INDIANAPOLIS — The Jim Irsay Collection has acquired guitars from two of the greatest artists in music history:
The Jim Irsay Collection gave some interesting history on the instruments.
Jimi Hendrix's 1964 Fender Jazzmaster guitar
Jimi Hendrix, who Rolling Stone named as the greatest guitarist in rock history, personally owned this guitar and gifted it to his friend and fellow Rock Hall member, Billy Davis.
Davis gave Hendrix early guitar lessons and reportedly was the first person to give him the opportunity to play an electric guitar.
Before Hendrix's passing in 1970, Davis visited his Greenwich Village aparment and Hendrix told Davis to take the guitar.
Bob Dylan’s 1992 Gibson Hummingbird guitar
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Bob Dylan played this acoustic guitar during the U.S Presidential Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial on January 17, 1993.
Thirty years earlier, Dylan performed in the same spot during the March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech.
The Hummingbird has been exhibited at Gibson’s New York Showroom, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and Kogart House Museum in Hungary as part of the 2011 exhibition From San Francisco to Woodstock.
The Jim Irsay Collection was created out of Irsay's passion for rock music. The collection has instruments and items owned by artists including Dylan, Hendrix, The Beatles, Prince, James Brown, Eric Clapton, Sir Elton John, Johnny Cash, Jerry Garcia, Les Paul, Bo Diddley, David Gilmour, Jim Morrison, Pete Townshend, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and John Coltrane.
