Actor, musician, and brother of Sylvester, Frank Stallone has told the story of his magnificent blonde Epiphone Emperor, but the exact origins of the circa 1940 build remain a mystery.
The Golden Globe and Grammy-nominated musician, who has regularly worked on the soundtracks of his brother’s films alongside his work as a solo artist, is a vintage guitar obsessive and a regular face at Norman’s Rare Guitars – and even runs his own guitar company.
Now, sitting down with the store, he’s highlighted how his brother had gifted him his prized possession and his plight in trying to understand the guitar’s history.
“The Christmas present guitar was totally unbeknownst to me,” he says. “Norm (Harris, store owner) had done something before with a white (Gretsch) Falcon, which I found out later a girl saw me playing it in the store and bought it for me for my birthday. So there’s always something weird going on.”
Stallone would come to receive a second Norman’s Rare Guitars gift, but this time he had freedom of choice, and the mystery gift giver was someone more familiar.
“So this day was right before Christmas. I was popping in and it was busy, and Norm goes, ‘There’s a private person that wants you to pick a guitar that you want as a gift.’ I go, ‘What? Are you serious?’ I’m thinking, ‘God, what girls have I been going out with that money?’ He goes, ‘Uh, I can’t tell you, but if you find a guitar you like, it’s yours.’
“Then I have a meltdown,” he continues, like a child in a candy store. “I’m always saying, ‘Man, I’d love to have that guitar.’ Now that I can have any guitar, I can’t pick a guitar!
“Right at that point I swear to you, I get a phone call and it’s my brother. He goes, ‘Uh, how you doing?’ and he starts mentioning guitars. ‘You know about Les Paul?’ ‘Yes, I got seven of them.’ I could tell he was reading it off something.”
He says his brother later fessed up that he was the mystery buyer, but in that moment, he was overwhelmed by choice. Until Harris presented him with the Holy Grail.
“I was sitting going back and forth. Do I want a Hummingbird? Do I want a Rickenbacker? So, I’m sitting there sweating for an hour. Then Norm brought out this guitar case that had Western tooling on it, it’s beautifully handtooled. It said ‘Sons of the Pioneers.’
“Now, I am a fanatic for the Sons of Pioneers, Roy Rogers’ backup group. And I’m going, ‘Oh my god!’”
Sons of Pioneers were a hugely influential country and Western group. They formed in 1933 and have since found a special place in Stallone’s heart.
“So, he opens it up and it’s a magnificent blonde Epiphone Emperor. Magnificent-looking, not a mark on it,” Stallone recounts. “Norm told me the story about it had been recycled once or twice through here, but someone else wanted it. I think it was Bob Dylan’s manager. I mean, you don’t get any cooler than this.
“Just the provenance of it,” he purrs. “I figure it’s a 1940 Epiphone. And the guy that had it didn’t start playing with Sons of Pioneers until like 1969. This is a 1940. So, my thought was it was either Lloyd Perryman or one of the older guys.
“So, I’ve been trying to find the history of it or looking through pictures of it, but you know, probably in those days that guitar was what, 250 bucks, which is a lot of money in 1940. That’s like about $5,000 now.”
Stallone also recounts how, despite being a multimillionaire, his brother tried to haggle over the price.
“Now my brother’s trying to go knock Norm down in price. And again, he’s worth $800 million. He goes, ‘I’ll give you a bottle of whiskey on top.’ And Norm said something like, ‘I think I needed after knowing your brother that long.’”
Haggling aside, Stallone asserts that “it was a beautiful gesture”.
“I mean, I don’t know anybody who buys me anything, especially my brother (buying me) a guitar. I don’t play the guitar a lot because it’s like a special occasion guitar, you know?
“I’m going to find out more about the history of that guitar,” Stallone wraps up, a sense of determination cracking his voice. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to play that on my Instagram and probably maybe some old fart will come and go, ‘That was my dad’s and it was stolen,’ and I’ll go, ‘Well, blow me, you’re not getting it!’”
Since that video has yet to be posted, there’s still plenty to learn about the six-string at the time of writing.
Norman’s Rare Guitars is now subject of a star-studded Netflix documentary, with one of its biggest customers, Joe Bonamassa, could be in line to take over the store upon Harris’ retirement, if only he’d stop touring.
Harris has bought and sold countless storied instruments – and sold to the biggest names in the business – but says only one guitar ever got away from him.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings