Coming Soon: The Guitar Museum of New England

Some pretty cool guitars, no?

They – and many more – are coming sometime next year to the brand-new Guitar Museum of New England.

I recently heard about it (from Boston friend Steve Silva), and I couldn’t be more excited.

For one thing, it’ll be drivable (about 2 hours due north).

For another, it will be a public museum. While mine is by invitation only, this will give us the MET, the BMFA, the eventual GMofNE, and my own (besides many other private collections and shops) – for a true “destination spot” for guitar and plucked string fans of every stripe.

It’s the dream of a special friend of mine, Wilson Schunemann and his wife Jennifer, pictured below. Wilson has long been the passionate fan behind kleincommunity.com, which is the official web site of the instruments of living legend luthier Steve Klein, along with his sometimes partner, the similarly legendary Steve Kauffman (one of whose instruments is seen at left).

Being a vintage collector on a budget, I was quite late to this party, as it has long been a rarefied world of high-priced modern guitars (see below; a typical photo, with Wilson alongside Steve Klein and rock star Joe Walsh).

I knew of course of the Klein electric guitars through Michael Hedges’ instrument (below) and other collectors, so they’ve long been part of Harpguitars.net.

And you may remember that I finally got to meet Steve himself when harp guitar entrepreneur Scott Holloway brought him by the Miner Museum in L.A. in April 2016.

Steve was a kindred spirit, and it was clearly “love at first sight.”

Both Scott and Steve then came to that year’s Harp Guitar Gathering (above), as they were collaborating on a potential project, which is where we all also met Wilson (with Steve, below).

I immediately found Wilson to be another kindred spirit.

Will their new museum also have harp guitars? Absolutely, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Perhaps they’ll even invite a local expert to come lecture? I think you can count on it.

March 19th Addendum: Even as I was posting this blog, Wilson was visiting Steve Klein in California, only to discover Hedges’ electric headless harp guitar there, along with some photos Steve pulled out. The pair has generously shared these with Harpguitars.net. Thank you, gentlemen!

An old packet of Steve’s photos. Wilson says, “Michael handling the KHG ‘in the white’ – this is in 1989; Steve was still tweaking the pickup for the subs (Rick Turner helped him with that).”

I love that my late friend, the legendary Rick Turner, also had a hand in this!

Below: a fascinating new glimpse of the young virtuoso, don’t you think?