Bruce Gittleman opened the dusty leather case and revealed something I had heard old-timers talk about but never seen: A Gibson harp guitar dating from the Roosevelt administration.
As in Teddy Roosevelt.
It was a strange creature, glowing with a satiny black finish and sporting 15 strings: six regular guitar strings and nine outsized “drone” strings rigged harplike atop the main body. Hence the name.
“Put your nose to the sound hole and take a deep breath,” Gittleman said, as if offering a glass of fine Bordeaux.
I did and took in the aroma of century-old spruce and who knows how many stages and long-gone musicians.
“That’s what an old guitar smells like,” Gittleman said. “That’s the smell of history.”
Gittleman owns Guitarville, a shop at 1875 S. Broadway that is a mecca for collectors of rare acoustic and electric guitars. Customers include stars such as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, John Fogerty and Billy Gibbons — the ZZ Top frontman whose beard may well harbor a squirrel colony.
They come seeking the great guitars of the 1950s and 1960s, iconic brands such as Gibson, Fender and Gretsch. Guitarists prize these instruments like violinists revere the creations of Stradivari.
The sound is magic, unrivaled in tone and worth sums pushing six figures.
“It was the golden era back in those days,” Gittleman said.
At 53, Gittleman has retreating red hair and a penchant for cowboy boots. He has played and collected guitars for 30 years.
The Los Angeles native opened shop there in 1991 and moved here three years later.
While Gittleman sells new models whose prices more closely resemble guitar price tags rather than luxury cars, he prefers vintage.
The good stuff is down a suspect flight of steps in the shop’s cluttered basement. A Smithsonian curator would feel right at home.
Gittleman rooted among some cases and pulled out a 1952 gold-top Gibson Les Paul, the legendary rock-and-blues guitar’s debut year. “Check it out,” he said. “Muddy Waters played this model.”
For the price of a down payment on a house, it’s yours.
There was a 1963 Fender Stratocaster with a Brazilian rosewood fretboard, a sunburst finish and the space-age design. It was the model favored by Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and a host of others.
So why this passion for these guitars? Gittleman paused, lost in thought.
“Well, there’s the cool factor,” he said. “But there is also the quality. This was the high-water mark of American guitar manufacturing.
“And there’s nostalgia.”
For anyone who ever played guitar, with whatever skill, cradling a vintage instrument is a link to musicians of the past.
On an earlier trip to Gittleman’s shop, I sat with a Gretsch Country Gentleman guitar in my lap. It was the same model my Uncle Fairley played 40 years ago.
I wrapped my left hand around the slim neck, ran my fingertips along the mahogany finish and gold-plated hardware. And I recalled a June day when my uncle walked me through the opening run of Marty Robbins’ “El Paso.”
“You learn how to play that, you’ll be a picker,” he told me.
I never quite mastered the song, but I remember that guitar like my uncle’s face.
“A lot of guys want something from their youth,” Gittleman said. “No one wants their old Little League uniform, but they want that guitar.”
William Porter writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1977 or wporter@denverpost.com.
