Like most teenagers, Bella Rayne holds strong opinions, particularly strong opinions about music. She was into punk rock and grunge, cutting her teeth on a Squier Stratocaster as she caught the guitar playing bug during the pandemic.
When her mom and dad played Grateful Dead albums in the house, Rayne would… Well, she would tell her folks exactly what she thought. She was in the Anthony Bourdain school of thought when it came to the Grateful Dead. i.e. hard no – not today, not ever.
But like all teenagers, she would soon learn that life comes at you fast. There was a plot twist incoming.
Fast forward a few years and next thing you know she is now playing a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop Reissue, and it is all thanks to the generosity of the Grateful Dead Foundation – who stepped in when some no-good thief stepped out with her Bourbon Burst Les Paul after a hometown gig in San Francisco.
Jack Barton from the foundation had caught wind of Rayne’s predicament after she put the word out online.
“The next morning, I got an email from the Grateful Guitars Foundation that had a receipt for a 1957 Custom Goldtop,” she remembers in the new issue of Guitar World. The foundation had a replacement
Watching Billy Gibbons demo one of these doozies, we’d also say arguably an upgrade too, sentimental value of the original notwithstanding. Rayne was mortified. But Barton was quite insistent. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I called Jack Barton from the Foundation and said, ‘I can’t accept this. I haven’t earned it.’ He was like, ‘You need to go pick it up,’” says Rayne.
And she is glad she did. Her old Les Paul “lives on” through the new Goldtop. But it has been quite the journey. After telling her mom, “There’s no way I am ever going to like the Grateful Dead”, she later joined a Dead cover band, learned to improvise, and learned to love the Dead.
And it was with them she developed the musical vocabulary you can hear when she is out with her Southern rock and blues guitar project, Bella Rayne and Friends, who have toured with the likes of Melvin Seals and JGB, and the Allman Betts Family Revival.
Their debut EP has been tracked by Narada Michael, whose credits include Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.
For Bella Rayne's full interview, pick up the new issue of Guitar World at Magazines Direct.
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