photos by Joe Riggio
down like a 5 year old at Christmas, and chanted “It’s real!..... Its’ real!”. I called local Hendrix historian, Kevin Randall, to come down to my store. When he walked in I handed him the Sitar, snapped a quick Polaroid of him and he asked me if it was Jimi’s. It was time now to go about authenticating it. When I called the music store back to ask them where they bought it, I volunteered that I believed it was made for Jimi Hendrix. They hung up on me. I called them back, to state my case again. They hung up on me again. I then called Steve Soest, who co-wrote the article with Jim back in 1983. I asked if he knew how to get in touch with Al Brown, a friend of Jimi’s back in New York. Steve said I should instead call Vincent Bell and gave me his phone number. I was excited to be able to talk to the designer of the Electric Sitar directly about this. He answered the phone right away and asked me to call him “Vinnie”. I proceeded to ask him what he would think if I told him that I was the owner of a left-handed, Coral Electric Sitar? He then told me that I should think about taking the next year off! I had already planned a trip to New York, to visit my friend Dominick. Vinnie said that it would be fine to bring the Sitar with me so
he could take a look at it. Dominick and I drove to Tenafly, New Jersey to meet with Vinnie. Our meeting lasted 4 hours as he looked over the Sitar, showed us his hidden laboratory and gave us a history lesson on everything Danelectro. A few weeks later, in the mail, I received a letter of authenticity from Vinnie. In a November 1998 Vintage Guitar magazine article, author of the book “Guitars from Neptune” Paul Bechtoldt states that although they could not pinpoint an exact date when the Lefty Sitar was received by Hendrix, they could confirm it was delivered between July 15th and August 8th by a Danelectro sales representative to Hotel Navarro in New York. Jimi Hendrix, played many guitars, but to my knowledge, only two were built specially for him. One was a left handed Guild acoustic 12-string. The other was this left handed Coral Sitar... a very rare find indeed!
Rick King is the owner of Guitar Maniacs in Tacoma Washington. He lives in Gig Harbor with his wife Sheila, two dogs and a cat. Contact Rick: rickking58@gmail.com
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