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GALLERY: John Porter's Guitar Collection

Porter muses over the highlights of his vast collection used on records by everyone from B.B. King to Eric Clapton to the Smiths.

1977 Alvarez nylon string acoustic

"I was out with Eric Clapton on his yacht in the Mediterranean," Porter begins. "We would stop off and do gigs and busk. He kept saying he wanted a Spanish guitar. In Barcelona we both picked out the same Alvarez guitar and each bought one. Years later he was using that guitar all the time and so asked to buy mine. He said, " I'd like to take one on the road and leave one at home for songwriting." I said, "no, but I will lend it to you. For the next few years I would see him playing it on the tele. He wrote "Tears in Heaven" on those guitars. Then he did that first big auction and he sold his for a ridiculous amount. When I heard he was doing another auction I said to him, "Hey you're not gonna sell my guitar?" He said, "no", but I thought, "I have to get that guitar back. So I call Lee, his guitar tech," and he says, "Eric's lost the guitar." " Lee offered me like a Ramirez something in exchange. No he hasn't lost it! I tell him. It's in his house in Antigua in the cupboard in his bedroom! Eric had forgotten he'd told me this. So months later the guitar just arrived at my house. I think he was a bit pissed off, but I got it back. Eric did finally send me a letter saying that he loved the guitar and had done a lot of writing on it."