Podcast 340: Rudy Pensa on the Chinery Blue Guitar Collection

Famed guitar dealer Rudy Pensa (Rudy’s Music!) Is visiting us on the Fretboard Journal Podcast this week to talk about one of the most remarkable guitar collections in the world ever put together, Scott Chinery’s Blue Guitar Collection. Inspired by the blue Centura Deluxe, which he ordered from Jimmy D’Aquisto, Chinery commissioned more than twenty archtop luthiers in the mid-1990s to develop their own version of a “blue” guitar, all using the same hue. Well-known builders such as Kim Walker, Linda Manzer, Tom Ribbecke, Bill Collings and Bob Benedetto were included along with contributions from Gibson and Fender.

The Blue Guitars would eventually be presented at the Smithsonian and the subject of a book Blue guitar. After Chinery’s death in 2000, the guitars were out of sight, but Rudy is now auctioning the collection (including the D’Aquisto) as a single lot at the request of the Chinery estate. We talk to Pensa about the guitar collection, his personal love for archtops (from his childhood in Argentina) and much more.

The Blue Guitar Collection can be viewed in its entirety here on Rudy’s website, including videos with Jason Isbell, Joe Bonamassa and David Broza playing guitar. It is also available for viewing in Rudy’s store.

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Don’t forget that we’re now running a whole family of podcasts on everything from violin making to home recording: Luthier on Luthier; The Truth About Vintage Amps; The Truth About Inclusion And Mixing; Acoustic voices; and sweep the floor.