Before there were good ways to record and play back bass sounds, did anybody bother to train their voice to sing low bass? I imagine the uses for the skill would be rather limited before good microphones, recording equipment and widely available hi-fi stereos to play back bass sounds.
That’s like asking if anyone bothered to sing at all before they could be recorded. A choir has always been made of many notes sung by various people. There was a lot of music in the world before 808s came about.