before Tacoma’s own Ayron Jones, there was Paul Tutmarc.

“As this is a very special concert, I’d like to say a few words,” said Lauri Porra.

With those few words, in Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony, electric bassist Lauri Porra, the great grandson of the Finnish composer, Jean Sibeilus, introduced the groundbreaking American musician and inventor, actor and radio star to a brand new audience.

“In the ‘30s, there was a man called Paul Tutmarc,” Porra said, to applause. “And he thought, ‘why not take a bass and put electricity to it?’ So, he invented the first electric bass right here in Seattle.”

“S-h-a-n-e T-u-t-m-a-r-c,” spelled out the younger Tutmarc. “And that ‘c’ came from Paul Tutmarc. It was originally a ‘k.’ But he thought it looked better on a marque with the ‘c.’ "

Shane is Paul Tutmarc’s great grandson and a fourth generation musician, himself.

He was told his name should be famous because of his great grandfather.

“Absolutely,” he said. “There’d be no Paul McCartney without Paul Tutmarc. There’d be no James Jamerson. I mean, James Jamerson influenced all of the white dudes playing bass in the ‘60s, you know.”

Paul Tutmarc was tinkering with guitars in the basement of his Roosevelt home in the 1930s when he created the instrument with the never-before-heard sound.

In 1936, he began marketing the first modern electric bass guitar, nearly 20 years before Leo Fender began mass producing the instrument; his name, not Tutmarc’s, becoming synonymous with the electric base.

Some 87 years later, Shane got to play his great grandfather’s creation.

“It was so smooth and played so good,” he said. “It wasn’t just like some crude, early attempt.”

That’s what guitarist Skyler Mehall found at Emerald City Guitar in Pioneer Square when he played this steel guitar built in the ‘30s by Tutmarc’s company, Audio Vox, too.

“There’s excellent clarity in that high end,” said Mehall.

Shane Tutmarc has his own theories about why his great grandfather’s contribution to popular music isn’t better known.

“He was such a, like, sort of like Tesla-type person,” said Shane. “He was just interested in so many things that like maybe he was able to let go of the bass thing and not get hung up on getting credit for that.”

Still, Shane wants more people to know his great grandfather.

“I want the Netflix mini series on his life,” he said. “I mean he’s so fascinating to me.”

From one great grandson, to another from a world away, more than 50 years after his death, Paul Tutmarc’s genius plays on.

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