A collection of guitars and other personal items that belonged to the late blues-rock guitar icon Johnny Winter will hit the auction block on September 30-October 1. Guernsey’s, the famous auction house, announced that the auction will take place at Gibson Brands’ New York showroom.
Winter, who died in July 2014 at age 70, owned three dozen guitars, including five Gibson Firebirds, all of which are included in the sale. Also included are metal resonator guitars, three Lazer guitars and assorted vintage instruments, among them a wooden ukulele, which Winter played from the age of 10.
In addition to the instruments, the auction includes outfits and customized accessories, including rings, necklaces, hats, belts, straps, scarves and more. The announcement from the auction house also notes that the sale will include “a clump of Johnny’s actual beard with photos verifying the shearing.”
Paper items are also included in the auction lot, among them rock and blues photos and posters and Winter’s notebooks, handwritten in the late 1960s and ’70s and with songs he composed.
Johnny Winter came to national prominence in the late 1960s after kicking around the Texas club circuit for years. He was signed to Columbia Records for a then-huge $600,000 advance and became an instant sensation, playing most of the major American rock and blues festivals. An albino with long straight hair and a tall, lean frame, Winter was visually arresting as well as musically gifted and he enjoyed success as he alternated between hard blues and searing rock—his versions of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” are classic rock staples. In later years Winter settled more into the bluesy side, working with mentors such as Muddy Waters and releasing a slew of solo albums.
Watch Johnny Winter perform on Danish TV in 1970…
If you’re a new Best Classic Bands reader, we’d be grateful if you would Like our Facebook page and/or bookmark our Home page.
Related: Winter was one of the performers at the 1969 Atlantic City Pop Festival
To find out more about this auction, visit guernseys.com.
