The New York Guitar Show was an annual, two-day, vintage guitar exhibition and sale scheduled on the third weekend in September and held at the Mary Help of Christians Church on E. 12th St. and Avenue A in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Over the span of a 15-year period (1986-2000) the New York Guitar Show was the only regularly scheduled vintage guitar event dedicated entirely to charity in the United States. The event was created and produced by Skip Henderson, an ex-social worker turned vintage guitar dealer (City Lights Music) from
New Brunswick, New JerseyNew Brunswick is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, USA. It is the county seat and the home of Rutgers University. The city is located on the Northeast Corridor rail line, southwest of Manhattan, on the southern bank of the Raritan River. At the 2010 United States Census, the population of...
, primarily to support the
AIDS Resource Foundation for ChildrenThe AIDS Resource Foundation for Children , founded in 1985 by Terry and Faye Zealand, is a community-based non-profit organization committed to providing cost-effective, family-centered services to children coping with the impact of HIV/AIDS...
in Newark, New Jersey. Henderson later went on to establish the non-profit
Mt. Zion Memorial FundThe Mt. Zion Memorial Fund is a Mississippi non-profit corporation formed in 1989 and named after the 101 year old Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Morgan City, Mississippi...
to assist rural black churches in Mississippi.
The New York Guitar Show was also a venue for a Saturday night performance series which over the lifespan of the event featured an eclectic array of performers such as Nokie EdwardsNokie Edwards is an American musician and member of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is primarily a guitarist, best known for his work with The Ventures...
of the VenturesThe Ventures is an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. Founded by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, the group in its various incarnations has had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide. With over 100 million records sold, the group is the best-selling...
, guitar maker Semie MoseleySemie Moseley was a luthier, and the founder of Mosrite guitars.He was born in Durant, Oklahoma in 1935. His family migrated to California along a path similar to many "Bakersfield Okies", first moving to Chandler, Arizona in 1938, and two years later in Bakersfield, California...
, Junior BrownJamieson "Junior" Brown is an American country guitarist and singer. He has released nine studio albums in his career, and has charted twice on the Billboard country singles charts. Brown's signature instrument is the "guit-steel" double neck guitar, a hybrid of electric guitar and lap steel...
, the Le Roi Brothers, Lonnie PitchfordLonnie Pitchford was an American blues musician and instrument maker from Lexington, Mississippi. He was notable in that he was one of only a handful of young African American musicians from Mississippi who had learned and was continuing the Delta blues and country blues traditions of the older...
, Elliot Easton of The CarsThe Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. The band consisted of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Ric Ocasek, lead singer and bassist Benjamin Orr, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson...
, You Tube favorites The Otis Brothers featuring the late Bob Guida (an early financial backer of the event), and numerous others. In 1996 as Henderson became more involved with the activities of the Mt. Zion Fund, production of the show was transferred to another vintage guitar dealer James Pasch, with the contractual stipulation that it remain a fund raising event for the AIDS Resource Foundation for ChildrenThe AIDS Resource Foundation for Children , founded in 1985 by Terry and Faye Zealand, is a community-based non-profit organization committed to providing cost-effective, family-centered services to children coping with the impact of HIV/AIDS...
.
Primarily because of its East VillageThe East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
location, the event was known for attracting a diverse crowd of notable musicians and figures from New York City such as Billy IdolWilliam Michael Albert Broad , better known by his stage name Billy Idol, is an English rock musician. A member of the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, Idol first achieved fame in the punk rock era as a member of the band Generation X...
, Allen Ginsburg, Lenny KravitzLeonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and arranger, whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk and ballads...
, Willy De Ville, and many others.
[Guitar World Magazine, "New York Guitar Show 1989" by Teisco Del Rey, December 1989, p.95]
[Guitar Player Magazine, "Elvis Spotted at New York Guitar Show", by Richard R. Smith, January, 1990, p.17]
The source of this article is
wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the
GFDL.
