Heard this story before?

dapmdave

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So I was surfing the web, reading about George Harrison's guitars. There was a story about how George acquired his Ric 360/12 which I found especially interesting. Here it is (excerpted from this):

"GUITAR BIO: When Francis C. Hall, owner of the Rickenbacker guitar company, found out that the Beatles would be in New York during the winter of 1964 to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, he arranged a meeting with the band at the Savoy Hotel to show them some new instruments, including the company’s new prototype Rickenbacker 360/12. Harrison was sick, however, and didn’t attend. Luckily, Lennon did, and he thought the 360 might be the perfect match for his bandmate. “John Lennon played the 12-string, and he said, ‘You know, I’d like for George to see this instrument. Would you mind going over with us and letting him play it?’” Hall recounted later.

“So it was the man from Rickenbacker who brought these guitars ’round for me,” Harrison recalled. “As for my Rickenbacker 12-string, I started playing it for the first recording sessions we did after we returned from those three Sullivan shows we did in ’64.” The unique, chiming tone of George’s new guitar led the British press to dub the Rickenbacker 12 “the beat boys’ secret weapon.”

Many of us LTGers have heard Mark Dronge tell a very similar story about how he was unsuccessful in an attempt to place a Starfire 12-string with the Beatles. He gave it to Lennon, but that was as far as it went. What I was wondering was who first had this idea. Maybe one of our more adept web researchers already know this or can find out?

(My apologies if this has already been discussed on LTG)
 
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D30Man

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I don't recall seeing this anywhere on LTG before Dave, but I weave in and out like good boxer or a bad driver.. First for me but very interesting indeed..
 

walrus

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Dronge didn't attempt to give the Starfire 12 string to the Beatles until 1966. So Rickenbacker was definitely" first". And of course Dronge purposely gave the guitar to Lennon not Harrison.

BTW, Harrison always said he loved how the Rickenbacker was designed to look like a 6 string, with the "extra" 6 tuners behind the headstock.

walrus
 

dapmdave

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Dronge didn't attempt to give the Starfire 12 string to the Beatles until 1966. So Rickenbacker was definitely" first". And of course Dronge purposely gave the guitar to Lennon not Harrison.

BTW, Harrison always said he loved how the Rickenbacker was designed to look like a 6 string, with the "extra" 6 tuners behind the headstock.

walrus

Thanks.
 

jcwu

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....imagine if Guild had become the mainstay guitar for the Beatles. How different all this (LTG, etc) would be...
 

D30Man

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....imagine if Guild had become the mainstay guitar for the Beatles. How different all this (LTG, etc) would be...

Cant imagine it would be the same Guild we know and love today.. The name might have become more iconic like Gibson or Martin.. Quite frankly a big part of its charm for me is that it is doesn't have the same name recognition as Gibson or Martin..
 

adorshki

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....imagine if Guild had become the mainstay guitar for the Beatles. How different all this (LTG, etc) would be...
Cant imagine it would be the same Guild we know and love today.. The name might have become more iconic like Gibson or Martin.. Quite frankly a big part of its charm for me is that it is doesn't have the same name recognition as Gibson or Martin..

The real point is that there WAS no "mainstay guitar" for the Beatles, only a couple that have been identified with a particular member like Paul's Hofner and John's J-160.
George can be seen playing a Gretsch on the Sullivan show, and Roger McGuinn says he was infected with 12-string lust by seeing George playing his Ric, but George played a ton of different instruments over the years.
AS a kid in the mid '60's I don't think there was much discussion about gear in the press, I only knew they were identified with Vox amps.
The fan magazines of the day didn't focus much on gear (except maybe in the advertising) and the first one to really make a point of examining gear was Guitar Player, not published until '68.
There was a "Beatles" weekly but I actually never really paid attention to that at the time, it was full of the gushing manufactured content typical of the day, not aimed at pre-teen boys.
Certainly by '70 I never ID'd any one of 'em as being dedicated to a specific model the way Hendrix was identified with the Strat, and Page with the Les Paul, and Santana with the SG.
The closest might have actually been John's sanded down Epiphone which I thought was actually an ES-335 at the time (!).
And to say somebody played a Martin acoustic implied they did whatever they could to afford the best, and that the best picked Martins.
 
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walrus

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Right - maybe VOX amps would be their most "loyal" product - Paul still uses them today.

I always found it interesting just how few guitars they actually used over the years. Lennon in particular used that Casino for years - there's a clip in "Imagine" where he complains about how hard it is to play! Get a new one, John!

And no guitar techs throughout their whole career! George used to tune the guitars before their concerts!

walrus
 

adorshki

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Right - maybe VOX amps would be their most "loyal" product - Paul still uses them today.
And nobody ever talks about what kind of guitar he used to play "Blackbird", it was just one of those songs everybody tried out on a flattop before it was superceded by "Over the Hills and Far Away" .

I always found it interesting just how few guitars they actually used over the years. Lennon in particular used that Casino for years - there's a clip in "Imagine" where he complains about how hard it is to play! Get a new one, John!
Yeah George actually turned out to be the guitar slut of the bunch (no big surprise), I never realized just how many guitars he had until stumbling across a run-down somewhere a couple of years back.
Oh here it is:
http://www.thecanteen.com/harrison1.html

The first time I ever saw him with an SG was in the "Hey Bulldog" video which I only saw for the first time in the last ten years... when "Rock Star" game was released....and did he ever actually play a Les Paul?
Oh, there it is on page 10 of the linked site.

And no guitar techs throughout their whole career!
Yeah that was another unsung job in the '60's, most bands had to "find a guy" through word of mouth, and they were in shops.
In fact the whole idea of having a guitar "tweaked" for optimum performance whether acoustic or electric wasn't even addressed anywhere, except for occasional anecdotes like Crosby getting the braces shaved on his Martin (or was that Stills?)
Again, as far as I can recollect Guitar Player was one of the first to even bring that side of the biz to light.
The whole model of techs becoming part of a band's crew and touring with 'em for maintenance didn't evolve until the '70's, that I can recall ever hearing of.
Coincided with the rise of popularity of rewinding pickups and in fact the first dedicated band tech I ever heard of was the Doobie Brothers' Mark Brown.
George used to tune the guitars before their concerts!
walrus
Some guys just gotta hog all the fun.
 
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F312

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And nobody ever talks about what kind of guitar he used to play "Blackbird", it was just one of those songs everybody tried out on a flattop before it was superceded by "Over the Hills and Far Away" .


Yeah George actually turned out to be the guitar slut of the bunch (no big surprise), I never realized just how many guitars he had until stumbling across a run-down somewhere a couple of years back.
Oh here it is:
http://www.thecanteen.com/harrison1.html

The first time I ever saw him with an SG was in the "Hey Bulldog" video which I only saw fro he first time in the last ten years... when "Rock Star" game was released....and did he ever actually play a Les Paul?
Oh, there it is on page 10 of the linked site.


Yeah that was another unsung job in the '60's, most bands had to "find a guy" through word of mouth, and they were in shops.
In fact the whole idea of having a guitar "tweaked" for optimum performance whether acoustic or electric wasn't even addressed anywhere, except for occasional anecdotes like Crosby getting the braces shaved on his Martin (or as that Stills?)
Again, as far as I can recollect Guitar Player was one of the first to even bring that side of the art to life.
The whole model of techs becoming part of a band's crew and touring with 'em for maintenance didn't evolve until the '70's, that I can recall ever hearing of.
Coincided with the rise of popularity of rewinding pickups and in fact the first dedicated band tech I ever heard of was the Doobie Brothers' Mark Brown.

Some guys just gotta hog all the fun.

Your right about no techs available in the day, (the 60s). Now the young whippersnappers got it made. 60, is the new 50s, 70, is the new 80s, err.

Ralph
 

walrus

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The first time I ever saw him with an SG was in the "Hey Bulldog" video which I only saw fro he first time in the last ten years... when "Rock Star" game was released....and did he ever actually play a Les Paul?

Al, George plays a Les Paul on your favorite Beatles song!



walrus
 

adorshki

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Al, George plays a Les Paul on your favorite Beatles song!



walrus


Yep, actually saw that on that site that confirmed he actually had one, but don't recall ever seeing the vid until a few years back, think it was released same time as "Bulldog" commemorating the Rock Star game. And obviously the LP sighting didn't stick.
The image I have associated with "Revolution" is John with his Epi.
Favorite Beatles song?
Tough call now, but absolutely up there in the top 10...and my 45 of it's pretty well worn.
The "Hey Jude" side is almost unplayed.
:glee:
 

adorshki

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Your right about no techs available in the day, (the 60s). Now the young whippersnappers got it made. 60, is the new 50s, 70, is the new 80s, err.

Ralph

You reminded me, I was going to say the first dedicated gizmo guy I ever heard of was Roger Mayer, interviewed in a '75 Guitar Player (natch) Hendrix special where I finally saw confirmed my pet hypothesis that there was more of a connection between Hendrix and the Yardbirds explaining the obvious tone and style cross-pollination than anybody had ever brought up before, that I knew of:
vintage-1975-guitar-player-magazine_1_d037f33aa5109a40f2abaa28d26f66ae.jpg


It turned out to be a very concrete connection:
He was the same guy who'd provided the Yardbirds (and other English Bands) with their fuzz-boxes, and became Hendrix's dedicated tech:
Creating the Octavia, tweaking his string gauge sets and pickups (although he considered pickups to be far less important in the signal chain than most of today's players, or at least, he said of the pre-CBS Strats that "Leo pretty much got it right the first time" IIRC).
And yet, in the '60's, at least from the fans' perspective, does anybody ever remember anybody talking about what a great job Hendrix's gadget tech was doing?
 
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Grassdog

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And no guitar techs throughout their whole career! George used to tune the guitars before their concerts!

Yeah, and just two roadies (Neil and Mal) for the entirety of their career. Can you imagine some of the stories those guys went to their graves with?
 

F312

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You reminded me, I was going to say the first dedicated gizmo guyI ever heard of was Roger Mayer, interviewed in a '75 Guitar Player (natch) Hendrix special where I finally saw confirmed my pet hypothesis that there was more of a connection between Hendrix and the Yardbirds explaining the obvious tone and style cross-pollination than anybody had ever brought up before, that I knew of:
vintage-1975-guitar-player-magazine_1_d037f33aa5109a40f2abaa28d26f66ae.jpg


It turned out to be a very concrete connection:
He was the same guy who'd provided the Yardbirds (and other English Bands) with their fuzz-boxes, and became Hendrix's dedicated tech:
Creating the Octavia, tweaking his string gauge sets and pickups (although he considered pickups to be far less important in the signal chain than most of today's players, or at least, he said of the pre-CBS Strats that "Leo pretty much got it right the first time" IIRC).
And yet, in the '60's, at least from the fans' perspective, does anybody ever remember anybody talking about what a great job Hendrix's gadget tech was doing?

Well I do remember tinkering around with the bridge for tuning purposes that were out of my realm of correcting, but still trying to make it sound in tune as much as possible.

Ralph
 
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