Can You Believe It???
So here we are in November…yesterday was the first day of lousy driving conditions, and we are quickly approaching that time of the year when we all spend way too much money. Yup, Halloween is gone (I hope you all took advantage of the great Halloween sale here at Solo Guitars) and Christmas is around the corner. Remember, for those of you who are geographically close enough, we will have the store open for 4 Saturdays in December leading up to the big day!
Last month, we asked you to send in ideas of what you’d like to see in the Blog for 2024. We have a few answers and are hoping for a few more so we can formulate a plan. What we do have in planning is more manuals with photos, the possibility of video blogs not just with me, but with guest techs to show off some secrets and techniques. If you have more ideas, please send them in to the email below…
Story time!!! About a thousand years ago, I had a magazine called Canadian Guitar Collector. We gave it the old college try for a year, but sadly it was not sustainable. What it did do for me however, was connect me to the world of Vintage Guitars, and Guitar Manufacturers and possibly more importantly at the time, Guitar Collectors. During that year, we heard about this collector in the US named Scott Chinery, who was amassing the most complete collection of American guitars ever….a veritable history of guitar manufacturing in the US. We joked about calling and answering a statement he made that anyone and everyone were invited to visit the collection (which was housed in New Jersey). Who would ever entertain a couple nobody’s from Canada? Anyway we called Scott, and surprise…we got an invite to see the collection.
One of my partners (Paul MacMurchy) who I had known for many years, was a great bass player, a collector of guitars and basses, plus owned a print-shop near Georgian Bay accompanied me on this trip. We met Scott at the door of his house and were escorted into what any guitar collector would consider heaven. We walked through a hallway full of harp guitars and Maccaferri’s and into a room that can only be described as awesome. Gibson guitars both custom and production from the original Style O that Orville Gibson built by hand through to the Super 400’s that lined the top of the walls around the room experimental guitars like the Gibson Moderne and the Flying V right up to the modern guitars we all know. Fender guitars going back to the early 5o’s, D’Angelicos, D’Aquistos, Strombergs, Martins, Martin Stouffers and many guitars I had never seen and only read about like the Wilkanowskis in front of the fire place. (see the pictures)
We had a great chance to chat with Scott himself for 2 hours before he had to return to his commitments (I still have the cassette tape we used to record the interview). Scott gave us his personal history in business and in guitars. His passion was real and his plans and dreams for the collection were admirable. Two things happened before he left the room however, first he introduced us to Mike Carey who was his curator, and invited us to stay as long as we wanted to look at the guitars in the collection. Mike was a great guy with knowledge that kept us in awe of the history in front of us. He also changed several hundred sets of strings monthly to make sure every guitar was playable…a task even the best of us would find daunting. The second thing he did was tell us about a second collection he had created. The Blue Collection was based on a Blue Centura model archtop built by Jimmy D’Aquisto (who was an apprentice to John D’Angelico). Scott had approached every major archtop builder in North Amerca and invited them to build a blue archtop in their own style to compliment his Blue Centura. Once all the guitars were built, he would host an opening night at his house to show off the collection. He also invited Paul and myself to attend.
Long story short, we considered ourselves extremely fortunate to have been invited to the house, but highly doubted Scott was serious about these 2 Canadian nobody’s coming to the Blue Party. Well we were wrong. Circumstances led to me going by myself a couple months later, and spending an evening with every important individual in the guitar world admiring these great works of art. I could list who was there, and who I met, but you likely wouldn’t believe me lol…looking back, I barely believe that I was there. I can tell you that Norman Blake (an American folkie who goes back to the Pete Seeger era, and Johnny Winter… yes that Johnny Winter, were the headliners for entertainment that night, and that every jazz cat in New York was there trying out Scotts amazing collection, and that there was a room full of Nashville players who were enjoying the flat-tops and mandolins. .. memorable, inspiring and humbling all at the same time.
Scott’s collection topped out somewhere north of 1300 guitars, basses, mandolins and banjos. He was truly successful in capturing the entire history of guitar manufacturing in the US with some notable additions like the Linda Manzer (Toronto) Picasso he asked her to build and her version of the Blue Centura. He stayed true to his word having only one of each model of guitar or major design change. You can certainly research more on Scott’s collection on the internet, and there are at least 2 books that were published on the collection itself. Sadly Scott passed in the later 90’s…far too young and far away from his ultimate vision for the collection. So what happened to the collection? I know it was broken up and various trusted people were involved in that endeavor. Very sad however… to see those guitars all in one room is something I can still envision in my own mind.
Ok…that was the Readers Digest Version of a truly memorable time in my life…..I may have a couple more stories in the future but look forward to more instructional blogs and hopefully some really interesting guests next year. Get out to the store if you’re close and say hi to the folks at Solo…they will be happy to see you, and remember, store’s open on Saturdays in December leading up to Christmas and there might just be a sale or two coming up as well.
