Norman Harris is today revered as one of the world's foremost vintage guitar dealers in an ultra-competitive market. But it wasn't always like this. He says that his store, Norman's Rare Guitars, rose to prominence during a time when other stores steered clear of second-hand gear.
It's quite the success story. Nowadays, his shop is frequented by some of the biggest names in music and Hollywood. Joe Bonamassa seemingly has him on speed dial and is even possibly in line to take over the store when Harris retires. His list of regulars reads like a who's who of guitar gods.
He'd pivoted his career, having been a keyboardist in the Little Richard-managed band, Katmandu, beforehand. They'd had a promising start to their career, having opened for Jimi Hendrix and Canned Heat.
Then everything changed. At Richard's request, the band relocated from Florida to California, and Harris' gear obsession truly took hold.
“It was kind of a smorgasbord in LA,” he tells the Guardian. “There was every instrument I had ever heard about but never actually seen, all right there.”
After scouring newspaper ads and local pawn shops, Harris' apartment was soon filled with used guitars: around 50 to 60, according to his recollections.
“A lot of the music stores didn’t want to touch used instruments back then,” he expands. “And they would laugh at me and say things like: ‘You’re paying more for this old guitar than I am for this new guitar.’ I just used to think: ‘OK, keep laughing, and just keep selling them to me.’”
Harris understood that these guitars, which he calls “future antiques,” were going to increase in value. His theories were soon proved right, with George Harrison a very prominent early customer – although it became the deal that got away for the then-inexperienced dealer.
Mistakes happened along the way; the Harrison tale is proof of that, but slowly but surely, Harris turned the industry on its head and helped the vintage guitar market blossom into what it is today. In 2020, the used guitars market was estimated to be worth $1.3 billion.
Harris played a key role in reuniting George Harrison with his prized “Lucy” Les Paul when it was stolen in 1973, and almost sold John Fogerty back his iconic ACME Rickenbacker years before he was eventually reunited with it.
Then there’s the Back to the Future Gibson ES-345. Used in the film’s iconic school dance scene, which inspired the likes of John Mayer and Coldplay’s Chris Martin to pick up the instrument, it was loaned from Norman’s Rare Guitars.
A props team blunder ultimately meant the guitar used in the film was itself from the future, and 40 years after shooting wrapped, Gibson has launched a worldwide search to track down the guitar.
Gibson has since revealed one tell-all feature which will help confirm its identity, and hired two prominent guitar finders to aid its quest.
Norman’s Rare Guitars has been at the center of some fascinating guitar stories, and the store is now the subject of an all-star Netflix documentary.
Music instrument store owners had laughed at him, but 50 years later, it’s Harris doing the laughing.
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