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 Burglary Blues hits James Harman

Unfortunately, some lowlife who doesn't understand 'working for a living' chose to inflict his worthless presence into the home one of the Blues masters, as James Harman was burglarized between mid-July and August 6th, 2004.

Among other things, many vintage instruments and records were taken from his collections. Please be on the lookout for any of the instruments listed below. If enough of us are watching there is a chance that James may be able to recover his stolen items.

Here are the instruments that were stolen:

1940 Stella acoustic resonator, painted sunburst-fake alligator case
1946 Gibson ES-350-sunburst, w/3 P-90 pick-ups, in orig. brown case
1946 Gibson L-48-sunburst, gold hardware, deArmond pick-up-brown case
1958 Fender Telecaster-butterscotch/blonde neck w/white pick guard
1959 National Town & Country-Les Paul shape w/2 pick-ups-tweed case
1961 Fender Precision Bass, shell pink, white pickguard
1963 Fender Stratocaster, white, white pickguard-Fender brown case
1964 Supro red fiberglass Resophonic, no cutaway, chrome pie-plate cover

His huge single, EP and LP record collection was also stolen, from the same property. This collection contains all the oldest, coolest, rare blues, Jazz, Soul, R&B, country, hillbilly and old rock & roll 45's, 7"EP's, 10" & 12" Lp's. They were boxed up and neatly stored. This collection represents a lifetime of record collecting.

Some of these items are very rare, hard to find and quite valuable recordings. Some of the 45's & LP's have hand writing on the labels or covers from James' high school years. Some have:"Jimmy Harman" or "JH + DJ" or "Jimmy + Dorothy" written on the label, the sleeve, or the jacket, with a magic marker. The 45's were in manila gold or faded red custom sleeves. There is a goodly number of original 7" single or EP "picture sleeves" releases.

Many of the 45 sleeves have James' hand printing, listing the label, title, artist, issue & session number, recording & release date. Some also list the sidemen on the session, when information was known.

Record labels ::
include all the good ones plus many very odd & rare ones. Atlantic, Atco, Stax, Chess, Checker, Argo, Trumpet, RCA, Minit, Duke, Peacock, Backbeat, Sureshot, Songbird, Excello, Nashburo, Vee-Jay, Sun, Phillips, Imperial, Savoy, States, Profile, Herald, Blue Note, Prestige, Impulse, and most of the later reissue labels like Document, Yazoo, Red Lightnin' and others. The collection is primarily Blues, Rhythm & Blues, Soul, jazz, old Rock 'n' Roll, hillbilly and country.

These LP's, EP's and 45's are highly collectible and will most likely turn up on actions and/or eBay type sales. The thieves may try to sell them all together, this should be an attention getter. If you notice a large number of serious, old blues, R&B, soul, and Jazz records suddenly show up at too-good-to-be-true prices, please be suspicious! Any legitimate seller will easily be able to document where & how they obtained the records.

Three handguns were also stolen: one antique nickel plated , pearl-handle .45 cal. over/under derringer and two 1962 near-new condition Colt Cobra .38 specials with 1" barrels.

James worked very hard to bring us great music since 1962. It is a shame that some idiot could wipe out a life's worth of collecting in one criminal act. If enough of us are on the look out we may help catch the thieves and recover James' hard-earned guitars & records.

Please contact James Harman - CLICK HERE for contact info.

Thank you, Baby!!

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