Noel Gallagher once wiped Peter Green’s signature off one of his Les Pauls before buying it – to prove a point to a rude store owner
While Peter Green‘s most famous Les Paul, Greeny – so famous, in fact, that it has its own Wikipedia page – is far and away the most talked about of the late blues guitarist’s collection, there are some ridiculous stories attached to some of his other guitars, too.
In a new interview with Guitar World, The Coral’s Bill Ryder-Jones – who currently owns another of Green’s old Les Pauls – traces the instrument’s origins. As it goes, the guitar, being Peter Green-played, is undoubtedly worth a pretty penny, but it would have been worth more if Noel Gallagher never got his hands on it.
READ MORE: “We didn’t have to split up over it”: Liam Gallagher recalls the circumstances surrounding Oasis’s breakup – and doesn’t rule out a reunion
As he explains, Gallagher owned the guitar before him, and purchased it from a rude store owner, only after doing what many guitarists would regard as the unthinkable: he spat on his T-shirt and rubbed off Peter Green’s signature, simply to prove a point to the man who sold it to him.
“Noel saw one of the guitars at the top of the shelf behind the counter, and said, ‘can I have a go with that Les Paul?’,” Ryder-Jones says. “And the guy behind the counter goes, ‘erm… you do know that was Peter Green’s, and it’s signed by Peter Green, right?’”
An issue was immediately made clear: “He didn’t know who Noel was; he somehow had not heard of Oasis.” The salesman went on to reluctantly hand the guitar to Gallagher. However, he couldn’t resist making a bit of a statement.
“Noel spat on his T-shirt and rubbed off the signature,” Ryder says. “And then Noel said, ‘That’s alright; doesn’t matter now. I’ll take it anyway.’
“He purposefully rubbed off Peter Green’s signature to make a point to the guy in the guitar shop – he thought [the guitar shop employee] was being a bit rude, you know?”
Now we weren’t there, but we’re pretty confident the employee would have been left speechless – it’s hard to imagine having the guts to rub off something like a Peter Green signature. But Gallagher had to make his importance known, treating the signature as if it were blemish on the otherwise perfect instrument.
The guitar later came into Ryder-Jones’ possession when Gallagher gave it to him as a gift. “It was given to me by Noel Gallagher in 2006 when I was 23,” Ryder-Jones explains. “The Coral were making a record in Noel’s studio, Wheeler End Studios, and I’d used this Les Paul for most of it, not knowing it was Peter Green’s!”
Of course, Ryder-Jones does sometimes wish his guitar still bore Green’s signature. “I woulda loved for it to have Peter Green’s signature. I probably would have sold it by now, and had a house,” he laughs. “But I’m so very thankful I didn’t do that; it’s a cracking guitar.”
The post Noel Gallagher once wiped Peter Green’s signature off one of his Les Pauls before buying it – to prove a point to a rude store owner appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
