Overweight Bass Players Up For Grabs as Huckabee Ends Campaign

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa.  Jim Ray Edmunds is large man, and one not given to public displays of emotion, but even he couldn’t staunch the flow of tears last night as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee suspended his quixotic campaign for the presidency after a dismal showing in the Iowa Caucus here yesterday.  “He had it all going for him,” Edmunds said of Huckabee, who won the first-in-the-nation primary event in 2008.  “Conservative values and a tendency to balloon up in weight, and he had the riff from ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ down cold.”

While Edmunds short-hand analysis may seem cryptic to media types who fly into this agricultural state once every four years, to local observers it made perfect sense.  “To those of us who know Iowa,” says Drake University political science professor Charles Turner, “it’s as plain as a pig on a sofa.”

“In the sun-shine of your love.”

The explanation?  “Iowa is home to a large number of overweight current or former bass players,” says Edmunds, who plucks the strings of a Fender Bassman with the Quad City Armadillos, a cover band that plays funk hits from the ’70’s.  “As a formerly overweight bass player, Mike Huckabee gave voice to the mute hopes and dreams of others like him, who are told to keep their mouths shut except for occasional backup vocals.”

“Smells Like Teen Spirit–on the one!”

Huckabee has played electric bass with the group Capitol Offense since 1996, and continues to do so despite warnings from political consultants that he will be tarred by the image of the bassplayer as the moodiest and least attractive member of most rock groups.

“With the exception of Paul McCartney, girls flock to the rhythm guitarists, drummers and lead guitarists in that order,” says Jim Spaulding, who writes on the bass scene for Guitar Magazine.  “If you do a Google image search for Bill Wyman”–the former bass guitar player for the Rolling Stones–“you’ll come up empty.”

Jack Casady:  He played for the . . . um . . . Strawberry Alarm Clock? 

Because of their subordinate status within most rock groups, bass players often neglect their appearance and become obese, at least by the flyweight standards by which rock musicians are judged.  Huckabee was diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes in 2003 and was informed by his doctors that he would die within ten years if he did not lose weight.  He lost over 110 pounds in a short period of time, although he regains some weight whenever he straps on his “axe”–a Tobias Basic 4-string model manufactured in Conway, Arkansas.

“No doubt about it, bass players pay the heaviest dues and can outeat any lead singer,” says Lloyd “Buster” Wright, who performs every Friday and Saturday with the country band “Hog Jowls” at the La Quinta Inn just south of town.  “Whenever I lose ten pounds my wife says ‘Turn around, you’ll find it.’”