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By late spring of 1970, I had nurtured a decent business relationship with noted New York Musician/inventor/dealer Dan Armstrong. Basically, it consisted of me rounding up lovely, for the most part like new, 10 to 20 year-old Gibson, Fender and Martin guitars, making the 11-hour drive from Dayton to the Big Apple, snaking my way to his shop on LaGuardia Place on the lower east side of Manhattan, and listening to Dan's explanations of why we had to renegotiate the deals.
In retrospect, it was an education I couldn't have bought at any price. It schooled me in the art of bartering - a skill I (hopefully) continue to hone. Through Dan's contacts I sold a pair of Gibson basses to the late Felix Pappalardi, played Clapton's Flame top Les Paul (it was in Dan's shop for repair) became friends with Jimmy Ryan guitarist for the Critters and as well the shop foreman, and had several very pleasent conversations with Dan's then current love interest, Carly Simon. So the field trips had peripheral benefits. If the majority of the deals seemed to lean a bit in Dan's favor, at least one of the transactions, experience-wise forever changed the balance in my favor.
A deal that took place the third week of June, 1970, in which I'm sure he didn't make a penny, will forever be the transaction of my lifetime. During one of our many phone conversations Dan alluded to the fact that a certain guitar playing/studio operating neighbor of his was in the market for a reverse Gibson Firebird VII. Knowing that I had one, he gave me the call.
With Armstrong acting as agent we "negotiated" the deal. I was instructed to buy myself, and the guitar, seats on the first jet to New York. So, off to Kennedy International we went. Arriving at his shop the next morning with Firebird in hand, Dan called his famous client, informed him of the guitar's near mint condition, and as fate would play out, we were told that the customer was in the "middle of a session" and would have to send someone over to pick it up. A few minutes later Buddy Miles (these were Band Of Gypsy days) showed up with a check from Electric Lady Studios, signed by Jimi Hendrix himself for the princely sum of four-hundred, seventy-five - 1970 dollars.
Most historians agree this was one off Hendrix's most troubled periods. The possibility exists that the guitar didn't suit his needs or it was simply a gift for one of the many hangers-on that took advantage of his constantly altered state. From my standpoint it was an exciting transaction irregardless of the motivation. The signature on the check would be worth today perhaps more that the amount for which the check was written.
I have never seen a Firebird listed in any of the guitarist's axologies. It's doubtful it stayed in his possession for any length of time. With Buddy's passing last year it will be difficult to ever know what happened to it.
A spectacular enough trip for this Buckeye as it stood, but the events of the afternoon developed lives of their own . . .
In New York making the airport at 6p.m. to catch a flight is always a roll of the dice. Consequently, I didn't make it on time, and the airline went beyond the call of duty to accommodate me. There was one flight left that evening from Kennedy to Dayton International but it was a privately chartered flight and for me to get a lift back they would have to get permission from the gentleman that rented it. The airline asked and the man consented and I flew from New York to the Gem City with James Brown and his Famous Flames en route to to a recording date at King Records on Brewster Avenue in Cincinnati.
I wonder if label owner Syd Nathan, got a tax write- off from my ticket?
Certainly not just an average day in the life of this fledgling guitar dealer from Ohio.
Shortly there after, Dan moved to England to work at Orange amplifiers. I told him I probably wouldn't be able to ship the stuff to him overseas and asked if there was anyone else in my half of the US that I could sell to, "Well" he replied, "there's this guy down in Nashville that's just getting started", and I-65 South became my new I-70 east.
Thus ending my big city education, the kind that money just can't buy .
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