It's a nice story about the personal meaning a guitar can take on. It's also none of our business and I'm appalled that GC can have the unbridled greed to commercialize it. I'm even more appalled that Fender would go along with it - I thought their greed was in some way bridled.
Seriously though, why can't they have both? If you love Stevie and buying this makes you happy and you like to play it so what? I bought my Petrucci music man and couldn't imagine wanting another guitar other then this one. So what if it's a sig, I love the guitar.
I don't think Rich's point was that it's a signature model, but that it's a $15,000 model, not a $1500 one.
Well, I don't know that it's $15k but it's gotta be expensive.
Guitar Center paid close to $700,000 for Lenny at a charity auction & Fender built less then 200, probably ALL sold through GC of course...
Not unlike the Clapton Blackie or 335, EVH Frankenstein or...
It makes me sad to see something like this with his legacy be so inaccessible to most of the general public.
One of the great legacies of the Blues is that it's something that anyone can get into. Everyone gets the Blues. Everyone can understand the Blues. Anyone can appreciate the Blues.
One of the great stories of the Blues came from Muddy Waters. He tells this great tale about one of the guys in his band working a job as a taxi dispatcher and his boss giving him a hard time about needing time off to record. The guys boss tells him that he ca have all the time he wants off; after his shift he was fired. He knew they needed one more mic for the session that night so when he was done he cut the wires to the dispatch mic and that night they recorded with it.
I agree with this. Blues is about living a sad hard life and pouring your pain into a common musical language. That's who started it, and that's who is always best at living it and playing it.
I'm sorry, but some kid who grows up in wealth, get's his college paid for, has a white picket fence life with his CPA job, highschool sweetheart wife, and 2.5 kids in private school IS NOT A F$%#$% BLUESMAN, and just because he learned a few blues licks after getting settled........Ahhhhhh, #$@%$#
I'm sick of those douchebags, and sick of companies like Gibson and Fender pandering to them, but I realize it's all about sales. As a guy who never had anything handed to him, and spent years in blues bands while working crap jobs, I laugh, and most famous blues musicians get annoyed by those guys when they run up to them to autograph their high dollar guitar for Ebay. I get tired of meeting those Allman Bros worshipping guys in Fender caps, who go on and on about $100,000 guitars. Anyone who buys a $15,000 replica and fumbles some half baked BB King licks on it, should be thrown on a stage next to some real blues players and receive some public humiliation. That's all I have to say about that. :banghead:
I agree with this. Blues is about living a sad hard life and pouring your pain into a common musical language. That's who started it, and that's who is always best at living it and playing it.