A first-person account by the First Lady of Lakland: Cheryl Lakin

Lakland Musical Instruments was an idea with its seeds sprouting long before that first bass made its way to the NAMM show in July of 1994. Early in 1992, near the birth of our first daughter, Dan had begun to buy used basses, vintage basses that he had an interest in. As he would buy one, another would pop up and spark his interest. Before long, he had to sell some to buy others. This was done by word of mouth or the newspapers. We found that the bass world is generally a small world. Once we opened the door, that's all it took for word to spread.

Some of these basses would need minor adjustments or restorations, which led Dan to a local luthier, Hugh McFarland. Hugh was a master at fretwork. When Hugh re-fretted a bass, Dan felt it played better than it ever had. As the number of basses Dan bought and consequently had to sell continued to grow, Dan and I began to publish our own sell list. At first, whenever we could get newsletters out, we got them out. As basses stockpiled in our basement and we saw a used bass business evolve out of Dan's interest, we were printing and mailing thousands of newsletters a month. At first, I folded them by hand in our basement, stapled them with my stapler from college, and banded them for mailing. As the numbers grew, we bought an old paper folding machine to expedite the process. I started coming to work with Dan, setting up in a caged dungeon-like room down in the bowels of the Lakin family's factory, me and the paper folding machine. Dan was still working upstairs for the family business. The used basses were all Dan's and my thing on the side.

The dungeon room was all dusty and dirty, so each month I had to clean the reams of paper before I could slide them into the old machine. Every 10 or so pages, the machine would jam. I'd shut it off, try to retrieve the crumpled offender, and attempt to resume the folding.

We streamlined the process even more with an electric stapler. I still did a lot of the assembly at home in our basement while our dining room became the mail room where I organized thousands of mailers each month by zip code. It became an ongoing monthly process for me. We got another phone line: 853-1976 to commemorate the birth of the Sting Ray-simply for the myriad of bass calls I religiously answered and messaged on a daily basis. Every evening, Dan would get home and return bass calls-all night long.

While I did the busy work, Dan handled all the buying, selling, pricing, negotiating, and call returning. In this way, he met and encountered countless people in the bass world, establishing a reputation as a bit of an authority on particular types of basses and as an honest, earnest person with whom to do business. He also determined which instruments needed minor and major repairs. For this, he consulted Hugh McFarland and Hugh's apprentice, Carl Pedigo, who worked under Hugh's guidance one day a week learning the luthier trade.

Shortly after the birth of our second daughter, Dan had the idea to create a new bass that was an amalgam of his favorite classic basses. He wanted to incorporate elements of these favorite basses-all the ones that had walked through our door in the preceding two years-with Hugh's masterful fretwork. Along with Hugh and Carl, Dan took measurements of necks and bodies and felt the weights and balances of various body designs and eventually came up with a prototype.

Around this time, Dan contacted Greg Rzab, a bass player for Buddy Guy who happened to live in the Chicago area. Dan and Greg had a mutual friend in Tommy Snellgrove, a Florida music dealer whom Dan had sold used basses. Tommy suggested Dan and Greg hook up. They hit it off quite well, and Greg became a right hand man in listening to and helping to choose pickups and preamps along with Dan, Hugh, and Carl. The guys consulted Bill Bartolini about electronics. Bill in turn sent them samples, which they all listened to and noted ultimately deciding on their favorite. That July 1994, they headed to Nashville with their Lakland, a juxtaposition of their surnames, Lakin and McFarland. They went as guests in the Bartolini booth. The whole experience proved to be a classic tale of naiveté. Dan and Hugh figured they'd hit the show with their terrific new bass and take orders for a slew of them. Their strategy was to find Tony Levin, whom they both admired, and ask him to try the bass. In their scenario, he would love it, be a Lakland convert, all his fans and protégés would follow suit, and a dynasty would be born. So at the show, they followed every bald guy around thinking he must be Tony Levin. Finally, they found the right bald guy, and not surprisingly, he didn't give them the time of day. This was not the scenario they had envisioned.

Instead, it was a rude awakening. We had no idea what the reality of the bass business really was. Looking back it's a wonder the whole thing didn't die right there in the heat of Nashville. We really had no idea we'd not only need a really cool bass, but we'd also need really cool guys playing them, really cool ads in high profile magazines, and money, money, and more money. We had one guy playing it, a six-inch ad, and no money. The first two here changed pretty quickly, but the third one became an ongoing struggle despite the basses and publicity.

In January of 1995, they began converting an unused area of the Lakin family's tire recycling plant into a small bass factory. Dan and Carl both decided to quit their former jobs and come to work at Lakland as full-time employees. That first full year of production was full of firsts. We started with the assembly of the shop on the second floor of the old tire recycling plant. The room was partitioned off and tools were set up, and we were ready to go. We didn't foresee the problems with the inadequate ventilation and dehumidification system and the myriad of problems caused by this lack of climate control. It is extremely humid in the summer months in Chicago, and without proper dehumidification, the basses in production were alive, contracting and expanding with the various humidity levels on any given day complicating the production process. We lived with the humidity problems for a couple of years before we could afford to do anything about them other than dry things off.

1995 also saw our first concert with the Lakland bass. A local producer, Jim Tulio, set us up with Rick Danko. We were thrilled. We loved The Band, and Dan had particularly been a Danko fan. He had watched "The Last Waltz" innumerable times and couldn't wait to meet his lifelong idol. We couldn't believe our luck.

It was arranged that Jim, Hugh, and Dan would take the bass to the hotel to meet Rick. If he liked the bass, we were in. The three of them arrived at Rick's door and were stunned by his appearance. He didn't look like the Rick Danko in "The Last Waltz." In 1995, he was much heavier than in 1976. Although Rick was very friendly and nice and they were enamored with him, he could hardly stay awake or alert during their visit. Today, his substance abuse problems are common knowledge. It was news to us at that time. At one point, he offered to order them room service, while he was on the phone, he actually did fall asleep. Dan didn't care though; this was Rick Danko. And, even better, Rick liked the bass and agreed to play it the next night. The night Dan met him was the night before The Band's show opening for The Grateful Dead at Soldier Field, which turned out to be Jerry Garcia's final show with The Dead.

The night of the actual show, Rick was a different man. He was dead-on, full of energy, excited about the show, and so nice, welcoming, and accommodating. He took Dan and Hugh on the band's bus and introduced them to the rest of the guys. Dan was bowled over with how nice everyone was; this was a whole new world. Rick even included them with the band when they walked through the tunnel to the stage at Soldier Field like they were part of the entourage. It was all very exciting for us with this new bass and the likes of Rick Danko.

1995 also gave us our first review in Bass Player Magazine. June's issue gave us a mostly positive review of what would become our 4-94 model. There were a few aspects that were not reviewed favorably and consequently resulted in modifications of the bass itself, specifically the pan controls.

So, by the end of 1995, I would come to the factory one day a week to handle correspondence. Along with Dan, Hugh, and Carl, we had a work team in place. Any orders would be handled by mail order direct through "Dan Lakin Basses." We thought this would be adequate; we had no idea what we were getting into. We kept thinking we were rounding the corner to success, but it was always more complicated than we anticipated. You see, we had no dealers or stores, and really, no orders.

To be continued...