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Bill Collings Passes Away.....

marshall1987

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 30, 2005
Messages
3,278
This from the Collings Web site............

We lost our dear friend and mentor Bill Collings yesterday. He was the amazingly creative force behind Collings Guitars for over 40 years. Through his unique and innate understanding of how things work, and how to make things work better, he set the bar in our industry and touched many lives in the process. His skill and incredible sense of design were not just limited to working with wood, but were also obvious in his passion for building hot rods. To Bill, the design and execution of elegant form and function were what mattered most. Perhaps even more exceptional than his ability to craft some of the finest instruments in the world, was his ability to teach and inspire. He created a quality-centered culture that will carry on to honor his life's work and legacy. He was loved by many and will be greatly missed. Our hearts are with his family.

William R. Collings
8/9/1948 – 7/14/2017
 

Ed Driscoll

Les Paul Forum Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2002
Messages
4,691
I first heard the Collings name when Pete Townshend named an acoustic instrumental demo from his 2001 Scoop 3 compilation after a Collings guitar he owned:


In the liner notes, Townshend wrote:

Recorded on 21st December 2000 and offered free on my website as an mp3. Helen included it here and I am glad because I am especially proud of it; I wanted you to hear it at a higher sample rate. It was recorded in mono to my Synclavier hard disk system at 48khz in my present home studio control room using a Neumann U87 mike. You can hear a single skip edit in there (which I did deliberately to mark where I had removed a large chunk of clumsy mistakes).

The guitar is a special, but quite recent, Collings made in Austin, Texas. It actually played this little piece itself I feel. I used a tuning here that is quite new to me. Reading recently about Bert Jansch one of the guitar heroes of my youth I saw reference to 'DADGAD': a tuning that allows unskilled folk players to knock out three chord trick using a single finger. I tuned the lowest A down to G, and DGDGAD is the result. A very useful tuning I find.
RIP.
 
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renderit

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
10,951
Oh dear! This is horrible! He had so many hotrods to build and just built a new case factory. I am very sorry to hear this and am surprised this is the first. The factory is VERY close to my house. He will be greatly missed. I believe he will be a legend and has already achieved that in my mind.
 

marshall1987

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 30, 2005
Messages
3,278
I wonder who's next in line for the CEO/President honors at Collings Guitars? Does he have adult children involved with the business?
 

bizzwriter

Active member
Joined
Oct 23, 2002
Messages
975
Sorry to hear this -- he built a great company -- and great guitars! RIP
 
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