Chords for Vince Gill's Guitar Collection

_ _ _ _ _ _ Hey everybody, I'm Vince Gill.
I'm here at my house in Nashville, Tennessee, knocking
around looking at some old guitars and having some fun.
This guitar right here is [C] probably
the _ most important guitar in my life.
This was my father's guitar that I learned to play
on as a little boy.
_ We [N] had a flood in Nashville not long ago, back in 2010.
This guitar was
in the flood, but thank God it was [G] up just high enough that it didn't get in [C] the water.
This is what I _ _ _ learned to play on as a little boy.
It was probably the first song I learned.
_ Wildwood, Flower.
_ [G] _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ [E] _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ I need to work on that one a bit.
_ [G] _
_ This is an old Martin.
It was built
in 1942.
It's a D28 Herringbone.
It's kind of the most sought after bluegrass guitars.
As a young guitar player, about 18 years old, I left home.
Right after I left home, I found
this guitar at a bluegrass festival.
_ _ [Dm] This _ guy _ was carrying it around an old case at
the festival and it had a sign on it that said $2,500.
I said, man, I don't know.
I
asked him, can I look at that old Herringbone?
He said, sure.
_ He says, do you think you can
afford it?
I said, no, probably not, but I'd sure [N] like to play it.
I picked it out and
played it.
This thing was in just immaculate condition to be 70 years old.
_ _ I told him I
would like to try to get it if he would consider a trade.
I had a newer Martin from the 70s
that was just average.
He did.
He traded me $1,500 or $1,600.
That $1,500 or $1,600 was
all the money I'd made up to that point in my life that I'd save for my future, whether
I was going to go to college or anything.
_ I completely emptied my bank account out to
buy this guitar as a young kid.
I still have it to this day.
I just can't believe that
I've been _ lucky enough and smart enough to hang on to some of these first guitars like
my dad's and this one. _ _
I was lucky enough to buy a great guitar when I was a kid and
found one much better than this in all those years.
_ _ _ _ _ _ I have a love for Martin guitars like probably nobody else in the world.
_ I've just picked
them up from time to time. _ _ _
I've turned down a lot of great guitars just because they didn't
speak to me and they didn't feel good in my hands or sound good to me or whatever.
Every
guitar I've ever acquired has been because I love the way it played and I love the way
it sounded.
I don't think I've ever bought anything that didn't sound great to me.
This
is a recent purchase.
_ _ These are the rarest of the rare.
This is a 1928 00045.
They're
called pearl top guitars.
They're probably the most sought after by players and collectors.
_ Collectors probably more than _ players but they didn't make very many of these.
This
is a _ 1928 00045.
It just sounds like [E] a bell.
[C#] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ You hear so much wood in the way these great
old Martins were made.
Listen to how long that's going to ring.
It's still ringing.
Still [A#] sustaining.
_ _ It's beautiful. _ _
_ [G] _ This was a gift from Amy. _
I love that my wife has good
taste.
This is an OM 45 from 1930.
They only made 41 of these in history.
_ I happen to have
a couple of them.
_ This was for my 50th birthday.
I saw the case and I knew it was something
good.
[C] _
[G] I'm just grateful to be _ [Em] married [F] _ _
[G] _ to a kind woman.
[C] _ _ _ [A]
Could use some tuning.
[Em] Couldn't
we all? _ _ _
[B] _ [G] _ A _ [N] smattering of what's great about old guitars.
This is _ a really rare piece.
This is a 00028.
It's made with a herringbone trim like the other one I showed you earlier.
It's got what they call a shade top.
There's very few shade tops that Martin made.
I guess
back in the day Martin and Gibson would kind of rival each other.
If Gibson would do something
Martin would try it.
If Martin would do something Gibson would try it.
There weren't a whole
lot of shade tops made.
If you can find an old pre-war Martin that's sunburst finish
you've really got a rare bird.
In the collectible world their _ value is twice what a regular
natural spruce top guitar would be.
This was also a gift from my bride.
She knows what
I like.
_ _ [B] _
_ _ _ _ [N] _ _ _
When I put this studio in here _ it was right after we had this flood.
I lost
a lot of guitars in the flood.
Probably 50 guitars and a bunch of some neat, just some
great old stuff.
A bunch of great amps and all that.
I tried to find a way to bring a
lot of these guitars into the studio where I could have them accessible to play.
I always
felt like guitars were meant to play.
I [B] came up with this idea to build drawers [Em]
that are
kind of almost like a guitar case. _ _
This is an old _ 61-335 like my first red one that I
_ _ got.
This one is a little bit better than that one.
It gets played a little more.
This
is an old Strat that [N] I bought off a guy named Bob Britt.
He's a great guitar player here
in Nashville.
He was _ kind of going through a little bit of a struggle financially.
I
told him, I said, I hate to see you lose your guitar, but I'll buy it.
I said, if you want
it back it will be here.
I've had a few cases where I've rescued a few guitars for some
old friends.
_ _ That's one of them.
I just love, you know, what's funny about all these different
guitars is _ maybe somebody would look at that and say, well why do you have so many of the
same kind of guitar?
Every one of them plays different, sounds different, and has a completely
different voice.
This is a great piece I got from Tom Bukovac, a great guitar player here
that does a million sessions.
It's a 60 slab board Stratocaster.
_ It's an amazing sounding
guitar.
On a lot of records.
This guitar's been on a lot of records.
_ _ _ _ _ It's kind of crazy.
I opted for buying guitars instead of bass boats and second homes in the Hamptons and
things like that.
So I have a pretty extensive and beautiful collection of a lot of really
neat old guitars. _ _ _