Instrument Acquisition Quotes

I've been buying guitars since 1964, and you fool yourself into thinking it's the last one.

When I was 12 years old I discovered Bill Monroe and my dad got me a mandolin.

There are times when I feel like I'm a traveling minister. I'm trying to go out and get kids to pick-up yard sale instruments and change the world.

I don't really collect guitars like some musicians do.

When I was 15 years old, my cousin and I formed a singing group called The Altaires. And, because we became the most popular singing group in the Tri-State area, the rest of the group convinced me I should play the guitar - even though I didn't own one! So what happened was, my stepfather actually made my first electric guitar for me for $23!

My first Gibson was a '91 Les Paul Custom tobacco burst. I still have it - it's still amazing-sounding - but it took me a long time of saving up to get that guy!

My philosophy is, honestly, never collected anything that I don't play. I know a lot of people that collect guitars, but for me, I want instruments that I play. And if I don't play them, I don't' want to have them sitting in a closet collecting dust.

I've owned about 2,000 guitars through the years because I've traded a lot and given away and sold some stuff.

Actually, my ambition at eight or nine years old was to be one of Little Richard's sax players, and that's when I got my first saxophone, a Selmer. It was a strange Bakelite material - that creamy plastic with all the gold keys on it. I had to get a job as a butcher's delivery boy to start paying for it.

I would pass this music store on the way to school, and there was a clarinet in the window, a second-hand one. And I kept asking my parents to buy it, and eventually they did. I still have it now.

I have about nine guitars in all, so obviously I'm into collecting.

I'm not a collector, however, and I have no desire to own 50 or 60 guitars.

I got a little baby grand piano off Craigslist for, like, $500. It's a beautiful instrument that you hear on a bunch of the songs. That's that piano on 'Keep Your Name' and 'Work Together' and 'Little Bubble.'

I just wanted to eat, to survive. I started singing a cappella in bars. I saved up money to get my first guitar and started writing songs.

I don't collect the way other people do. Some people collect rare guitars, like, 'I have a '54 Strat worth $50,000.' And I don't collect the way Nash does. Nash has Duane Allman's guitar and Johnny Cash's guitar. I bought guitars because they sounded good. I played them, they sounded unbelievably good, and I couldn't resist.

The guys in my band buy instruments and sell and trade them. But if I have something I hang onto it. Everything is sentimental to me.

I've become a ukulele hoarder.

I don't really collect guitars.

Some people collect this or that. I'm a musician; I collect guitars.