I worked in a guitar shop in North London back when I was a teenager, I was a grotty metalhead who loved anything that was pointy and noisy. One day, we had a sale or return guitar come in. A 58 Gretsch, very similar to this but in a sort of Butterscotch yellow. I got it out of it's very elderly and worn case and plugged it in and that guitar blew my mind!! I'd never played a guitar with such an absolute sweet action on it, it damn near played itself. I had a 71 Explorer and a new 94 Jackson Rhoads which both played beautifully and this old pensioner knocked the socks off them for playability. I always said to myself, one day... I'll get myself a Gretsch but I've never had the money. But, it's funny how things come around because I entered a mystery competition on a guitar giveaway site and it turns out that the prize was a Gretsch g5620t and I won it!! I'm so happy and grateful, never lose sight of your dreams because you never know what's waiting around the corner.
Man I remember as a teenager in the mid nineties seeing these old late 50’s orange Gretsch guitars for like $1k at vintage guitar shop in my town. I always wanted one. He usually had a couple of these 6120’s and a line of old blonde, brown and tweed fender amps along the back wall. At the time I thought my blackface Super reverb was a way better amp than a tweed deluxe or blonde Bassman. I probably could’ve traded my Super reverb plus a $200 and got a tweed deluxe or the 6g6-b Bassman back then. Not many knew how amazing they were in 94-95. It was pre internet and gear could be had for cheap. I remember almost buying a 1965 blonde Strat with tortoise guard for $3500 in 1997. I saved up for a couple months and literally the day I went in to buy it he had sold it earlier that morning to a German guy who would fly over to the states and buy every good vintage guitar he could find. The store owner felt so bad when I walked in that day, I was always coming in to play it multiple times a week, and he knew I was saving up for it. He ended up going home that day and bringing in a old Strat from his personal collection for me to buy. It was a refin Daphne blue and sold it to me for $1300
and it fits you like a signature item, it's really cool and that was a great story I love a great musician story I've had my 72 telecaster since I was about 16 or 17 that was my first good guitar before that I borrowed a seers silver tone that my neighbor brought over and said here you wanna borrow this talk about great neighbors because of him I play guitar for all my life and I turned 65 in April
WoW.... great interview! Brian, you are such a fantastic guitarist. I'm your biggest 🇨🇱Texas🇨🇱 fan and would absolutely love to see you perform LIVE on stage. Please come play the Municipal Auditorium in Shreveport, which, as everyone knows, is the home of the Louisiana Hayride..... where ROCKABILLY A N D ROCKNROLL began. R. I. P. ELVIS PRESLEY Scotty 🎸 Moore Bill Black JOHNNY CASH Luther 🎸 Perkins Marshall Grant Carl🎸Perkins
That 100 dollar guitar is worth 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars. And I hope it made him millions! I love listening to his stories almost as much as listening to him play!
Man I first saw the stray cats at the Roxy I believe 1981 /82 best live performance I had seen the energy was over the top much love brother ❤️seen you too many times count keep rocking ✌️👍
Brian is the Mack daddy of cool and slicker than owl snot hitting the notes on his git-fiddle . His 68 comeback special album is one of the best I ever heard esp song 1959 . Thank you for keeping rockabilly alive all these years . Talent extraordinaire !!!!!!!!
george thorogood played one of those (however you spell it fromthe Delaware Destroyers "bad to the bone". I got to play one of them - Gretch is one amzing guitar and it just wants to play.
I still have a Yamaha acoustic my moms got me in 87. My first guitar was lost due to bad decisions. I was about 12 years old. Maybe younger. I bought it at the bargin bin thrift store with money from shoveling snow... I wish I still had that one.
I have been a fan for a long time. Been a bit handicapped from injuries to my hands as far as playing is concerned, but still enjoy doing what i can with what I have. At 60 I have found that the best guitars I have owned were the old garage sale and pawn shop guitars that I picked up, repaired and tweakes a bit. One of the Best I had, believe it or not, was an old Realistic hollow body that was given to me by a friend. It was nothing but a body, (Japanese 335 knockoff) and the old cheap gold foil pickups, that when I got it didn't work. But after putting some donated Gibson electrics that were donated by a friend who modified his Les Paul, then later a gretch bridge pickup. Streightening out the neck, leveling and polishing the frets, to this guitar had the fastest action and the best tone of all of them. Ended up giving it to my brother in law who had a band and was a very talented guitarist with a lot of blues influence. I figured he could make far better use of it. In my opinion, the old seasoned instruments ar by far the best.
I own a 1965 Double Anniversary and I will only part with it the day I die - it’s been there with me since the 60s - like a good friend. Arthritis screwed up my playing abilities but my GRETSCH doesn’t care 😃😃😃 Just one question- why haven’t you replaced the tone toggler ????
Brian,your precious, saying you got that sweet orange unitar,in the late 70's, when you were 17..uh huh jellybean..you were 17, in the very early 70's, like '71, son 😅 You still the Goat baby..I saw your band the Strays, at Gussie Lamore's, a military dive, in around the airport area ,in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1994. Good days baby, good days,so innocent, you know , still years before 2001 Sep eleven, that was ironically, my father's birthday. Rest in peace daddy
The most comfortable, easy to play guitar I have ever encountered was a 1963 Gretsch Corvette. Got in a trade for a motorcycle. It was stolen and at the time i couldn't afford to replace it with anything near as good. This was the early to mid 1970s.
That is as Unique and Legendary as the EVH FrankenStrat, or Frampton' s Phoenix.....Only other unique i can think of is Terry Kath's Square Body. All.....TOTAL Rock History
Crazy back then you buy a guitar for $100 now it’s worth $100,000 thinking about Kurt Cobain and his 1955 Martin D 18 E he had no idea how rare a guitar was and now that guitar just sold for $1 million and then he got Willie Nelson story of his guitar is crazy too. Yeah it’s 1930s Martin I mean automatically Martin from the 30s are worth a shit ton of money but it’s really Nelson‘s guitar but the crazy part is, there was this horrible company but they were the first ones to put a pick up in the Bridge on an acoustic and Willy thought that was cool so he broke the guitar put the bridge on the Martin and that’s trigger that will probably most definitely beat our Kirk Cobain’s guitar but they’re going to be pretty close for the most expensive guitars in the world. Another cool story Neil Young bought Hank Williams guitar. He never said how much he paid for it though. I’d like to see that I mean I’m a huge Hank Williams fan and I think that would be my number one. Guitar hanks d28 shit I paid 1700 for my 00018 I love it and I paid 100 for my 1977 sigma dm5 witch sound just like a d18 and my fake fender telecaster from aliexpress that I just got for 150 the Chinese are killing it with the fakes but when it comes to electric guitars, I don’t know I feel different. It’s the electronics, so yeah, I bought a fake fender and I put fender pick up in it and now you can’t. The only way you could tell is the decals are a little off, but I centers I could’ve ripped them off for $1000 and I didn’t, I could talk about guitars forever and that’s my rant
@@castleanthrax1833 when you don't stay there full time but you are there all the time and sleep there often yeah you basically live there lol my mom was a nurse and I'd help her help them out a lot and I was a chauffeur for them because his mom was scared to drive after an "accident" and his step father just couldn't really do much. So yeah you don't know what a figure of speech is. Not everything is black and white lol. I had clothes there because I stayed so often to be there to drive them somewhere or something.
@@TheDamagedKodaSo? Is his mom annoying? By the way you're saying you had a bad experience. I would be happy just for the fact of having a job as a chauffeur, i had many terrible jobs and some a-holes as bosses
I could listen to Brian's fascinating stories all day. 🎸❤
Seventeen had a hero, spent what he had, and became a Master 😁🙏🎸 A great man who worked for what he has.
Damn straight! Not a manufactured face of a label. Paying dues is so important. It's like trying to get swoll without lifting heavy.
Well said.
100 bucks well, well spent Brian 😊
Almost 800$ today’s money.
Amazing! A first hand tale of rock history, Thanks Mr. Setzer.
The legend is so genuine just from this one story alone. Yet he has so many.
He's awesome. Always going to be great.
Where's your boy Woody? He's a damn good carpenter.
This guy knows his guitar. To call off Chet Atkins is a sign. No wonder he's so good.
wanted to look like Eddie Cochran and then one day got to play Eddie Cochran
I worked in a guitar shop in North London back when I was a teenager, I was a grotty metalhead who loved anything that was pointy and noisy.
One day, we had a sale or return guitar come in. A 58 Gretsch, very similar to this but in a sort of Butterscotch yellow. I got it out of it's very elderly and worn case and plugged it in and that guitar blew my mind!!
I'd never played a guitar with such an absolute sweet action on it, it damn near played itself. I had a 71 Explorer and a new 94 Jackson Rhoads which both played beautifully and this old pensioner knocked the socks off them for playability.
I always said to myself, one day... I'll get myself a Gretsch but I've never had the money. But, it's funny how things come around because I entered a mystery competition on a guitar giveaway site and it turns out that the prize was a Gretsch g5620t and I won it!!
I'm so happy and grateful, never lose sight of your dreams because you never know what's waiting around the corner.
THESE ARE THE BEST STORIES EVER!
Gretsch is the best. Always has been.
Man I remember as a teenager in the mid nineties seeing these old late 50’s orange Gretsch guitars for like $1k at vintage guitar shop in my town. I always wanted one. He usually had a couple of these 6120’s and a line of old blonde, brown and tweed fender amps along the back wall. At the time I thought my blackface Super reverb was a way better amp than a tweed deluxe or blonde Bassman. I probably could’ve traded my Super reverb plus a $200 and got a tweed deluxe or the 6g6-b Bassman back then. Not many knew how amazing they were in 94-95. It was pre internet and gear could be had for cheap. I remember almost buying a 1965 blonde Strat with tortoise guard for $3500 in 1997. I saved up for a couple months and literally the day I went in to buy it he had sold it earlier that morning to a German guy who would fly over to the states and buy every good vintage guitar he could find. The store owner felt so bad when I walked in that day, I was always coming in to play it multiple times a week, and he knew I was saving up for it. He ended up going home that day and bringing in a old Strat from his personal collection for me to buy. It was a refin Daphne blue and sold it to me for $1300
These stories from him and guys his age are so epic and getting so rare
The Legendary Mr Brian Setzer🎉🎉🎉😊
$100 in 1970 was equivalent to $800 today
Yeah, but he was born in '59, so he would've been 17 in 76-77, which makes it worth about $540.
Either way it was a steal
1,000+ nowadays
I've had my Epiphone since I was about that age.
and it fits you like a signature item, it's really cool and that was a great story I love a great musician story I've had my 72 telecaster since I was about 16 or 17 that was my first good guitar before that I borrowed a seers silver tone that my neighbor brought over and said here you wanna borrow this talk about great neighbors because of him I play guitar for all my life and I turned 65 in April
BEAUTIFUL 🔥
How fucking cool!!!!
WoW.... great interview!
Brian, you are such a fantastic guitarist.
I'm your biggest
🇨🇱Texas🇨🇱 fan and would absolutely love to see you
perform LIVE on stage.
Please come play the
Municipal Auditorium in Shreveport, which, as everyone knows, is the
home of the
Louisiana Hayride..... where ROCKABILLY
A N D ROCKNROLL began.
R. I. P.
ELVIS PRESLEY
Scotty 🎸 Moore
Bill Black
JOHNNY CASH
Luther 🎸 Perkins
Marshall Grant
Carl🎸Perkins
❤those stories
I’ll bet it’s worth more than $100 now . . .
Yeah,Probably now worth upwards of $200!!😁jk
@@rudygracia5573 Maybe even $235 if he places an effective ad! 😉
@@rudygracia5573what a jackAss
Brian is one cool dude. Love his stories. Oh! And his music too! Of course.
Love Brian ❤
Wow! What a beautiful guitar!!
Dude looks like badass
Most people don't realise he is a guitarist really. Amazingly underrated, talented man.
Amazing that
Love his Music 🎶
That 100 dollar guitar is worth 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars. And I hope it made him millions! I love listening to his stories almost as much as listening to him play!
Man I first saw the stray cats at the Roxy I believe 1981 /82 best live performance I had seen the energy was over the top much love brother ❤️seen you too many times count keep rocking ✌️👍
C note that guitar been to hell and back
Awesome - never knew the story.
Very cool.
$100 bucks in 1978 is almost $500 today.... you work for what you love...
Long lives rock and roll baby!😎
is there anyone on the otherside of the camera
Yeah... us.
Brian is the Mack daddy of cool and slicker than owl snot hitting the notes on his git-fiddle . His 68 comeback special album is one of the best I ever heard esp song 1959 . Thank you for keeping rockabilly alive all these years . Talent extraordinaire !!!!!!!!
george thorogood played one of those (however you spell it fromthe Delaware Destroyers "bad to the bone". I got to play one of them - Gretch is one amzing guitar and it just wants to play.
Man, if that guitar could talk.
The story makes it even better... Chet Atkins to Eddie Cochran to Brian Setzer. Classic rock guitar story!!!
I am young still, but I like your songs 😄...😌
Eddie Corcoran, one of my favorite rockibilies. I also have a 59 gretch 6120
How cool is it to own a guitar for 45 years
I still have a Yamaha acoustic my moms got me in 87. My first guitar was lost due to bad decisions. I was about 12 years old. Maybe younger. I bought it at the bargin bin thrift store with money from shoveling snow... I wish I still had that one.
I have been a fan for a long time. Been a bit handicapped from injuries to my hands as far as playing is concerned, but still enjoy doing what i can with what I have. At 60 I have found that the best guitars I have owned were the old garage sale and pawn shop guitars that I picked up, repaired and tweakes a bit. One of the Best I had, believe it or not, was an old Realistic hollow body that was given to me by a friend. It was nothing but a body, (Japanese 335 knockoff) and the old cheap gold foil pickups, that when I got it didn't work. But after putting some donated Gibson electrics that were donated by a friend who modified his Les Paul, then later a gretch bridge pickup. Streightening out the neck, leveling and polishing the frets, to this guitar had the fastest action and the best tone of all of them. Ended up giving it to my brother in law who had a band and was a very talented guitarist with a lot of blues influence. I figured he could make far better use of it.
In my opinion, the old seasoned instruments ar by far the best.
Legend
Nice Axe! ❤
That guys earrings make him look so pretty!
Hot Dog!!!!!
As Eddie Cochran would say about that " Gretsch " it's Something Else !
I own a 1965 Double Anniversary and I will only part with it the day I die - it’s been there with me since the 60s - like a good friend. Arthritis screwed up my playing abilities but my GRETSCH doesn’t care 😃😃😃 Just one question- why haven’t you replaced the tone toggler ????
Brian,your precious, saying you got that sweet orange unitar,in the late 70's, when you were 17..uh huh jellybean..you were 17, in the very early 70's, like '71, son 😅
You still the Goat baby..I saw your band the Strays, at Gussie Lamore's, a military dive, in around the airport area ,in
Honolulu, Hawaii, 1994. Good days baby, good days,so innocent, you know , still years before
2001 Sep eleven, that was ironically, my father's birthday. Rest in peace daddy
The most comfortable, easy to play guitar I have ever encountered was a 1963 Gretsch Corvette. Got in a trade for a motorcycle. It was stolen and at the time i couldn't afford to replace it with anything near as good. This was the early to mid 1970s.
Cool 😎
Wow, $100! What a steal.
Obviously, it worked out Brian!!
What was your first guitar ?
Also love hearing these stories and your a hero to me
I have an Epiphone less Paul from the 90s I paid 75 bucks for and I feel the same way.
Those 100 bucks is now equivalent to $540. According to an inflation calculator
He's Eddie Cochran's spiritiual son
Brillant Brian with your gretsch guitare 😊
Worth a fortune now especially with its provenance
That is as Unique and Legendary as the EVH FrankenStrat, or Frampton' s Phoenix.....Only other unique i can think of is Terry Kath's Square Body.
All.....TOTAL Rock History
Nice guitar.
TV Jones... that's why 🎸🎵
In nice condition, 15,000.
So if he paid $100 back in the late 70’s that’s $360 with today’s money.
That guitar is worth thousands 💰💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵💵🎸
The late '70s? I was putting more $ into motocross bikes!
imo that guitar is an equivalent to B B King's Lucille
👍🙏🇫🇷
If only guitars were still that cheap😭
The Stray Cats ?
It’s real sad that the guy didn’t know who Eddie Cochran was because he wasn’t around very long, the dude died at 21
SCORED !!!!
The Recycler still exists 😂😂😂😂 but probably online only
What kind of drums did Slim Jim play? His brother Terry doesn’t remember.
Crazy back then you buy a guitar for $100 now it’s worth $100,000 thinking about Kurt Cobain and his 1955 Martin D 18 E he had no idea how rare a guitar was and now that guitar just sold for $1 million and then he got Willie Nelson story of his guitar is crazy too. Yeah it’s 1930s Martin I mean automatically Martin from the 30s are worth a shit ton of money but it’s really Nelson‘s guitar but the crazy part is, there was this horrible company but they were the first ones to put a pick up in the Bridge on an acoustic and Willy thought that was cool so he broke the guitar put the bridge on the Martin and that’s trigger that will probably most definitely beat our Kirk Cobain’s guitar but they’re going to be pretty close for the most expensive guitars in the world. Another cool story Neil Young bought Hank Williams guitar. He never said how much he paid for it though. I’d like to see that I mean I’m a huge Hank Williams fan and I think that would be my number one. Guitar hanks d28 shit I paid 1700 for my 00018 I love it and I paid 100 for my 1977 sigma dm5 witch sound just like a d18 and my fake fender telecaster from aliexpress that I just got for 150 the Chinese are killing it with the fakes but when it comes to electric guitars, I don’t know I feel different. It’s the electronics, so yeah, I bought a fake fender and I put fender pick up in it and now you can’t. The only way you could tell is the decals are a little off, but I centers I could’ve ripped them off for $1000 and I didn’t, I could talk about guitars forever and that’s my rant
$100 was not a lot of money back in 79. I was making about $10 hour. Guess its all relevant
I wonder if Brian remembers Eric Maaske?
I basically lived with his mother and step father lol I know more than I'd like to about that family
Thats bad ass.
@@TylerShackleford lol no
Either you did or you didn't. 🤷
@@castleanthrax1833 when you don't stay there full time but you are there all the time and sleep there often yeah you basically live there lol my mom was a nurse and I'd help her help them out a lot and I was a chauffeur for them because his mom was scared to drive after an "accident" and his step father just couldn't really do much. So yeah you don't know what a figure of speech is. Not everything is black and white lol. I had clothes there because I stayed so often to be there to drive them somewhere or something.
@@TheDamagedKodaSo? Is his mom annoying? By the way you're saying you had a bad experience. I would be happy just for the fact of having a job as a chauffeur, i had many terrible jobs and some a-holes as bosses
Right, but how old were you when you got it tho?
i'll give ya 200 right now, come on you double your money!!
Destiny.
And today it’s worth thousands however, since you own it… Add another zero 👍😎
I thought that was his grandfathers??
Very nasal. Why??
Had some tinnitus issues that almost ended his career. Just a speculation but it may have something to do with those issues of the hearing.
You could have done a lot worse.
Give you $150 😁lol
I’ll give you $200 for it. With a case.
"What? Who?" Talk about facepalm.
Buy some upper teeth gummo !
How cool is it to own a guitar for 45 years.