“With The Beatles, George Harrison was a confirmed Gretsch fan – with the occasional Rick 12, for sure,” guitar historian Tony Bacon observes. “As for Gibson, however, in Beatle terms that was a late development for George.
“He’d owned and briefly used an ES‑345, but there he was at London’s Empire Pool in May 1966 playing a rather nice looking SG Standard. George acquired his SG probably in the early months of ’66 – it shipped from Gibson in October ’64.”
Amelia Walker of Christie’s – which recently sold the guitar for $2,271,000 at auction – says that the SG became a go-to guitar that saw a surprising amount of service over a two-year period at a crucial juncture of the band’s career.
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“George Harrison played the Gibson SG both on stage and in the studio from 1966 to 1968,” Amelia says of this guitar, made early in the production run of ‘true’ SGs.
“He would put the guitar into immediate use on recording sessions for the Beatles 1966 studio album Revolver, including on the tracks Paperback Writer and Rain.”
“The SG would become one of his longest-serving studio instruments, used during the sessions for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 and the White Album in 1968. Harrison is seen playing the SG in the promo videos for Paperback Writer, Rain, and Lady Madonna, and would carry the guitar on tour to Europe, the US and Japan in 1966.
“The SG would also be used by John Lennon for Hey Bulldog in 1968. It is incredibly rare for such a well-documented and extensively used Beatles guitar to come to auction.”
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- This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
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