Мой первый журнал SUNRISE November № 1 2018 | Page 59

MUSIC
John Lennon’s Nine Guitars
9) GIBSON LES PAUL JUNIOR
After The Beatles’ official breakup in
1970, John Lennon with his wife Yoko Ono
moved from London to New York. He gave one
of the first big concerts after The Beatles at
Madison Square Garden on August 30, 1972. It
was planned to spend the money raised from
the concert on treatment of mentally
handicapped children. At that concert, John
played a special model of Gibson, Les Paul
Junior. That guitar was very similar to the
conventional Les Paul, but had significant
differences. The Junior was produced with
long intervals, and was quite a rare instrument.
This model of guitar was not produced at all in
the 1970s, but Lennon managed to find one.
When Lennon bought the guitar it was in its
initial factory assembly. But the same as with
the Epiphone Casino, he decided to make
some changes. He told Ron De Marino, a New
York guitar maker, to install a “humberdincker”
for him. John must have meant to say
humbucker (a pickup on electric guitars
responsible for the heavy, “metallic” sound),
but misspoke the word. As an explanation, he
said that he was a rhythm guitarist, that is, he
had almost always played the chords, so he
was not familiar with such notions.
Nevertheless, De Marino helped John update
his guitar, but instead of the humbucker he
installed the Charlie Christian pickup, which
had a clear and powerful sound. In addition to
that, there were some other modifications
that made the guitar’s sound more
interesting. Lennon was delighted with the
changes, but ultimately asked him to remove
the previous paint from the guitar. Initially, the
guitar was of the Sunburst color pattern with
light shades in the middle merging into dark
shades at the edges of the guitar body. At the
concert given at Madison Square Garden,
J o h n ’ s G i b s o n w a s o f m a h o g a n y c o l o r.
Meanwhile, it was the hot August of 1972. Only
eight years left till John Lennon’s murder…
CONCLUSION
J o h n Le n n o n l i ve d a s h o r t b u t
wonderful and unique life. In October he could
have turned 78 years old. Who knows what way
the life would have turned for Paul, George and
Ringo if John had not been murdered by a
crazy fan on the fatal night of December 8,
1980. Who knows… There's no way to make the
past come back. But it is also impossible to
take away the memory about the past while
there are those who remember and pass the
reminiscences on to others. John isn't with us
anymore, but he is still popular even with those
who never saw him alive. There are many
reasons for that, but the main ones among
them are his honesty and the desire to change
the world. Indeed, John could also stretch the
truth in reality, and was very naïve in his
struggle for peace, but people believed him.
And I suppose they will still believe him for a
very long time. In the first turn, John will be
remembered as a Beatle, even though many
of his main songs were written after The
Beatles broke up. I don't know if John Lennon
alone can make someone start learning to
play the guitar, but The Beatles together will
surely be a sufficient source of inspiration.
There were different idols in John's young
years: Elvis, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Buddy
Holly. Once they inspired John to learn to play
the guitar.
Oh, there were very many guitars in
John's life, but it seems only 9 of them were
t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t o n e s .
After being in the hands of one of The Beatles,
they became very precious.
They reflect the most important milestones in
the history of a man, a group, and rock'n'roll,
which were destined to change the world
together.
Only 9 guitars that stirred up the
global music and saved the guitar industry.
Follow Alexander on Instagram : @stankovski_1966
November 2018 №1
SUNRISE
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