Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay has spent 25 years assembling the world’s leading collection of rock ’n’ roll, American history and pop culture artefacts. We touch down in Indiana to pay him a visit.
Over the years, some remarkable collections have featured in the pages of this magazine. But, in terms of owning historic instruments with rock ’n’ roll credentials and sheer spending power, nobody can top Jim Irsay. For the last quarter of a century, the billionaire owner and CEO of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts has spent big to obtain some of the most iconic instruments in rock history. Gilmour’s Black Strat? A cool $3.9m. Jerry Garcia’s Tiger? $957, 500. The Stratocaster that Bob Dylan played at Newport Folk Festival in 1965? $965, 000. The Gibson SG that George Harrison used on
Yet rather than accumulating expensive toys in some crass display of wealth, talking with Irsay reveals that he has a deep love and appreciation, not only for the timeless music these instruments were used to create but also what they represent as cultural – and indeed countercultural – objects. It’s not just s, either. Irsay’s collection also includes Jack Kerouac’s original 36-metre typewritten manuscript for
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($2.4m), Hunter S Thompson’s Red Shark convertible, Abraham Lincoln’s walking cane and an original Apple II manual signed by Steve Jobs in 1980. Perhaps as a nod to Irsay’s own well-publicised battle with addiction, there’s also the working manuscript for
. Bought at auction in 2018 for another $2.4m, Irsay acknowledges that the text and its famous 12-step program “has literally saved millions of lives”.
Most of these artefacts currently reside either at Irsay’s home or in his office at the NFL team’s headquarters and practice facility. In the interests of making the collection more accessible to the public, a series of pop-up exhibits and concerts in the USA and Europe are set to be the precursor to the opening of a museum akin to Seattle’s MoPOP, which was founded by Microsoft’s Paul Allen. A personal friend of Irsay’s, Allen passed away in 2018 but could regularly be found bidding on many of the same celebrity-owned instruments as the Irsay team, including Ringo Starr’s Beatles-era drums.
About The Tys Collection
Although the museum’s permanent location hasn’t yet been finalised, for the 62-year-old Colts owner, it’s all about inspiring young people to pick up the baton. “History is so important, ” he says. “So much of what we’re about as a world, as humanity, is tied to music. It’s been that way ever since the cavemen were around the fire and they scrawled on the walls, they beat things – there was always this feeling of self-expression. And a deeper feeling than just having words or sign language, or hunting and gathering systems. To me, it’s really important that the museum is alive. How you experience it when you walk in? I want it to be interactive.”
Irsay envisages a space where musical instruments coexist with the other objects in the collection to tell the story of American history and 20th century pop culture. Whether it’s David Gilmour’s Martin D-35 or the franchise his late father Robert purchased back in 1972, he is adamant that he sees himself more as a custodian than an owner. After all, millions of people have strong and intensely personal connections to their favourite musicians and sports teams.
When Bob Dylan went electric at Newport Folk Festival in 1965, it changed the course of pop history. This was there
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said that I would destroy it!” Irsay says, laughing. “We did some fun things with it but we were always careful. We never put it in harm’s way. But I like people to be able to say, ‘I played Tiger’, if you are a player of any magnitude, or even if you just want to hold it. I get letters all the time, ‘Please can I come on a pilgrimage, I just want to see Tiger, it means so much to me’. Our emotional and spiritual lives are so tied to the arts, so tied to music. If someone has a death in the family or a transformative time in their life, and a certain song came out at that time, they remember that moment. It’s way bigger than just saying, ‘Oh, that’s a nice song. That’s a cool groove’. It’s much more than that. I mean, it’s the fabric of people’s lives. It’s so important to me that in the museum, people can play things and touch them.
“Like any music lover or fan I want to try to have fun with it and share it, ” he continues. “But I don’t possess it. I don’t have any ownership over it. I want to make that very fucking clear. With the museum it’s about, ‘How do you create the Willy Wonka factory? How do you sell the golden tickets?’ I can’t be Pete Townshend or Chrissie Hynde or Natalie Merchant or whoever, because that’s just not me. But I can be a steward and a curator.
“It’s the same as the Horseshoe [the Colts]. I have to look after the Horseshoe – that’s my job. Sometimes it’s not popular. Sometimes you might think I’m coldhearted. But it’s professional football. I have this obligation. But the great thing is that I love what I do, so it’s not work. I’m blessed. I don’t really have a job. Watching this collection come together over about 25 years has been a beautiful thing. There’s so many things. I have things I don’t even know I have. You can’t keep track, it’s impossible. My biggest regret was when I lost Wilson, the volleyball from
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Irsay purchased Jerry Garcia’s Tiger for $957, 500 in 2002. Built by luthier Doug Irwin, it was the Grateful Dead star’s main from 1979 onwards and in 1995 was the last he ever played in public
Despite their extraordinary value, Irsay is relaxed when handling these historic instruments. Almost alarmingly so. During the course of our photoshoot, he not only pretends to smash the Black Strat but he also mischievously tucks a lit cigarette under the strings behind the nut. That said, the legendary s all around us aren’t simply props for photoshoot shenanigans these days – Irsay is keen to get the s in his collection into the hands of musicians.
This is evidenced on day two of our stay in Indianapolis when the team puts together an impromptu concert performance in the grounds of a disused psychiatric hospital. The lineup features a cast of leading local session pros led by tech and record producer Marc Johnson, plus Irsay on vocals and the guest of honour, Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Marc’s weapon of choice is Dylan’s Newport Stratocaster and Kenny Wayne selects the Black Strat.
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“I don’t think it’s ever had that kind of blues played on it before, ” Shepherd remarks later, and our own close encounter with the Black Strat reveals a setup that’s clearly been optimised for a less ferocious touch than that of the Louisiana-born blues-rocker. Shepherd may prefer heavier strings and an action with a little more fight but it doesn’t stop him from sounding pretty spectacular with David Gilmour’s longtime number one plugged into a vintage 5E3 Deluxe. For the small audience in attendance, it’s a thrill to hear such a storied played at close quarters in a different musical context.
David Gilmour’s famous Black Strat needs no introduction. Purchased at auction for $3.9m in 2019, at the time the was the most expensive ever sold
Though many of the pieces in the collection have been present during seismic moments in popular music history, it’s interesting to compare s that spent a long time in the service of one artist to those instruments whose spell in the limelight was more fleeting. For example, Gilmour’s Black Strat, heavily modified with very few original parts other than the body, still feels imprinted with the Pink Floyd star’s identity. The lightness and elasticity, the short vibrato arm – everything points to the elegant, lyrical playing style for which Gilmour is famous.
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) with an electric band on 25 July 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, this short but controversial set would later be hailed as a watershed moment in pop history. Yet the 1964 Stratocaster Dylan played that day was soon left behind on a private aeroplane and he never looked back. Today, the neck’s startling lustre and the overall originality of the instrument tell us little about its former owner and, perhaps fittingly, there’s a frustrating and slightly icy sense of detachment that leaves us feeling no closer to rock’s greatest poet and greatest enigma.
And then there’s John Lennon’s 1963 Gretsch. Though Lennon’s time with the was relatively brief, the double-cutaway 6120 featured on the groundbreaking
, The Beatles were reimagining the pop landscape from one studio day to the next, and that certainly gives this instrument a special allure – even if John obviously preferred his Epiphone Casino. Notwithstanding, it’s simply one of the most appealing vintage Gretsch s we’ve ever played and it
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