Norm Harris – the famed proprietor of legendary LA store Norman’s Rare Guitars – has been discussing his role in supplying the Gibson ES-345 used by Michael J. Fox in 1985’s Back To The Future – and says he initially recommended they use a Fender Stratocaster for the scene.
Fox’s star turn wielding the semi-acoustic in Back to the Future’s electrifying Johnny B. Goode performance is one of the most iconic guitar film moments ever made.
However, the electric guitar in question, a 1958 Gibson ES-345, often comes under the spotlight of guitar geeks due to the fact that the film is set in 1955 and the instrument’s inclusion is therefore historically inaccurate.
What many people don’t realize, however, is that the instrument was actually supplied by Norm Harris – the renowned vintage guitar dealer and expert.
Now, in a new interview with Joe Bonamassa, Harris discusses the making of the film and iterates (not for the first time in his career) that he pointed out the mismatch of the model’s year to the film’s 1955 setting at the time. Instead, he says, he initially suggested they use a Strat, or a Gretsch with a Bigsby.
“The propmaster came to us because they knew that we had guitars from certain time periods,” explains Harris. “And they originally came in and said, ‘We want something red with a whammy bar. It’s 1955.’ So I said, ‘Well, maybe a Stratocaster, or certain Gretsch guitars that have Bigsbys.’”
If the production team had followed his suggestion, the scene would have looked very different (and we suspect you could say the same thing of Gibson’s bottom line through the era that followed). The filmmakers had other ideas, however.
“They came in and the art director chose another guitar – an ES-5,” explains Harris. “Then the day that they were gonna shoot, whoever was in charge said, ‘Wait a sec! I want a red guitar with a vibrato on…’ So they ran back to us, brought back the ES-5 and took this ES-345.
“I said, ‘Look, they didn’t come out with these guitars until 1958. I just wanna warn you…’ They said, ‘We’re taking artistic liberty!’”
Ultimately, judging from the impact of that scene, the Back to the Future team made the right choice. And, to be fair, they were making a film about time travel – they couldn’t have known that almost 40 years on, we’d still be discussing the guitar model used on smartphones, connected to the internet, via satellites.
As Norm tells Bonamassa: “Now I think people are a little more conscious of time periods and getting things right, but back then, they figured, ‘It’s a guitar, who’s gonna know?’”
Check out the full clip above. Elsewhere, in the same interview, the two discuss the ultra-rare 1950 Fender Broadcaster that Bonamassa recently picked up at Norman’s Rare Guitars.
