NEVILLE’S ADVOCATE ...
After almost 60 years drooling over the three Beatles’ Casinos, Neville Marten has finally bagged a USA reissue. But there’s more…
Of all the guitars that anyone who knows me would imagine I’d owned, an Epiphone Casino like the one John, George and Paul all played in The Beatles is surely it. And yet, just as I’ve never had a Rickenbacker 12-string or black Gretsch Duo-Jet, this particular model has always escaped my grasp. Until now! When I reviewed the USA-made E230TD Casino reissue in issue 475 it drove that somewhat incomprehensible point home. I loved it, so when one came up recently I had to bag it.
The thing is, all three of the Fabs’ guitars were slightly different from one another. Indeed, Keith Richards’ Epi was different again. Likewise the reissue, which is a kind of amalgamation of the various incarnations that occurred in the mid-60s. So, where some had a Bigsby, others had a trapeze or other style of vibrato; some featured black plastic pickup covers and others nickel. Some were the reddish ‘Royal Tan’, others dark sunburst. McCartney’s 1962 Casino, although lefthanded, has the exact spec that I like, including dark sunburst finish, long Bigsby, nickel pickup covers, and short headstock. My guitar, while also dark sunburst, has a trapeze tailpiece and black plastic P-90s. Thus, a plot was hatched to ‘McCartney-ise’ mine.
Initially, I was simply going to buy the bits and do the job myself. But over our regular Friday lunchtime coffee (a hangover from lockdown days), David Mead and I decided it would make a good Mod Squad. I approached Dave Burrluck with the idea and he said yes, as we’ve not done anything quite like it in the series. Having purchased a hard-to-find Bigsby B7, some German nickel s
