Randy Bachman Passes It Forward

In 2008 Classic Rocker Randy Bachman sold his huge collection of Gretsch guitars back to those who created it. Today they're on display in Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Randy talks about the experiences of letting them go. In 2008, Randy Bachman sold his collection of 385 Gretsch guitars to the Gretsch Foundation, the charitable arm of the Gretsch family and the Gretsch company. Randy Bachman on his passion for collection Gretsch guitars. "I think it’s called the midlife crisis. Everywhere I went I’d seek out Gretsch guitars. And I remember one day I got a call from Duke Kramer who was running Gretsch at the time and Fred Gretsch who got the name Gretsch back, he called me and he said, ‘There’s a Fender museum, there’s a Martin museum and you own my museum. Will you sell it to me?’ So we did a deal and I sold him the 385 Gretschs and I think there’s a 100 now that are on display now in Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame. So when I sold it I was able to buy a flat in Covent Garden.” 75 of those guitars are now on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. The exhibit, American Sound and Beauty: Guitars From the Bachman–Gretsch Collection, is the largest collection of stringed instruments ever displayed at the museum. Randy Bachman on his guitar collection on display in Nashville. "What you will see at tyhe There’s some of the coolest Gretschs you’ll ever find ’cause they go from 1928 – the old Robert Johnson-looking arch tops with the big hole in the middle and things like that up to all the prototypes. Because my deal was I’ll let you copy mine, but I want prototype one and prototype two so I can check it and see…and sometimes the switch would be in the wrong place so I tell them to correct it so it looked like the original. So that was a really big deal for me collecting those guitars.”