Norman Harris (businessman)

Last updated

Norman Harris
Norman Harris.jpg
Norman Harris (2024)
Born (1949-01-20) January 20, 1949 (age 75)
Occupations
Years active1965–present

Norman Harris (born 1949) is an American vintage guitar dealer, and he operates a store called Norman's Rare Guitars in Tarzana, California. He is one of the guitar industry's foremost experts on vintage guitars. [1] His store has become a destination and he has become a celebrity through his Youtube channel which has more than 500,000 subscribers. He is also the author of two books about vintage guitars.

Contents

Career

Norman's Rare Guitars Norman's Rare Guitars.jpg
Norman's Rare Guitars

In the 1960s Harris was a Hammond Organ player who played in bands touring in the Miami, Florida area. In the 1970s Harris was playing in a band with Bobby Caldwell called Katmandu, and the band toured in Los Angeles. [2] While playing with the band Harris purchased a vintage Fender Jazz Bass. Soon other musicians loved the Jazz bass and offered Harris much more money than he paid for the guitar. Harris decided to supplement his income by selling vintage guitars. [3] [4]

Harris saw the value of selling vintage guitars and in 1975 he opened a store in Reseda, California. Harris also rented guitars to be used in the movie industry, [2] including the films Bound for Glory , The Last Waltz , Back to the Future , and This Is Spinal Tap [2]

Norman's Rare Guitars is frequented by many A-list musicians: Joe Bonamassa, Post Malone, Slash, T-Bone Burnett, Mike Campbell, Richie Sambora, Joe Walsh, and the now deceased Eddie Van Halen and Tom Petty. [3]

Norman Harris is also active in a charity called the Midnight Mission. [5] [6]

Social media

The store has 300,000 subscribers on both Instagram and YouTube, and 80,000 on Facebook. [7]

Harris recently started the All Guitar Network. It is an Application that features guitar lessons, reviews and shows with artists. [7]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Petty</span> American rock musician (1950–2017)

Thomas Earl Petty was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was the leader of the rock bands Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch and a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. He was also a successful solo artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benmont Tench</span> American musician

Benjamin Montmorency "Benmont" Tench III is an American musician and singer, and a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers</span> American rock band

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were an American rock band formed in Gainesville, Florida, in 1976. The band originally comprised lead singer and rhythm guitarist Tom Petty, lead guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair. In 1982, Blair, weary of the touring lifestyle, departed the band. His replacement, Howie Epstein, stayed with the band for the next two decades. In 1991, Scott Thurston joined the band as a multi-instrumentalist—mostly on rhythm guitar and secondary keyboard. In 1994, Steve Ferrone replaced Lynch on drums. Blair returned to the Heartbreakers in 2002, the year before Epstein's death. The band had a long string of hit singles, including "Breakdown", "American Girl", "Refugee" (1979), "The Waiting" (1981), "Learning to Fly" (1991), and "Mary Jane's Last Dance" (1993), among many others, that stretched over several decades of work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Campbell (musician)</span> American guitarist (born 1950)

Michael Wayne Campbell is an American guitarist and vocalist. He was a member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and co-wrote many of the band's hits with Petty, including "Refugee", "Here Comes My Girl", "You Got Lucky", and "Runnin' Down a Dream". Outside of The Heartbreakers, he has worked as a session guitarist and songwriter with a number of other acts, including composing and playing on the Don Henley hits "The Boys of Summer" & "The Heart of the Matter" as well as working on most of Stevie Nicks's solo albums. Campbell, along with Neil Finn, joined Fleetwood Mac to replace lead guitarist Lindsey Buckingham on their world tour in 2018–2019. After the end of that tour, he has been involved in his own band, the Dirty Knobs. As of 2022, the Dirty Knobs released two albums.

Ernie Ball was an American entrepreneur and musician who developed guitar-related products. Ball began as a club and local television musician and entrepreneur, building an international business in guitars and accessories. Ernie Ball Inc. is the eponymous corporation Ball started to market guitar accessories.

<i>Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1</i> 1988 studio album by Traveling Wilburys

The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is the debut studio album by the English-American supergroup Traveling Wilburys, comprising George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. It was released in October 1988 to commercial success and critical acclaim. Although Harrison had long planned to start such a band, the project came about through happenstance. Harrison was in Los Angeles and in need of a B-side for a single from his album Cloud Nine, which resulted in the participants collaborating informally on the song "Handle with Care" at Dylan's home.

<i>Every Good Boy Deserves Favour</i> (album) 1971 studio album by The Moody Blues

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is the seventh album by The Moody Blues, released in 1971. The album reached No. 1 on the British album chart, in addition to a three-week stay at No. 2 in the United States, and produced one top-40 single, "The Story in Your Eyes".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Bonamassa</span> American musician (born 1977)

Joseph Leonard Bonamassa is an American blues rock guitarist, singer and songwriter. He started his career at age twelve, when he opened for B.B. King. Since 2000, Bonamassa has released fifteen solo albums through his independent record label J&R Adventures, of which eleven have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Blues chart.

"Markheim" is a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, originally prepared for the Pall Mall Gazette in 1884, but published in 1885 in The Broken Shaft: Tales of Mid-Ocean as part of Unwin's Christmas Annual. The story was later published in Stevenson's collection The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables (1887).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mudcrutch</span> American rock band

Mudcrutch was an American musical group from Gainesville, Florida, whose sound touched on southern rock and country rock. They were first active in the 1970s and reformed in 2007, and are best known for being the band which launched Tom Petty to fame.

Vintage Guitar is an American magazine that focuses on vintage and classic guitars, amplifiers, effects, and related equipment, as well as notable guitarists from all genres and eras. The publication's feature stories and monthly columns cover a diverse range of topics by contributors, including some of the biggest names in the industry and renowned authorities like Dan Erlewine, George Gruhn, Wolf Marshall, Richard Smith, and Seymour W. Duncan, as well as some of the best-known writers in the field, including Pete Prown, Walter Carter, Dan Forte, Dave Hunter, Rich Kienzle, Michael Dregni, John Peden, Greg Prato, and others.

<i>Buy</i> (album) 1979 studio album by Contortions

Buy is the debut studio album by American no wave band Contortions. It was released in 1979 through ZE Records following the band's inclusion on the 1978 compilation No New York.

Martin Stone was an English guitarist and rare book dealer. He was a longtime resident of Fingest in Buckinghamshire and, latterly, Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elderly Instruments</span> American musical instrument retailer

Elderly Instruments is a musical instrument retailer in Lansing, Michigan, United States, with a reputation as a "megastore", a repair shop and a locus for folk music including bluegrass and "twang". Specializing in fretted instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, Elderly maintains a selection of odd or rare instruments. Elderly is known as a premier repair shop for fretted instruments, as one of the larger vintage instrument dealers in the United States, and as a major dealer of Martin guitars in particular.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vintage guitar</span>

A vintage guitar is an older guitar usually sought after and maintained by avid collectors or musicians. The term may indicate either that an instrument is merely old, or that is sought after for its tonal quality, cosmetic appearance, or historical significance.

Reverb.com is an online marketplace for new, used, and vintage musical equipment, including instruments used by notable musicians. It was founded in 2013 by David Kalt, shortly after he purchased the musical instrument store Chicago Music Exchange and became frustrated with then-available options for buying and selling guitars online. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar business with more than 10 million monthly visitors. In August 2019, Etsy acquired Reverb for $275 million.

Izzy Miller is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. His first success came with his band Storage with the release of their 2009 single "Just a Little More". Miller left Storage in 2010 and began a solo career. After releasing Back From Nowhere, his first solo album, in 2010, he paired up with drummer Smokin' Joey Gambrell. Miller and Gambrell went on to release Who Is That? Nobody in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Shelters</span> American rock band

The Shelters are a rock band formed in 2015 in Los Angeles, California by Chase Simpson, Josh Jové, and Sebastian Harris. All members had previously played in the band Automatik Slim. Tom Petty took an interest in the band and gave them the keys to his home studio, offering a listening ear and advice on whatever they were working on. They spent countless hours in his studio, working both on their own and with Petty. Both Jové and Simpson have credit on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’s 2014 album Hypnotic Eye and on Mudcrutch's 2016 album 2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amos (guitar)</span> 1958 Gibson Flying V guitar

Amos is a 1958 Gibson Flying V guitar. The guitar was one of only 98 Flying Vs manufactured by Gibson Brands between 1958 and 1959. In 1958 it was shipped to an Indiana music store. In 1975 the guitar resurfaced in the collection of a Tarzana, California guitar seller named Norman Harris. The guitar appeared in the 1984 movie This Is Spinal Tap. It is now in American musician Joe Bonamassa's guitar collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernie Ball Inc.</span> American instrument and guitar accessory company

Ernie Ball is an American instrument and guitar accessory company based in San Luis Obispo, California. The brand was started by Roland Sherwood Ball in 1962 as a custom line of guitar strings. The company manufactures and sells guitars through Ernie Ball Music Man.

References

  1. "Norman Harris". NAMM. NAAM. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 VINNICOMBE, CHRIS. "PRIVATE COLLECTION: NORMAN HARRIS' RARE GUITARS". Guitar. Guitar.com. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  3. 1 2 Gill, Chris. "California Man: A Visit with Norman Harris of Norman's Rare Guitars". guitarplayer. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  4. Molenda, Michael. "Vintage King: Norman Harris of Norman's Rare Guitars". guitarplayer. Future Publishing Limited. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  5. Parker, Matt. "Want to buy Tom Petty's 1965 Gibson SG? That'll be $300,000". MusicRadar. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  6. "Norman's Rare Guitars Auctions Off Iconic Tom Petty Guitars And Memorabilia". Look to the Stars. July 13, 2018. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  7. 1 2 VARIAN, ETHAN (June 3, 2019). "Norman's Rare Guitars in Tarzana rides a social media wave as six-string market shifts". Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  8. Harris, Norman (May 1, 2004). Norman's Rare Guitars: 30 Years of Buying, Selling and Collecting. Van Nuys, California: Alfred Music. ISBN   978-0966921915.
  9. Harris, Norman (2016). CLOSER LOOK CONFESSIONS OF A VINTAGE GUITAR DEALER The Memoirs of Norman Harris. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard. ISBN   9781495035111.
  10. BAUR, BERNARD. "INDUSTRY PROFILE: NORMAN HARRIS: THE STORIES THAT GUITARS CAN TELL". musicconnection. Music Connection Magazine. Retrieved September 1, 2019.