Sioux Falls, South Dakota (Top40 Charts/ Meat & Potaotoes Marketing) Everyone knows the clichéd story about the one that got away. You know, the high school sweetheart or the old car that everyone wishes they had held on to, but youth's foolishness got in the way. Guitars and Cars American Icons has a story too good to be true.
For Sioux Falls musician and guitar teacher
Jesse Christen, the one that got away wasn't the prom queen or a hot-rodded car, it was a guitar.
The special guitar is 1978 BC Rich Eagle Supreme. Very few of these handmade guitars were ever produced.
"I worked in a greasy spoon restaurant to buy that guitar," Christen says. "I had my senior pictures taken with it." In December 1992, Christen saved up enough money to purchase the guitar just in time for his senior pictures.
But Christen and his beloved guitar parted ways only a couple of short years later thanks to youth's foolishness. He sold the guitar to fund the purchase of another.
Not realizing how rare these guitars really were, Christen has always regretted selling it. "To this day, I've only seen a couple other examples in person. And this guitar is the only one I've ever seen in person with the fancier inlays and bound neck."
But out of all the guitars he has owned over the past twenty years, this particular one has always held a soft spot in his heart. And when the world went to the Internet in the late '90s, the search for his old friend began.
After all these years, Christen wondered what had ever happened to the guitar. Did a collector have it? Well, the guitar led a very interesting life from the time Christen sold it until the present day.
In early January, the guitar was listed in an online advertisement. And every grain of wood matched.
Christen called the number listed in the ad and spoke to the current owner. "He said he a some attachment to the guitar since he played it onstage with
Rod Stewart at Madison
Square Garden", Christen says.
It turns out the guitar belonged to
Oliver Leiber, who is the son of the legendary songwriter Jerry Leiber. Besides his stint as Rod Stewart's guitarist, Leiber is also an accomplished record producer and songwriter; who even produced and wrote a number of former American Idol judge and '90s pop star Paula Abdul's biggest hits. Currently a member of the band fDeluxe, Leibers band includes former members of
Prince and the Revolution and Morris Day and the Time.
"I just put it up online to see if anyone was interested in [the guitar]," Leiber says. "I wasn't sure if I wanted to sell it because I played that guitar onstage at Madison
Square Garden with Rod [Stewart]."
After reciting the serial number from memory and it matched, Christen purchased the guitar back from Leiber. Now that the guitar is back home, what plans does Christen have for it?
He plans on playing it, and this time he's not letting this one go.
To view photos of the Eagle Supreme visit http://guitarsandcarsamericanicons.blogspot.com/
