CONTINUED- for Fender called the "Chicago Blues Strat & Tele" set to be sold
at the 2003 NAMM Show. The Fender people told me they wanted a Strat and
Tele set with a Chicago Blues folk art theme to bring to the NAMM Show that
year. The "Tele" part of that set featured Muddy Waters. There is only one other
custom painted guitar like these two in existence. It is also a Muddy Waters
Tele. What makes this one different is that it is painted on both sides. You can
see these guitars on my web site. Last I heard, the first Muddy Tele is still at the
Guitar Center on North Halsted Avenue in Chicago.
After the Chicago Blues set was completed, I heard that Guitar Center bought
the Chicago Blues set at the 2003 NAMM Show. I tried to find out which store or
stores had the guitars but nobody could tell me where they went or what
happened to them. I asked Art where the guitars ended up and he said "I think
they went to Arlington, Virginia." I called the Guitar Center there and they had
never heard of them. About a year later, Art left Fender and we lost contact. And
with Art no longer with Fender, I lost my contact in the Custom Shop. It made
trying to find those guitars or any information about them was like trying to find
Jimmy Hoffa.
Even though it is sometimes hard to be objective about one’s own work, I
couldn’t help but think that these were very unique and beautiful guitars. Every
graphic element painted on those guitars had a story behind it. The buildings in
the background, the neck graphics and fret dots draw upon elements of the
lives and times of these two blues giants and are part of their history. And
having grown up on the south side of Chicago, I felt like it was part of my
history, too. For the next few years I always wondered what happened to those
guitars.
Cut to four years later in 2007. Out of the blue, I got a call from Mike Goeghegan
from the Fender Custom shop. He asked me for a quote for a hand painted
Stratocaster, to be given to Buddy Guy on his birthday. It would be a picture of
Buddy, Muddy Waters and Junior Wells, from a picture from Buddy’s personal
photo album. The Trifecta! This would not just be of Buddy Guy, but it would
actually be given to Buddy Guy! WOW! He sent me two jpegs for reference
material. One was of Buddy, Muddy and Junior Wells. The next jpeg simply
floored me. I opened the jpeg. There was Buddy Guy, with a BIG smile on his
face, holding the guitar that I painted and always wondered what happened to
it. And now I knew!
I tracked the guitar to the Guitar Center in Arlington Heights, Illinois, just
outside of Chicago. I spoke with the guy who actually sold the guitar to
members of Buddy’s staff at Legends who gave him the guitar for his birthday
the year before. He told me that Buddy loved the guitar so much that he won’t
let anyone touch it and was very moved by the art on the guitar. He also said
that Buddy himself bought the matching Muddy Waters Telecaster. I've also
heard that Buddy keeps the Tele in a vault.
Sometimes it's who buys your artwork that means more than how many or how
much of it they buy. (But don't let that stop you from buying as many King Bee
folk art Fine art Blues prints as you want!)