The stories behind six famous purloined axes.
GEORGE HARRISON’S 1965 RICKENBACKER 360/12
STOLEN: Circa September 1966, possibly London GEORGE HARRISON WAS the owner of two Rickenbacker 360/12 12-strings, both gifts to the Beatles guitarist. He received the first — allegedly the second ever made — from Rickenbacker president Francis C. Hall on February 8, 1964, after rehearsals for the group’s Ed Sullivan Show appearance, and went on to make it an integral part of the early Beatles sound on A Hard Day’s Night.
The second was gifted to him by Minneapolis music store B Sharp Music, prior to the Beatles’ August 21, 1965 show at Old Met Stadium. After learning from another visiting Liverpool rock band, the Remo Four, that Harrison might like the guitar, the shop custom ordered it for him. The guitar featured Rickenbacker’s newly introduced style, with rounded edges, rather than the sharp corners seen on the 1964 model, and checkerboard binding on the back, instead of white binding on the front and back.
According to Andy Babiuk’s Beatles Gear book, Harrison put the guitar to use in the studio on the Beatles’ next album, Rubber Soul, where it can be heard on the chiming lick to his song “If I Needed Someone.” He played the guitar in concert on many occasions over the next year, the Beatles’ last as a touring act. It’s been suggested over the years that the ’65 Rick was stolen along with his Gretsch Tennessean and Paul McCartney’s ’61 Höfner bass — a theory now debunked — during the January 1969 sessions for Let It Be. Most likely, the guitar was lifted sometime after the Beatles concluded their 1966 tour on August 29, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, and prior to Harrison’s first trip to India to study sitar with Ravi Shankar.
Finding the guitar has been difficult in part because B Sharp Music didn’t record the serial number. Rickenbacker CEO John Hall has said five 1965 360/12 guitars could be candidates, based on shipment records. A guitar bearing one of the five serial numbers has surfaced, but whether it’s Harrison’s or not is unknown.
JOE SATRIANI’S 1990 IBANEZ JS-2 “PEARLY” PROTOTYPE, BLUE DONNIE AND RAINFOREST
STOLEN: Pearly, on August 21, 2000, Clearwater, Florida. Blue Donnie and Rainforest, sometime in 2000, San Rafael, C
