Guitars

Okay..... so I really, really like guitars. I'm a guitarist after all so naturally I should. In this post I am going to post pictures of some of my favorite guitars and videos with that guitarist as well as some facts on the guitar or guitarist(s) who played the instrument. So let's start out with the Fender Telecaster.




This was a guitar that Fender sent to George Harrison in early 1969. He used it on
what would become the Let It Be album and the famous rooftop concert. He later gave it away. Jimmy Page also played a Telecaster for a time before getting his Gibson Les Paul which I'll discuss later. The solo that Page played on 'Stairway to Heaven' was in fact played on a Fender Telecaster (he had his Les Paul by this time but he said the Telecaster produced the more biting sound that he was looking for).




In 1964 when the Beatles first came to America Rickenbacker gave a twelve-string guitar to George Harrison and made another for John Lennon (which he only used live once). Harrison found that this guitar was really neat. A twelve-string guitar sounds brighter than a six string. Twelve-string's are also a bit more difficult to play obviously with the extra six strings. So when the Beatles recorded their next album A Hard Days Night a couple month or two later, the album was filled with this new bright sound. Especially on the song 'A Hard Days Night' with the famous opening chord. Harrison continued to use this guitar for another year or so before Rickenbacker sent him a new one. This one had more rounded edges and he used it to record the song 'If I Needed Someone' in late 1965 which ended up on Rubber Soul.




In late 1964 Paul McCartney bought a Epiphone Casino. He really liked that guitar and so Lennon and Harrison eventually bought their own too. The Beatles really liked these guitars and on their last world tour in 1966 Harrison and Lennon used them (except when Harrison performed 'If I Needed Someone'). After going psychadelic the next year they did a crazy "homemade" paint job on them. In 1968 though they shed their psychadelic stuff and returned to normal clothing, etc. This included some of the guitars they had painted. Like Lennon's Casino. He had it stripped down to natural wood and sanded. The result was very good and this is basically the guitar he used from this point on (see 'One After 909' from the rootop concert or the 'Revolution' promo below).




Ahh, so we now come to George Harrison's Gibson Les Paul. This guitar was originally Eric Clapton's and bore the name Lucy. In 1968 Clapton gave the guitar to George who used it most of the time for the remaining Beatles songs that they recorded. The first time you see Harrison using it is for the 'Revolution' promo in Sept. of '68. It was later stolen while George was in the US in the '70's but he later recovered it.


I already talked about Jimmy Page earlier but the 'Heartbreaker' video and the picture of him are good examples of what his Les Paul looked like. So I don't need to go into too much detail about his Les Paul other than he had two of them and the main one that he used was the first one that he had received. He now has his own signature model. Here is another video of him using it in 'Rock & Roll' late in Led Zeppelin's career.





Now we come to Angus Young, who has rarely (and I mean rarely) been seen without a Gibson SG. The above picture is some of the guitars that went on tour with him a few years back. Angus has his own signature model nowadays but still sticks with the old SG's. SG stands for Solid Guitar and it's history begins in the early '60's when it was (originally) released as a Les Paul SG. Les Paul, upon seeing the guitar, said he wanted his name off it and then parted ways with Gibson. The guitar remained however, and became a famous guitar like it's cousin the Les Paul. George Harrison had one and you can see it on the 'Paperback Writer/Rain' promos as well as the 'Hey Bulldog' promo. After getting Clapton's Les Paul George gave his SG to Badfinger's guitarist. That guitar today is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Eric Clapton also played a SG at one point and Jimi Hendrix used a white one one time. I believe Pete Townshend of the Who also played one. But Angus Young is the only one who has stuck with the SG over all these years. It's like the band's other trademark besides his school-boy outfit. The only thing's that vary with Angus' SG's are the colors. Mainly they are all black or red with black. I have a total of four AC/DC videos, two of which are the all black and the other two red and black. Here are the two with the all black guitar: 'Riff Raff' and 'Jailbreak.' The other two with the red and black guitar are these: 'Shot Down in Flames' and 'For Those About to Rock (We Salute You).'




And finally, the above picture is my very own guitar (and the reflection of the flash from the camera lol). It's a Yahama so it may not be the best in the world but it suits me for now. I really like the colors and it looks great I think.