Ben Harper has revealed the incredible story surrounding his acquisition of a coveted Dumble tube amp, which had been unearthed in the most unlikely of places – and had a hidden secret related to rock royalty.
Dumble Amps may be set for a surprise return, but Alexander Howard Dumble’s fabled tube amps still remain incredibly elusive – and finding one of these vintage gems on the second-hand market won’t just cost time, it will also require considerable money.
Indeed, the mythical amps – which were built by hand by Dumble himself – are steeped in history and lore, and have been played by some of the most influential guitar players in history, from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Joe Bonamassa.
This reputation, along with a finite supply of Dumbles, means these amps fetch very silly prices today. Three-time Grammy winner Harper, however, got extraordinarily lucky when he first came across his own.
“A friend of mine found it,” he tells Fretboard Journal. “He was looking for a bass amp and bought it from a yard sale for what you would think a yard sale bass amp would cost and should cost. He got it home and realized what he had pretty quickly and called me up.
“He was excited that he found not only a Dumble obviously, but he thought of me as soon as he found out. I had the first crack at it and it's the first Dumble I’ve ever owned.
“It took a lot to surprise [Alexander] Dumble. He had seen and heard pretty much everything,” Harper reflects. “We had talked about him making me one, but I needed one in real time because I had Jackson Browne's Stevie Ray [Dumble] amp that needed to be on amp watch 24/7. It had too much providence, [I needed to] get it off the road and get it back to Jackson.”
When the yard sale amp ended up in his possession, Harper was very much aware of the Dumble folklore and every fragment of mystery, superstition, and unspoken rules that came with the brand.
“Word on the street was that if you got a Dumble second hand, third hand, you had to make sure it was kosher with him. There was a code of honor and ethics when it came to procuring a Dumble that didn't come from Dumble directly,” he explains. “So I called him to let him know if it was cool that I got this Dumble through a friend of mine who found it at a yard sale, and he said, ‘Bring it in right away.’
That got him an invite to Dumble’s house – something not every guitarist gets to experience. Impressively, the amp only needed minor adjustments to get it singing again. Then something unexpected happened.
“He peeled a piece off the back, then he disappeared off into a back room which I later learned was where he kept all his books,” he goes on. “He dug around and dug around, pulled out boxes, climbed up on ladders, pulled out more boxes, and came out with the carbon copy bill of sale.
“He said, ‘You know what that is? It's one of the Beach Boy amps.’ It was great to see him so excited about an amp he built that long ago. It was like one of his kids returned home.”
To find a genuine Dumble at a yard sale and acquire it for pennies is one thing, but to then find out the unearthed amp had once belonged to one of the most influential rock bands of all time is whole other level.
Harper and his friend’s find might be the most miraculous Dumble discovery of all time, and certainly outshines the many Dumble acquisitions that the likes of Joe Bonamassa – who recently purchased his ninth example – have all documented over the years.
It is likely that this mythical status will stick around even after the arrival of the Dumble Preservation Society, which has working to maintain the legacy of the revered amp builder who passed away in 2022.
Speaking at NAMM 2025, the reprised firm told Guitar World: “We have [had] the Dumble Preservation Society since Mr. Dumble passed. We promised him that we would keep his legacy alive.”
