Another Hendrix guitar is up for auction next month, this time the it’s the Fender Duo-Sonic he owned and played before he was famous.
Jimi played on this guitar on tour with the Isley Brothers and it is expected to fetch around $180,000.
The blond Duo-Sonic is a 1959 or 1960 model, which the 21-year-old Hendrix paid $160 for before joining the Isley’s as a session man on their tour of 1964.
Of course, as a solo artist, Jimi was known primarily as a Strat man, which explains why this Fender went into storage before reappearing in Hendrix manager Chas Chandler’s studio.
Chandler sold the guitar in 1982 for £400 to music agent and manager Rod Weinberg.
The Duo-Sonic goes under the hammer at Cameo Auctioneers Records’ Music & Memorabilia Auction on November 2.
Dozens of guitars, mandolins and other instruments – straight from the hands of artists including Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Vince Gill, Kenny Chesney and Peter Frampton are headed for the online auction block through nonprofit organization NASH2O (Nash-H-2-0) to support flood relief efforts in Nashville.
Proceeds go to three beneficiaries: MusiCares Nashville Flood Relief Fund for music industry professionals, Nashville Musicians Association Flood Relief Fund for those musicians that were uninsured, and Middle Tennessee fire and rescue departments.
Organized shortly after the devastating May floodwaters receded, NASH2O was created by three longtime Music City mainstays: George Gruhn, widely-recognized as the leading authority on vintage stringed instruments; Joe Glaser, renowned luthier and fine instrument repairman; and steel guitarist/producer Bruce Bouton, a fixture on high-profile recordings and tours for decades (currently touring with Reba McEntire). Their goal was to collect flood-damaged instruments from top artists, which could then be sold as presentation/collector pieces. The group secured underwriting support from Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, a major insurer of many of the affected artists and exclusive insurance sponsor of NASH2O.
The public will have a chance to bid via the online auction, which will open the same day at http://nash2o.org/. The NASH2O auction is unique in several ways, as the instruments offered for sale are historic musical artifacts from the Nashville flood that damanged several instrument storage facilities, as well as musicians’ homes and studios. But as Gruhn explains, the instruments themselves are unlike what is usually available to fans and followers:
“It’s fairly common to see instruments, signed by artists, for sale in charity efforts or given as contest prizes,†he says. “But those are almost always pieces donated by a manufacturer for that purpose. They’re handed to the artist, he signs them, and that’s really the only connection he has with them. The NASH2O pieces are the artists’ personal instruments. Peter Frampton’s Les Paul is, well, Peter Frampton’s Les Paul. Brad Paisley’s Tele-style guitar is Brad’s guitar. You hear that guitar on the records. You saw it in his hands in concert. These are very personal, cherished tools of the trade, and buyers can own a piece of that history, that pedigree.â€
Beside the artist-owned instruments for auction, sweepstakes items of new instruments and/or premiums have been donated by Taylor Guitars, THD Amplifiers, Paul Reed Smith Guitars, Gibson Guitars, Martin Guitars and Yamaha Instruments.
This is probably the largest collection of brown 1970’s Fender guitars in the world, including a tasty brown Starcaster in the back row..not a colour I have ever seen before on the Starcaster, which is rare in any colour!
The collection is for sale, but only as a collection..Bob won’t split out individual pieces.
On Saturday, October 30 at 4pm, Speal’s Tavern in New Alexandria, PA will unveil a permanent museum display of unusual, handmade cigar box guitars.
The Cigar Box Guitar Museum was compiled and documented by Shane Speal, a York PA musician billed as “The King of the Cigar Box Guitar†and central figure in the upcoming PBS documentary, Songs Inside the Box. The collection of over 35 cigar box guitars displayed at Speal’s Tavern were built by craftsmen all over the country and range from simple, one-string primitive instruments to complex, electrified guitars with frets, double-necks and whammy bars.
Shane Speal built his first cigar box guitar in 1993 and has been performing with them ever since. He has brought the instrument into a new renaissance with his website, www.CigarBoxNation.com, which boasts 4000 members worldwide.
Here’s a nice article by rock writer Binky Philips on the Huffington Post website. Lots of anecdotes about New York guitar buying and the stories of how old guitars get passed around.
Just a taster;
Anyway, one afternoon later that summer, Teddy Slatus, Edgar Winter’s road manager, came in with both of regular-customer Rick Derringer’s sunburst Les Pauls. Back in those days, years before reissues, that meant two of maybe 900 total Gibsons made between mid-1958 through the end of 1960 with that glorious fade-from-a-red-to-gold transparent lacquer finish over highly figured maple and the then new and powerful (Patent-Applied-For) Humbucker pickups. After several other guitar-obsessions amongst the Stars of Rock Guitar, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor, Michael Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, and several other major cats had settled on this model Gibson as The One. And to this day, it rightly remains exalted.