Jeff Tweedy has named his Epiphone Casino as his greatest guitar bargain, but reveals that things once got heated with its former owner.
The Wilco man has a fairly extensive collection of electric and acoustic guitars, so he was hard-pressed when recently asked by Guitarist to name his most cost-worthy purchase. So, he picked out a small cluster, with family ties and trash-bound gems both included.
“I have to credit my mom with this one,” he says of the first two guitars. “When she got it in her head that I was really serious about playing guitar, she’d look for them at auctions and garage sales. She went to a farmer’s auction, and she got a ’56 Gretsch Duo Jet for 70 bucks.”
That alone is quite a steal, but Tweedy’s mom wasn’t done there. She had an eye for a bargain.
“Then she got a ’50s prototype ES-350 with three pickups, which was probably one of the first guitars with three P-90s,” he notes. “She got that for 120 bucks.”
Both sales represent a lot of value and playability for a combined $190, and echo the support his mother had for his burgeoning passion for guitar. Yet, his greatest find was all his own work, even if the guitar’s new life left its former owner rather peeved.
“I mean, a lot of the guitars I own would sound like fantastic stories now, but they didn’t feel cheap at the time,” Tweedy laughs. “I bought the Epiphone Casino for 100 bucks, and I use it all the time.
“The neck had snapped off, and the guy didn’t think it was going to be fixable,” he develops. Tweedy clearly had a different outlook on the situation. So he struck up a deal.
“I told him I’d buy it and I did,” he notes. “And then, when we came back years later to St Louis, and he came to our show, he saw me playing it, and he was mad at me. He said I took advantage of him. I was like, ‘You were gonna throw it away…’” It goes to show that even the most devastated-looking guitars aren’t unsalvageable.
Elsewhere, Tweedy’s bandmate, Nels Cline, has reflected on a life-changing conversation he once had with Tweedy, as Wilco continues to trek across the US.
Tweedy’s full interview can be found in the new issue of Guitarist. Issue 539 is available to order from Magazines Direct.
