Mike McCready’s Fender Bassman AB165 Amp
According to Mike McCready, he used a Fender Bassman amp during the recording of Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten, specifically for clean tones. This includes the clean tone heard on one of the album’s biggest hits, “Black.”
I had a Marshall JCM800 with a 4×12 cabinet with, I think, 25-watt speakers in it. And I had a Fender Bassman for the clean tones. You can hear that on Black.
Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready looks back on 30 years of Ten
While Mike mentions using a Fender Bassman, he doesn’t specify the exact model. It could have been a Fender Bassman Tweed, a combo amp, or a Bassman head.
However, in a 2013 interview with Premier Guitar, it was noted that Mike regularly uses a 1963 blonde Fender Bassman (AB165) for clean tones in his live rig. This raises the possibility that the same amp was used during the Ten sessions. That said, as Erik pointed out in the comments, the AB165 circuit corresponds to a blackface Bassman, not a blonde one as stated in the article. This creates some confusion—either the amp is an AB165, or it’s a blonde Bassman, but it cannot be both.
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The AB165 is a black faceplate Fender amp made from Feb. 1965 to June, 1968. It is not a blonde Bassman and is not the one in the photo above. The Bassman in the photo is either 6G6-A or more likely 6G6-B which were blonde Bassmen.
Hi Erik, thanks for the clarification. I’ve updated the post, changed the photo, and added a link to the Premier Guitar article where they incorrectly refer to it as a blonde AB165.