A dream come true: playing Charlie Christian's 1940 ES-250 ( w

Описание: On September 12, 2024, Erik McIntyre (‪@ErikMcIntyreMusic‬) and I had the honor of playing at the Long Island Museum's exhibition of the work of John Monteleone, and presenting a concert centered around the history of archtop guitars. While we couldn’t take ALL of the guitars out of the exhibit, we did play a number of them. John's guitars are among the finest instruments ever built, and it was honor to be asked by John to be a part of the celebration of John's work. But the surprise coup de gras was a guitar I've been dreaming about playing for almost 20 years now: Charlie Christian's 1940 Gibson ES-250. It made a fitting finale for a presentation on the history of the archtop guitar.

Charlie received this guitar in the spring of 1940, and photos indicate he recorded tunes like "Six Appeal" and "Good Enough to Keep" on it, and it appears he played the guitar through the summer and into the fall of 1940, before sending back to Gibson for repair. Presumably, it is the guitar in the photo of Charlie in the thumbnail.

While Charlie used several ES-150 and ES-250 guitars during his short national career, this is the only one that has been found and identified. (Note Charlie did also order a Gibson L-5PE in 1941 which was delivered to him after he'd taken ill and gone to Seaview Sanitarium, where he stayed until his passing. That guitar then went to Tony Mattola, who used it throughout his career, modifying it first with a second CC pickup, then replacing it with a PAF. As of 9/24/24 it is on sale at Retrofret in Brooklyn).

You find the whole story of historian and collector Lynn Wheelwright finding and identifying the guitar in Deke Dickerson's fantastic book, "A Strat in the Attic" (2013): https://amzn.to/4gBXPht

You can find Erik here:
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