Fender's James Jamerson tribute bass, and the flatwound tone behind Motown
Fender's collector tribute honors the most recorded bass in history. The sound it chases lived in worked-in flatwound strings, not the instrument, and you can string it up for the price of a set.
By Trace, New-product desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Fender announced a James Jamerson 1962 Precision Bass on June 22, 2026, a collector tribute to the most recorded bass in history. But Jamerson's Motown tone was mostly the strings: heavy La Bella flatwounds, gauged .052 to .110, that he left on for years and refused to swap for brighter rounds. You can get that thump on any Precision. The flatwounds, not the bass, are what made the funk.
What Fender announced
On June 22, 2026, Fender announced the James Jamerson 1962 Precision Bass, an era-correct tribute to the instrument behind more hit records than any other bass in history (Premier Guitar). It is built to look and feel like the bass that sat in the live room at Hitsville U.S.A. around 1963: a Heirloom nitrocellulose sunburst that is meant to patina over time, a classic C-shape neck, a slab rosewood fingerboard, a custom split single-coil pickup voiced for the Motown low end, and chrome bridge and pickup covers.
It is a collector piece, priced at the top of Fender's signature range, and Fender frames it as part of the Precision Bass turning 75 this year (Fender). The press release stacks up tributes from across the bass world, including Raphael Saadiq and Fender's own chief product officer Justin Norvell, who called the original "the heartbeat of an era." All of that is true. None of it is the part that made the records sound the way they do.
The tone was never really the bass
Here is the thing a string site has to say out loud. The Jamerson sound, the warm, dark, fundamental-forward pocket under the entire Motown catalog, is mostly the strings. It is heavy La Bella flatwounds, gauged .052 to .110, that he left on his Precision for years and almost never changed (Wikipedia). The famous credo, that the dirt keeps the funk, was not a joke. He believed the grime and the dead, worked-in wrap were the sound, and when a producer in the mid-1970s pushed him toward brighter roundwounds, he turned it down (Reverb).
That is why the new Fender is a beautiful object and a slightly misleading shortcut. A fresh, expensive instrument with a period pickup gets you the bass. It does not get you the strings, the years of break-in, or the right hand. Bass Player Magazine has long documented La Bella flatwounds as the go-to string for the Funk Brothers session pool, Jamerson among them (Bass Player Magazine). The bass everyone wanted to copy, nicknamed the Funk Machine with FUNK carved into the heel, was stolen days before Jamerson died in 1983 and never recovered. What survived is the recipe, and most of the recipe is strings.
What to actually string up
If you want the pocket and not the price tag, the move is simple: put heavy La Bella Deep Talkin' Flats on whatever Precision-style bass you already own. The closest match to Jamerson's own gauge is the La Bella 0760M Deep Talkin' Bass Originals (.052 to .110), the heavy "1954 Original" set our catalog files under the Jamerson reference. It is a cannon, very high tension, and not a beginner string, but nothing else sits the way it does.
If the heavy set sounds intimidating, it should. The lighter La Bella 760FL (.043 to .104) is the same Deep Talkin' family with a friendlier tension, and it is the one we point most players to first. Either way, you are buying the actual source of the tone for the cost of a set, not a bass. Here is how the two stack up against the bright roundwound most players already have on:
| La Bella 0760M (.052–.110) | La Bella 760FL (.043–.104) | Standard roundwound (.045–.105) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wrap | Stainless flat | Stainless flat | Nickel or stainless round |
| Brightness | 2/10 | 3/10 | 8/10 |
| Tension | Very high | Medium-high | Medium |
| Feel | Stiff, heavy | Smooth, easier | Standard |
| Jamerson pocket | Closest | Close, more playable | Wrong direction |
| Best for | Deep Motown thump | Motown tone, easier hands | Rock, slap, modern |
One honest caveat on the gauge. A .110 E string holds far more tension than the .105 you are used to, so check that your nut slots are wide enough before you commit, and expect a stiffer feel under the fingers. That stiffness is part of why the notes bloom the way they do. For the full case on when flats beat rounds and when they do not, our flatwound versus roundwound guide runs the tradeoffs.
Why Jamerson still sets the standard
Fender's own copy lists the players who picked up a bass because of him, and it reads like the canon: Paul McCartney, Marcus Miller, John Entwistle, Geddy Lee, and Pino Palladino, who built a whole second career on a dark, vocal, Jamerson-descended tone. Most of that lineage runs on flatwounds or on the warmer end of the string spectrum, which is the quiet thesis of the last month of bass news.
It is the same lesson that ran through two other stories we covered this week. McCartney's Höfner, saved from bankruptcy by its new owners, makes its thump from flatwounds on a short scale, not from the body. Rickenbacker's new short-scale 3030 ships with flatwounds for the same reason. Three different basses, one recurring answer: the tone you are chasing is mostly the string. The bass is the part you can fall in love with. The string is the part you can actually buy. For the full rig and the sourcing behind it, see our James Jamerson profile.
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