From a home-made "Flying V" made from his bedroom door to. . .
 . . . the largest Gretsch collection in the world.

---

A historical collection of vintage, rare, and one-of-a-kind Gretsch guitars is on display at The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. The new exhibit, American Sound and Beauty: Guitars from the Bachman-Gretsch Collection, features 75 of the more than 300 Gretsch guitars amassed by Canadian musician Randy Bachman of The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive fame. 

It is the largest collection of guitars ever displayed at the museum and marks the first time the public has seen a part of Bachman’s extensive Gretsch collection, considered the largest in the world. The Gretsch Foundation, the charitable arm of the Gretsch family, purchased the collection in 2008.

Fred Gretsch, fourth generation Gretsch Company president,  thinks “American Sound and Beauty” is an appropriate name for the exhibit. “The guitars on display are as American as it gets,” said Gretsch. “Most were built in Brooklyn, New York at The Gretsch Building, a building my grandfather Fred Gretsch Sr. constructed and opened 100 years ago in 1916.”

“These guitars also contributed their unique sound to the evolution of popular American music, including jazz, country, and of course, rock ‘n’ roll,” continued Gretsch, “Plus, Gretsch ushered in a new era of colorful and sparkly guitar finishes in the 1950s. The guitars on display are just beautiful and look like true works of art in the Museum.”

Gretsch honours Chet Atkins, the most important endorser of Gretsch electric guitars, and the musician that influenced a long list of artists including Duane Eddy, Paul Yandell, George Harrison, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Brian Setzer, Steve Wariner, Joe Robinson, Tommy Emmanuel, and Randy Bachman.

Ref

 Before we were The Guess Who, we were Chad Allan & The Reflections. Jim Kale on bass, Chad Allan on guitar & vocals, Garry Peterson drums and Bob Ashley on piano.  We rocked Winnipeg!

My first Gretsch was this one with Filtertron Pickups.  When we went to Minneapolis to record, the master volume on my Gretsch didn’t work and the guitar had no electric sound. So Chad played my Gretsch acoustically and l played his white Fender Jazz Master on “Tribute to Buddy Holly”.  When I got back to Winnipeg, l traded that Gretsch for the same year guitar but with DeArmond pickups, which had the Duane Eddy twang. That became my go-to guitar that l wrote and recorded all The Guess Who and BTO music on.  Yes, the same one that was stolen, wandered the earth for 45 years and was found in Tokyo being played by a rocker named Takeshi who traded me back mine at the Tokyo Canadian Embassy on Canada Day 2022.  The Gretsch is now on display at the Bell Museum in Calgary till end of October as part of the “Every Guitar Tells a Story” exhibit.