“I met Joe when he was 12. He picked up a vintage guitar in one store and they told him to leave. But someone said, ‘This guy called Norm will let you play his stuff’”: The unlikely rise of Norman’s Rare Guitars and the birth of the vintage guitar market

Norman Harris of Norman's Rare Guitars poses with a Les Paul at his legendary Tarzana, California guitar store.

When Norman Harris founded Norman’s Rare Guitars in 1975, he had no idea that his little shop would become an institution in vintage guitars. And that’s mostly because, back in the day, people didn’t really care about the “vintage” concept.

“The word ‘vintage’ wasn’t even used,” Harris tells Guitar World.