Asep Stone with Jimi Hendrix’s Epiphone                     

                                                                                                                           

     Hendrix Epiphone brings $77,000 at auction

Jimi Hendrix's vintage Epiphone FT79 acoustic guitar was sold at auction last week for a whopping £55000 (about $77,000 U.S.) by London auctioneers Bonhams & Brooks. Hendrix used the Epiphone for songwriting and at his London home 1967-70.

The guitar was part of a large collection of Hendrix memorabilia organized by Kathy Etchingham, one of Jimi's girlfriends, and includes gold discs, rare posters, handbills flyers, backstage passes as well as items from the collection of the late Tony Brown, the well-known Hendrix biographer and researcher. Property consigned by Etchingham includes personal effects, furniture and furnishings from Jimi & Kathy's Brook St. flat, and some of Jimi's jewelry being sold to benefitthe charity Drugscope.

 

The Bonhams & Brooks Hendrix catalog describes the guitar as "Jimi Hendrix's vintage Epiphone FT79 guitar owned late 1967-Spring, 1970, serial #62262, with ivory bound spruce top and ivory bound maple back and sides, sunburst finish, tortoiseshell pickguard and rosewood bridge with Epiphone label inside; the mahogany neck with twenty fret rosewood fingerboard with mother-of-pearl parallelogram inlays, headstock with mother-of-pearl 'Epiphone' inlay, chrome truss-rod cover and machine heads, 107 cm, together with sheepskin guitar strap and a (non original) vintage hard case."

 

He owned this guitar for a three-year period, "longer than any other documented Hendrix guitar whilst at his artistic and creative peak and it was his constant companion for a significant part of this time," says Bonhams & Brooks catalog description. Hendrix bassist Noel Redding recalls the guitar was bought "second hand, for about $25, in New York after our first tour of the States and brought back to England with us on the plane."

The strap-button is positioned for a left handed musician.

Jimi's return home from America with new guitars (the Gibson psychedelic Flying V also made it's first appearance at this time) was no surprise to Kathy Etchingham. The acoustic Epiphone became Jimi's instrument of choice at their Upper Berkeley Street flat in crowded residential London where "it was used very, very heavily, continuously, all the time," Etchingham says." Jimi had music coming out of every pore. One minute he'd be eating his breakfast, the next he'd say 'hey' and pick up the guitar and play the riffs in his head - only he could hear what he was hearing - and he would go through the words as well."

           

Today Kathy laughs when she is reminded of Hendrix manager Chas Chandler's remarks that Jimi was so attached to his guitar that he would even take it to the bathroom with him. "We shared the flat in Upper Berkeley Street with Chas and Lotta, but had our own bathroom. Ours was fully tiled and had no window but a beautiful echo, a good sound that Jimi liked so he would sit on the loo and play!," she recalls. Hendrix had already moved from a basement flat Montagu Square following complaints about the noise and the acoustic Epiphone came into its own at Upper Berkeley Street where, Kathy remembers "'Jimi used it for almost everything he composed in this country, as he didn't use an amp until the move to Brook Street, and in any case Chas would never have allowed it in case we disturbed the neighbors because we'd upset them in Montagu Square and Chas didn't want to be chucked out of a second flat." When working on a song "Jimi would pick up and then play the acoustic, then pick up (an electric) and play that unplugged, listening to it without an amp. He constantly played it to work out riffs and song arrangements including his own version of Dylan's 'All Along The Watchtower.'"

The guitar continued to be used regularly following Jimi's move to Brook Street, around the time Electric Ladyland(1968) was completed. Jimi was captured on film playing the Epiphone when he performed Elvis's "Hound Dog" at the after-show party following the Experience's Royal Albert Hall concert, February 18, 1969(The Jimi Hendrix Experience Royal Albert Hall). Visitors to his Brook Street flat at this time remember the guitar was "always within arm's reach, usually beside the bed and, invariably, played at raucous parties."

The catalog continues, "A well-known figure on the London music scene, Jimi had been introduced to the present owner of this guitar, by Kathy's friend the singer Madeleine Bell, and gave it to him in a typically generous gesture during his visit to London in March, 1970. Since this time it has been used on numerous recordings and film soundtracks including by Dusty Springfield, Walker Brothers, Blue Mink, Paul McCartney and on David Bowie's Diamond Dogs."