For more than 40 years, Vince Gill has entertained audiences across musical genres with his talents as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Winner of 20 Grammy Awards and 18 Country Music Association Awards, Gill recently released his 18th studio album, Down to My Last Bad Habit. The Oklahoma native, who spent his early professional career in Kentucky, is renowned for his mastery of guitar, banjo, dobro, and several other instruments.
In this special episode of Kentucky Collectibles, Gill talks with vintage instrument appraiser Mike Reeder about what he says is another “bad habit that’s gotten out of control,” if not his last one: collecting guitars. Gill tells the backstories behind three of his favorite guitars from his prized collection, reminisces about his time in Kentucky, and shares other musical memories.
Reeder and the Kentucky Collectibles crew met up with Gill recently at his home in Nashville. Gill has turned two rooms of the home he shares with wife, Christian music recording artist Amy Grant, into a cozy recording studio, which also warehouses his guitar collection and music awards.
Gill’s guitar collection spans the spectrum of 20th century American popular music, from early country and bluegrass to the height of 1960s rock ‘n’ roll. On display is a Fender Stratocaster once played by Jimi Hendrix, who “used to come here [Nashville] when he was stationed at Fort Campbell, [Kentucky], and played the joints on Jefferson Street,” Gill says.
The collection may be worth millions of dollars, but its true worth is more personal, Gill says. Three of the guitars – immaculately constructed Martin acoustics from the mid-20th century – have unique backgrounds and a priceless sentimental value.
“It’s interesting that in the world of collecting guitars, and loving old guitars, that era [of Martin acoustics] – it has to be something to do with the craftsmanship obviously, but it also has to do just with the right time of wood, and the age of the wood, and how it all went together, or something,” Gill says. “Because they haven’t been able to do this again, to make better instruments. And that’s no knock on any of the guitar companies, but they just haven’t.”
The Martin D-28
Gill had already made a name for himself while still in high school in Oklahoma as a teenage bluegrass prodigy, and he was invited to join the successful group Bluegrass Alliance in Louisville soon after he graduated in 1975. The Bluegrass Alliance featured, at one time or another, greats such as Dan Crary and Sam Bush, among many others, and was a popular touring attraction of the era.
Moving away from home at such a young age was a challenge, but Gill recalls how the folks in Kentucky welcomed him with open arms, reminiscing about how a lady at a Bardstown Road laundromat showed him how to fold clothes for the very first time in his life.
Gill stayed at a house in Louisville owned by Harry Bickel, himself a banjo player, who rented out rooms to fellow pickers. Staying in the attic for $15 a month rent, Gill fell in with local musicians Harry Sparks – who is also a highly esteemed luthier – and Doc Hamilton. They all remain friends to this day.
Gill’s first guitar, an electric Gibson ES-335, was given to him by his parents at age 10 as a Christmas gift. He bought his first acoustic, a Martin D-41, while in high school.
That Martin D-41, Gill says, is the only one he’s ever sold. The transaction came in the mid-1970s, while he was on tour with the Bluegrass Alliance at a festival. He and Harry Sparks encountered a man carrying a Martin guitar case that advertised, “Martin Prewar D-28, herringbone, $2,500.”
“I said, ‘Is that really an old herringbone in there?’” Gill recalls. “And the man said, ‘Yeah, kid, do you wanna play it?’ I said, ‘Man, I’d love to.’ And I pulled that thing out of the case, and it still had the shine on it, mint condition…. And it just felt right in my hands. These old Martins, man, from that era, there’s nothing like them in the world, they just have such a beautiful voice.”
This D-28, made in 1942, has the signature herringbone pattern around the top of the body that signifies the C.F. Martin & Co.’s elite craftsmanship of the mid-20th century. With the full price way beyond Gill’s means, he negotiated a trade, giving the man his D-41 and writing a check for $1,600. “I emptied out my bank account,” Gill says, “so I was dead broke, but I had that 1942 D-28.”
Gill can recall every blemish he’s made on the guitar that “sounds like a piano” since he bought it. When he thought about selling his Gibson ES-335 a few years later after moving to California, his father talked him out of it. “’Son, you can’t ever replace your first guitar,’” Gill recalls him saying.
That electric guitar is now in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, while the herringbone D-28 headlines Gill’s home collection. It inspired Gill’s soulful tribute, “This Old Guitar and Me,” which he then performs.
The Martin D-45
The D-28 was Gill’s main guitar for the rest of his stay in Kentucky. He fondly recalls playing with his Louisville friends Bickel, Hamilton, and Sparks, and in particular pairing up with Sparks during jam sessions when Sparks would take a break from his repair work.
Sparks owned a 1942 Martin D-45, an even rarer instrument than Gill’s D-28, which he had bought from George Gruhn’s famous shop in Nashville. “We’d sit around and play these two guitars, they were both made in 1942, so I feel like they were brothers on the bench, somewhere, back in Martin’s [factory], in the day,” Gill says. “They only made 91 of these D-45s, they’re kind of the Holy Grail of acoustic guitars, as you know.”
After Gill moved west in the late 1970s, where he played in the bluegrass group Sundance and then fronted the popular country rock band Pure Prairie League, he received a call from Sparks back in Kentucky. “Sparky called me and said, ‘Man I’ve gotta sell my D-45.’” Gill recalls. “I said, ‘Well, you can’t sell that, that’s your pride and joy,’ and he said, ‘Well, I’m in trouble, and you’re the first person I would consider selling it to.’
“And so,” Gill continues, “I bought it from him for $7,500… and I said, ‘Man, when you get back on your feet, it’s always yours – you can have it back. You just say when.’ So I kept it, and played it, and nursed it, and loved it, and all that, and 10 or 15 years later, Sparky called and said, ‘Man, I’m good, I’m solid – can I get my guitar back?’ And I said, ‘Of course, I made you a promise.’ I sold it back to him for $7,500. It was probably worth ten times the money. But I just figured a friend was worth more than money would ever be. There’s nothing like this guitar in the world.”
Sparks, Hamilton, and Bickel came down to Gill’s home studio in Nashville in 2014 to record the bluegrass record Nobody Special. As they finished up, Sparks was heading out the door when he turned and handed the D-45 to Gill as a long-term loan, instructing him to “Just play it, so it gets used.”
“It’s kind of neat that an instrument would bond a friendship like that,” Gill says. “It’s magical. And, so I’m sure that someday, maybe he’ll sell it back to me for $7,500. A man can dream.”
The Martin 0040
Gill’s third vintage acoustic on display, a 1928 Martin 0040, is another gift, this one from the collection of the legendary country and western guitarist Chet Atkins. The two became friends as Gill rose through the ranks as a solo artist in Nashville during the 1980s, and Gill jokes, “I think we were great friends because his wife Leona was crazy about me for some reason. She really liked me, and called me her boyfriend, and Chet didn’t seem to mind.”
After Atkins died in 2001, Gill visited Leona, and she showed him a separate room that housed his guitar collection. “It was awesome,” Gill recalls. “I stayed in there for about two or three hours, took a cloth out and was cleaning [the guitars] up, and tuning them up, and I’d pull one out of a case and say, ‘Man, this was the guitar on [the album] Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles, that was this guitar. It was on the cover.’
“I found this little Martin, and that was not something you associated much with Chet, and it just felt magical in my hands,” Gill says. “I just sat down and played it and played it.” The Martin Co. originally made this model with a higher nut for “Hawaiian style” playing (flat on its back with a steel bar), but Atkins had converted it for regular, upright picking.
Gill continues, “Leona came down and said, ‘You really seem to like that one.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, this is beautiful.’ And, lo and behold, a few weeks later it wound up at the house.
“She gave me this guitar because of our lifelong friendship,” Gill says. “Every now and then, something kind comes along, and means the world to you. Chet was my childhood hero, and who’d ever know that we’d become friends, and play some together, and be pals.”
Gill talks about other highlights from his accomplished career in four Web extras the Kentucky Collectibles crew taped during their visit. View the added Vince Gill footage on YouTube.
