The Beatles' Guitars of "Get Back": A Short History: featuring Tim Pierce

this video is sponsored by truefire over 2 million guitar players worldwide improve their playing using truefire's online lesson systems learn practice and play with drew fire [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] hmm [Music] hi this is keith williams welcome to 5 watt world where interested to help you get the most music from the least gear i was born in 1960 that same year a local band from liverpool england named the quarrymen changed their name to the silver beetles then later settled on simply the beatles while i was learning my own name they'd settled on this unusual moniker in part as a tribute to the recently deceased buddy holly whose band was called the crickets revolver was released the year i learned to write the white album came out the same year i kissed a girl for the first time or she kissed me the memory is unclear but i know that happened under the silver beech tree in the playground at lyons elementary by the time i was begging my parents for my first guitar at the age of 10 the band had broken up my father was playing abby road on perpetual repeat on the home phonograph and memorium of the most important band that ever was 12 guitars bases and amps that's all the instruments the four beatles used collectively on the sessions and get back the documentary gives us a look at the songwriting process of the beatles and a glimpse into the bare bones studio and instrument complement that they use to make their musical magic we'll take a look at each of the guitars and bases used their history with the band and when we know it where the guitars are now harrison's 57 les paul the lads epiphone casinos mccartney's hofner 500's the rosewood telecaster and the rest they're all in here so if you've always wanted to know more about the instruments used to make history then stay tuned because this is the five world history of the guitars of get back if you enjoy our videos take a minute to subscribe and hit the bell icon to be notified when we put out a new video we always want to give you choices so there's now three ways you can support five watt world choose a patreon level to be a part of exclusive live streams or have early access to videos grab a t-shirt hoodie the short history bundle or stomp preset pack from the store or simply make a donation down in the tip jar in the description if you enjoy 5 world think about supporting us in the way that best fits your life and thanks in advance you folks are five where world i just make the videos though it's now known as a lower priced subsidiary of gibson in the early part of the 20th century epiphone was a full-on competitor of gibson's founded in 1873 by the late 50s epiphone had gone through generational changes in leadership that had left it a weak competitor to gibson except for the base division gibson president ted mccarty knew the epiphone president from when he had been a buyer for wurlitzer and it approached him about buying the base division in 1957 epiphone called to say that they were ready to sell the price for the entire company was just twenty thousand dollars gibson had run a secondary line back in the thirties with its kalamazoo branded instruments and they approached the epiphone name in much the same way mccarty wanted the epiphone guitars to be almost the equal of the gibsons but not quite for example instead of the new full-size humbucking debuting and the gibson guitars they'd have minis but as those golden years that we're concerned about unfolded the lines were blurred between the two in the spring of 58 mccarty gave strong orders to get the epiphone brand integrated into the gibson production machine and out to the gibson dealer network to make this happen initially they didn't so much create a sub brand but rather used epiphone to fill in the holes in their own production line three years later in 61 our story really lights up with the release of the casino based on the existing gibson es330 model the casino had the double cutaway thin line shape of the s335 and the epiphone sheridan but it was a fully hollow guitar and came with two single coil p90 pickups the casino sales like that of the es-330 were far behind that of its semi-hollow relatives until late in 1964 when paul mccartney bought a casino in britain to be followed a year or two later by both john lennon and george harrison mccartney had been influenced to get his casino by blues musician john mayall an influence exercise during hours and hours of listening to blues records over at male's house this is a 1962 epiphone casino serial number is not far away i'm told from paul mccartney's this is a 67 a drip edge deluxe plugged into my speakers downstairs i put pyramid flat wound strings on this guitar because i wanted it to sound more like the period i think it worked kind of hear that clack here's the neck pickup [Music] this guitar is great for arpeggios it's great for lines it works for lead [Applause] but it really works for simply strumming a song [Music] mccartney would play his casino on ticket to ride and harrison would appear on film playing it in the video for hello goodbye unlike what had happened with rickenbacker's sales due to the beatles epiphone didn't see an explosion and sales of their guitars but what it did gain was a sense that they were guitars that should be taken seriously by top musicians and that they were decidedly not inferior to gibson the epiphone casino es230td model that mccartney bought has the early gibson design headstock rather than the later epi hourglass shaped headstock the specific guitar serial number 84075 according to gibson records shipped on november 1st 1962. as such it would have been built on the same production line as the gibson guitars right there in the plant in kalamazoo michigan mccartney modified the guitar for left-handed playing restringing it and having the intonation corrected at the bridge while adding a strap button to the lower bout to facilitate playing standing and left-handed by the summer of 66 harrison and lennon got on board each buying a casino the main difference between the two of those guitars being that harrison's guitar had a bixby vibrato while lennon's has the standard trapeze tail piece lennon's was unusual in that it had a small black ring mounted around the pickup selector switch both of these later guitars have the epi hourglass headstock and had gold-colored volume and tone knobs one of the earliest casino sightings was the beatles miming 2 rain and paperback rider on top of the pops on june 6 1966 that year both harrison and lennon would choose their casinos as their main instruments for the tours of japan germany and the us in 68 the beatles would travel to india to study transcendental meditation with their singer songwriter and guitarist friend donovan leach donovan convinced lennon and harrison that the instruments would sound better without the heavy finish upon returning to london while they were making the white album they sanded the finish off their casinos harrison believed that they were much better sounding guitars with this change promo clips for the white album show lennon playing his now natural casino as this final season of the beatles career played out lennon would use the casino as his main instrument and it's no surprise it's all over the footage and get back and of course this included the famous rooftop performance at the end of those sessions that would be the beatles last public performance john paul and george would each continue to use their casinos on solo projects and recordings paul still uses his original casino and has on occasion referred to it as his favorite electric saying if i had to choose one electric guitar it would be this two different martin d28s make an appearance and get back mccartney's 1967 guitar was purchased new and lennon's secondhand 1965 martin seems to have been purchased prior to the trip to india in february of 1968. it can be seen as early the promo film for hello goodbye filmed on november 10 1967. lennon would give his d28 to rockabilly legend ronnie hawkins in december of 69 when lennon and yoko visited canada later on an acquaintance of hawkins surreptitiously swapped it out for a 1972 d28 in the case so the current location of lenin's d28 is still unknown mccartney still owns and plays his original d28 harrison had bought a brand new gibson j200 in 1968 during the white album sessions the guitar became a favorite of both harrison and lennon's for recording acoustic rhythm parts it's probably best known as the guitar used on here comes the sun from abbey road as a mid 60s j200 it's a unique in that the j200s of those years have a tunomatic bridge fitted to the top interestingly many of the most famous j200 parts from that era including the who's pinball wizard and led zeppelin's babe i'm going to leave you were recorded with these uniquely equipped j200s lennon is often seen playing the guitar in get back and uses it to perform maggie may and two of us famously harrison is said to have given his j200 to his friend bob dylan some even go so far as to say that's the guitar that dylan is holding on the cover of nashville skyline that was released in april of 69 but this really doesn't hold up to scrutiny of the timelines nor do the photographic evidence of the two guitars as dylan's guitar had some serious wear at the sound hole while harrisons did not so it's more likely that simply they own two very similar guitars and the story well it makes a good story the guitar that worried me the most when i approached this project was the lap steel that we see unboxed early in the studio footage but in the end like most things beatles it's heavily documented it's the hoffner 5140 hawaiian standard it was an intermediate student model produced in the mid 60s we hear john quip that if george gets good on it he'll buy him a good one the catalog copy describes the instrument as being made of solid wood and having a nova sonic double pole single coil pickup tone and volume controls and a plated metal tail piece the guitar was tuned to an open d7 for the session d-a-d-f-sharp cd lennon is seen playing the lap steel on for you blue and though it's difficult to get a good look at his left hand given the sheer amount of cigarette smoking throughout the film it's reasonable to that the theory that john is barring the strings with a cigarette lighter i've always partnered with true fire as a sponsor because i believe in what they do using world-class teachers to create online lessons i've used them for years and my playing always improves when i start a new course i'm currently walking my way through jeff mcelan's breakthrough blues rock soloing jeff teaches me something new every time [Music] when someone tells me they're playing is in a rut i always tell them to grab some lessons instead of immediately start shopping for a new guitar i really like true fire and i think if you give them a shot you'll like them too get 25 off courses using the promo code 5w 25 or like i have for many years sign up for the all-access pass to use the entire truefire catalog you can sample anything in the catalog with the all-access pass and see what you want to learn next i love their tagline learn practice and play with truefire i'd like to thank truefire for our ongoing partnership and for sponsoring this video along with the rosewood tele the other guitar used most by george harrison in the film is his 1957 les paul as a 57 the guitar originally had the unique early combination of a gold top and the first humbucking pickups introduced that year according to gibson record it shipped from the factory on december 19 1957 serial number 7-8789 by 65 the guitar had been through the hands of john sebastian of the love and spoonful who traded it to rick derringer as the guitar was quite road worn by that point derringer when he was passing through kalamazoo michigan with the band arranged to have gibson refinish the guitar in the then popular red of the 60s sgs but when he got it back derringer wasn't happy with the finish and he traded it to the dan armstrong guitar shop in new york the guitar spent just a few days there in the shop before it was snapped up by eric clapton this was during the time when clapton was primarily playing his painted psychedelic sg known as the fool his reverse firebird and the 1960 sunburst les paul he'd bought from andy summers after the beno les paul had been stolen extremely close friends in august of 1968 clapton gifted the guitar to harrison george dubbed the guitar lucy after the popular red-headed comedian lucille ball and all of this led to the guitar being in the studio when harrison invited clapton to come by and put down a solo on while my guitar gently weeps harrison can be seen playing lucy in the promo film for revolution and famously would appear on the three-way guitar solo on the end from abbey road effectively being used as harrison's last solo voice with the beatles when stu sudcliff quit the beatles in the middle of a run of gigs in hamburg germany in 1961 to go back to art school paul was enlisted to move from piano to bass in an interview with guitar historian tony bacon mccartney recalled finding the quote violin-shaped bass hanging in a little shop in the center of town according to paul the hoffner 500-1 was bought for the deutsche mark's equivalent of 45 saying that the right-handed model was then set up upside down for left-handed playing but paul's story runs contrary to the one told elsewhere that mccartney ordered a left-handed version of the base from the steinway store in hamburg a look at the guitar tends to line weight to the ladder story as the controls are where they should be on a left-handed instrument once back in england paul would use the 61 hoffner for all the gigs at the cavern club and it's why the base is often referred to as the cavern base a short scale instrument strung with flat one strings it ironically demanded you to play it gently to produce the explosive sounds that only paul seemed to be able to achieve this type thing because i get people always say give us like a kind of a mccartney kind of thing here's his number yeah just go i've always just been at the end of the day i'm fanboy when i hear him play i'm not a pick player i didn't come from guitar and he was a guitarist that ended up by default playing bass and he so he plays in a very different way i remember hearing an uh an article an interview with him where he talked about with the hoffner he when he went back to hoffner after rickenbacker and all that he had to remember that the lighter you play one the better it sounds because it'll compress on you really bad because it's a crappy instrument right they're really cute but it's really kind of a junky instrument but he made it into this world-class instrument but i've never heard anybody play a hoffner that sounds as good as a mccartney it was played on some iconic beatles recordings including their very first studio outing in june 1961 in hamburg their first single love me do and 62 and their first two albums please please me and with the beatles in 1963. it's the one you hear on she loves you twist and shout it was played in hamburg at the cavern club and at abbey road you can also notably see him playing in the video shot for revolution that was filmed in 1968 by early 64 the base was in need of repairs and so it was sent to a firm in london to have the work done they re-sprayed the base a darker three-part sunburst and fitted new knobs most significantly they made a custom pickup surround that frame and hold both pickups it's very distinctive and no other 500-1 base looks like it soon after the filming of the get back sessions the 61 base would be stolen some say from the apple studios and others say from abbey road the instrument has never been recovered and hofra recently launched a campaign to find the base it may well be the most important missing instrument in existence in 1963 hoffner gave mccartney his second 500-1 base and this has the pickups more traditionally placed in the neck and bridge positions it's this base that we see sporting a basement sticker that was removed from the 2x12 speaker box that fender had sent along with the basement amp paul still owns this 63 and can be seen playing it in concert from 1966 on mccartney had been mainly playing his rickenbacker 4001 s but as he wanted to get back to the live studio sounds of the band's early years he pulled out the hoffners for the sessions the sound of the tune get back played on the 63 is the unique sound of these original hoffners the sound of the rick 4001 s had led mccartney to set aside his trusty hoffners in 66 and we see the rick in the studio as well the folks at rickenbacker had given the base to paul when the beatles played the hollywood bowl in august of 1964. they'd offered the base to paul in february when they gave george his 12th string but they were asking him to pay a discounted amount of money for it the base wasn't immediately appealing to him as it was heavier and had a longer 33.25 inch scale than the hoffners but the sound and playability of the neck won him over so that when they offered it to him for free that summer he took it it has a neck through construction with the classic horseshoe bridge pickup and the toaster style neck pickup it was a model 4001 s or to use the british distributor rose morris's numbering system that so many people quote a model 1999 as outlined in the rickenbacker base history i made this was a custom instrument built for paul one of only two left-handed bases being built that year though it has a left-handed body it's a right-handed neck that was flipped over so that the headstock is upside down the base started life as a standard fire glow finish around the time of sergeant peppers the base would be painted in white and psychedelic colors only to later have paul strip it back to natural maple or maple glow finish after the sessions we see and get back he played this rick throughout his time with the solo band wings and he still owns and plays the bass to this day an epiphone rivoli bass makes an appearance in a photo montage of paul's basses leaning up against a chair but there's no evidence that he used the base on any of the tracks on the record nor did we see him holding the base in the film in 1968 fenders long-time marketing and sales boss don randle was finally able to set up a meeting with the beatles the meeting was held at apple studio headquarters and though paul was the only one there at the start jon came into the meeting later on randall was there to try to convince the beatles to use their fender guitars more publicly it wasn't widely known but the beatles had used fenders in the studios for a number of years mal evans from the beatles staff had been sent out to buy two stratocasters by the beatles manager brian epstein during the recording of help he was given the specific instruction that epstein would only pay for them if he could find two identical guitars so john and george each had these second hand blue stratocasters for studio work back in 65 and paul had bought an esquire in 67 but the beatles weren't using the fenders on stage and so to encourage them randall would offer to supply the band with a selection of new gear what this included has been widely speculated at but it's very likely that it included a fender-based six six string bass some fender rhodes pianos a selection of amplifiers including a pa system and the now famous rosewood telecaster for george delighted by the fact that the beatles were using more fender gear randle also sent the band several twin reverbs and a 50 watt export basement model with a 2x12 speaker cabinet lennon and harrison were using the twins in the studio and live on the rooftop concert a third twin was sitting as a backup for the suitcase roads and was plugged into a home or pianet that went unused the 85 watt twins can be heard on the edge of breakup at times and must have been very loud in the room it's debated how many of these amps were gifted to the beatles by fender but they're certainly from that year as the drip edge amps were brand new at that time lennon ran his casino in the twins normal channel while harrison ran into the vibrato channel dialing in a touch of reverb on occasion and since it was mentioned above let's cover george stratocaster that makes a very brief appearance in the documentary as stated earlier george got the guitar in 65 but the guitar was actually a use 61. lennon's stratocaster was also a 61 and both guitars were the same sonic blue in 67 during the period when the beatles experimented with lsd harrison would paint the strat with fluorescent dagelo paint and name it rocky around 69 harrison began using rocky for slide parts setting it up based on advice he got from ry cooter the strat remained one of harrison's favorite guitars and it's used it on projects throughout the rest of his life originally introduced in 1961 the base6 would never achieve the popularity of so many other leo fenders creations it was designed to compete head to head with the dan electro ub2 six string bass guitars at the time which had become popular with studio musicians for doubling bass parts and what came to be called tic tac bass lines tuned as a standard guitar but down an entire octave it had a 30 inch scale what is referred to in the bass world as a short scale with defender precision setting the standard at 34 inches the model would eventually be discontinued in 1975. it's assumed that this came along with the pile of other fender gear that's been negotiated by don randall in that famous meeting at apple records in 68. both harrison and lennon had played it in november of 1968 on the white album sessions the band seemed to prefer to use the short scale and wider sonic range of the base 6. you can see harrison and lennon playing the base 6 plugged into the 68 basement head running through the 2x12 cabinet when mccartney is playing piano or guitar and finally we come to the last guitar the famous rosewood telecaster fender had decided to build rosewood versions of both the telecaster and stratocaster and roger rosmeisel would come over to fender in 62 after leaving rickenbacker was put in charge of building the prototypes the telly was slated for harrison and the strat was to go to hendricks to generate publicity for the eventual model launched rosmeisel and phil kubicki at fender actually made four of the custom rosewood guitars two each and the plan was to give the best of the two to george and jimmy the guitar has a two-piece rosewood body and a thin layer of maple between the top and back sandwich with a clear satin poly finish to highlight the rosewood grain of the wood the neck was also two pieces of rosewood with a rosewood fingerboard they built the parts for the four guitars and they chose what they thought were the best body and neck assembled the tele and sent it to england via personal courier to be delivered to the beatles apple headquarters at the end of 1968 just after the release of the white album the exact whereabouts of the other three prototypes cannot be confirmed but there have been some interesting stories floating around ever since fender put the rosewood tally into production during 1969 but it only stayed in the line a couple of years so this is a 2017 george harrison limited edition rosewood telecaster chambered body mid 60's c-shaped neck vintage style pickups fender f-stamped tuners and a very cool thing on the back but i really love the aesthetic of this hand rubbed finish i think the chambered body makes it sound sweeter that's my gut let's listen to the treble pick up [Music] and the neck pickup [Music] after using the guitar at the end of 68 and into 69 george gave his guitar to delaney bramlett of delaney and bonnie bramlett kept the guitar until two years after harrison's death when it was bought at auction by george's widow olivia harrison for 434 thousand seven hundred fifty dollars it can be seen along with other famous guitars still owned by the family in this photo of harrison's son danny the beatles were the soundtrack of my youth and probably a good percentage of yours it's hard to overstate how big they were i even had a teacher in the first grade who fresh out of college would have us sing beatles tunes as we walked along the school grounds in single file their music was everywhere and it felt as though it crossed generations well at least in my house where my parents were probably 10 years younger than most of my friends just last week pawing through some christmas things in the storage room at my mother's house i came across this the original copy of abby road that my father played endlessly almost as if an eulogy when the band broke up it isn't an overstatement to say that the songs on get back changed the world and now the image of the beatles serious and silly at times writing those tunes and get back gives context to those sounds and also reminds us that these were real people i suppose that in part of my mind this record has really never stopped playing first i need to thank the amazing tim pierce for sharing his impressions of the 62 epiphone casino and the reissue fender rose with telecaster but most of all for writing producing and playing the intro and outro piece here [Music] [Applause] [Music] tim's a good friend and i joked to him even if i had become a record producer i likely wouldn't have been at a level where i could have afforded to hire him so it's amazing to do this with him here i need to thank jack conti and ryan lerman from professional musicians react for sharing the clip of leland scalar talking about paul mccartney's playing obviously i'm a loyal watch of their videos and all of you should be too it's too much fun the link to the full interview is in the description three books were heavily used in my research the epiphone guitar book by walter carter yes the guy that now owns and runs carter vintage guitars in nashville today before the store walter was the company historian at gibson the beatles gear by andy babio this is seen as the bible on beatles gear for good reason i understand that andy spent time in his youth as a salesman at the venerable house of guitars near rochester new york a place that both rick beatto and i haunted in our youth the beatles recording reference manual to volume 5 by jerry hammock an exhaustive treatise on instruments and signal paths of each recording from let it be through abby road i also need to thank chris gill for his excellent article for guitar world the beatles get back gear the link for all of these are in the description i need to thank perry mcmanus for helping clean up the script perry is the entire and holy volunteer staff here at five world and i rely on him for corrections and often directions in running five watt world in particular i need to thank the members of friends of five watt on patreon i really appreciate you supporting 5w world it's the guitar community from around the world that i've always imagined having and i need to thank all of you that have purchased the short history season one bundle the stomp preset pack a t-shirt or tossed something into the tip jar this year you keep five wet world running if you enjoyed this short history of the guitars that get back hit the like button and if you haven't subscribed yet go ahead and hit that too thanks for watching until next time i'm keith williams thanks for being a part of the 5 wild [Music] you

Channel: five watt world

Views: 423,452

Keywords: the beatles, get back, five watt world, keith williams, rosewood telecaster, lucy les paul, epiphone casino, hofner 500, beatle bass

Id: zwz79rznCZs

Length: 28min 34sec (1714 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 20 2021