Part 2: "The Whereabouts of Bob Dylan's J-50"
Introduction
Hello. I'm Inoue, the manager of Advance Guitars.
Lately, I've been getting more opportunities to write articles for music magazines.
As I continued writing, themes I wanted to explore further—ones I hadn't been able to fully cover in articles—gradually began to accumulate.
Furthermore, through daily interactions with customers and observing the guitars themselves,
I often find myself stopping in my tracks and wondering, "What's the real story here?"
Can't we talk about the questions and realizations we feel in such moments in a freer way?
And that's how I started my "Solo Narration Series" on YouTube.
In this series, I cover topics related to acoustic guitars as broadly as possible, focusing primarily on things I personally find interesting.
This article summarizes the series, supplementing aspects that are difficult to convey through video alone.
I hope you'll enjoy the world of acoustic guitars from a slightly new perspective.
Part 2: "The Whereabouts of Bob Dylan's J-50"
Where did Bob Dylan's J-50 guitar go? We unravel the mystery through insider accounts.
This time, I'd like to talk about Bob Dylan's J-50.
It's the cream of the crop.
"Notable musicians who have used the J-50"I think Bob Dylan would be the first name that comes to mind.
In some cases, he is even highlighted as the representative musician for the J-45, meaning the J-45 in its natural state.
The J-50 he used.
Its characteristics are:
・Script Logo
・Rectangular Bridge
・Long Saddle
・3-ply body cell binding
・Post-war Kluson octagonal tuner, open-back specification (estimated)
That's the gist of it.
The combination of script logo and rectangular bridge narrows the production year down to 1946–1947.
1947 was a transitional period featuring both script and modern logos, but whether due to Dylan's influence or the inherently low production volume, opportunities to see them are extremely rare.
That said, opportunities to see a 1946 model aren't particularly common either.
However, if forced to choose between two possibilities, I would have to say it's most likely a 1946 model, not from the transitional period.
And then, the question often comes up: Where did this J-50 go? I've looked into this as much as possible.
Here is what I used as a reference.
BOB DYLAN On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day ※1
※1 A book by Peter McKenzie, son of Eve and Mac McKenzie, owners of the apartment Bob Dylan reportedly frequented starting around 1961.
"A Freewheelin' Time ※2"
※2 An autobiography by Suze Rotolo, who was Bob Dylan's lover
This is the person who also appears on the album cover of Free Wheelin'.
Unfortunately, no primary information is available.
Therefore, we have no choice but to rely on the writings of those who were around him at the time—essentially, their memoirs and recollections.
His J-50 was documented by Peter McKenzie in "BOB DYLAN On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day ※1" as having been owned by Bob Dylan's former girlfriend Suze Rotolo in 1964, and that Suze Rotolo later stated it was "stolen from an apartment in New York."
Sue Zettro's own thoughts on this matter can be found in her autobiography, "A Freewheelin' Time ※2."
Bob Dylan's J-50 is sometimes said to have been destroyed in a fire, but first, as to why it's said to have been destroyed, it seems the fire actually did happen.
In October 1965, a fire broke out at her apartment home. The circumstances at the time are described as follows:
Bob's old Gibson guitar was nowhere to be found. The green coat I had bought in Italy and was wearing on the Freewheelin' album cover was somewhere in the pile of black, stinking clothing in the bedroom.
The coat he wore on the Freewheelin' album cover was charred black, while Bob's Gibson guitar "couldn't be found anywhere."
Bob's old Gibson guitar was nowhere to be found.
is how it is expressed.
The Gibson Bobcat guitar she currently owns can be considered a J-50 without a doubt, based on his guitar usage history and Peter McKenzie's account.
So, why does Sue Rotolo think Bob's J-50 was stolen?
The reason becomes clear when you read her autobiography.
She had met an eccentric actor around the same time and had given him the keys to her apartment. She harbored suspicions about the fire that later occurred, thinking, "While it's been attributed to faulty wiring common in old buildings, perhaps he was involved."
After the fire, since the J-50 was nowhere to be found, she speculates that the actor might have taken it.
However, this remains purely speculative, and there is no way to confirm whether the guitar was destroyed by fire, stolen, or left somewhere else for some other reason.
Finally, the punchline to this story is that Bob Dylan himself probably couldn't care less about it. Once he used it as a tool and gave it to his lover, he likely didn't care what happened next. That's the kind of feeling I imagine he has.