“You don’t want to have no recollection of when, where or how you acquired it”: Why Joe Bonamassa is hitting the brakes on his vintage gear collection
If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when a guitarist goes all-in on vintage gear, just look at Joe Bonamassa. The blues legend and self-professed vintage connoisseur’s home gear museum, Nerdville West, reportedly holds over 1,000 items – including no less than 600 guitars.
However, even a collector of Bonamassa’s caliber admits there’s a limit. During a recent chat on the No Cover Charge podcast, the musician reveals he’s finally hitting the brakes on new acquisitions, as there’s only so much gear a person can meaningfully explore.
READ MORE: “You all can stop asking me if I am buying it now!”: Joe Bonamassa weighs in on the sale of Norman’s Rare Guitars
“As far as acquiring stuff, I’ve really slowed down, because there’s a saturation point,” he explains. “I’d like to get to the stuff that I own, and discover the sounds that I can get out of those pieces, before it just starts piling up and piling up and piling up.”
The guitarist says last year’s Los Angeles wildfires helped put his obsession into perspective. Clearing out his collection in the wake of the fires reminded him just how overwhelming hundreds of instruments can be.
“You never want to go into a situation, I’ve done this when I cleared out this place after the fires, where you’re pulling out cases and have no recollection of when, where, or how you acquired it. And it’s probably starting to get to that point,” says Bonamassa.
“Obviously, you can’t evacuate everything. So, you have to prioritise. And I thought about it for years. I said, ‘Well, if we gotta go, here’s what’s going.’ This being one of them, you know – Mr Skinner [Bonamassa’s ‘Skinnerburst’ Les Paul] has to come along.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Bonamassa also reveals his tactical approach to collecting rare gear.
“What I do is, I never telegraph anything. You won’t know I’m interested until I’d be like, ‘I’ll take it,’ or, ‘I’ll cut you a check.’”
The guitarist says he tends to acquire gear in batches, securing spares and matching pairs of key amps and instruments: “Like, you notice there’s two [Marshall] JTM45s. There’s three in here, and one in Nashville. So, I’m usually ‘a pair and a spare,’ And you look at the back wall, there’s a bunch of Blackface Fender amps, and Selmers behind you, and [Fender] Tweeds and everything.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
