I've recently seen a series of filmed performances by early period Pink Floyd and something rather intrigued me.

As a bass player I've always looked to that instrument and the person playing it, in the case of Pink Floyd of course it was Roger Waters.

In the earliest days of the band he played a Rickenbacker 4001 but he switched to a Fender Precision somewhere in the late sixties.

One of the film clips showed the back of his Precision's headstock to reveal the presence of a strap nut. Extremely unlikely that any bass player would have worn his instrument in the manner of a Spanish guitar so, although the headstock strap nut wasn't in use, I'm intrigued to know when Fender phased out this strange accessory.

It's called a 'Hootenanny button'

There are various thoughts as to why is was there. My own preference is that it made it easier for bassists to hold their bass guitar with the neck pointing upwards, (like Bill Wyman does) rather than horizontally. Then again Bill Wyman used his strap in the normal way.

So maybe not.

Could have been a Water's mod to allow him to swing the bass out of the way easily when playing other instruments (eg gong)?

As you say, Bill still used the conventional strap buttons.


An interesting thought, but I'm struggling to see how this would actually work out in practice.

We frequently see guitarists swing their instrument down and behind them when they do something else, usually playing a bit of keyboards in the middle of a number. I'm pretty certain that the traditional strap buttons are used there too, except these days with the added precaution of secure straplocks!

It's just another strap button
Google pics of Skip Battln of The Byrds, he used to use it that way

So he did!

My original question was: 'When did Fender stop adding a strap button to the headstock of their basses?'

Any ideas?

According to my Fender book
It debuted in 1960, was removed in 1969