JOHN LENNON - Rickenbacker question.....

His Fender Strat.

EDIT: It doesn't look as pale blue though (more like white), is that just the light?

 

It is the light, look at John's face, very bright light there.

I think that he used strat on Good Morning Good Morning, the rhythm guitar sounds like that. Of course, the photo could be from any other session.
Do we know the date this photo was taken?

Ondra

 

Just came across this article about John and his Strat. The picture was taken at the Astoria, Finsbury Park on December 11th, 1965, apparently from the soundcheck. Also there's a picture of the Beatles guitars backstage at Sheffield on December 8th. Notice the darker coloured Strat in the middle of the picture. Anyaway, check the article out.

http://www.guitarnews.it/blog/2011/11/24/john-lennon-sonic-blue-stratocaster-english-version/

 

Another Sgt Pepper sessions photo of John with his Strat, on this one it's easier to see that it is his pale blue Strat.

 

They needed something that featured Ringo, who was possibly the most popular Beatle after Paul. Young girls loved Ringo's puppy dog face!

 

Note the presence of Paul's original Cavern-era 1961 Hofner (both pickups by the neck), which became his back-up bass after the more famous one was acquired in 1963. That bass went through some renovations in 1965 - refinishing (poorly) and an ugly black plastic top plate was made to anchor the pickups. He must have played the crap out of that instrument in Liverpool and Hamburg!

The '61 Hofner later re-appeared in the promo film for "Revolution" in 1968 and was stolen during the filming of "Let It Be" in 1969, never to be seen again.

 

I understand. But no George song? Using the LP version of 'Act Naturally' spoils the film as a whole IMO, and as I've mentioned (maybe in a different thread), if this came out on DVD, some people might accuse the Beatles of miming! With 2 other songs from the show that they didn't use, I suppose you must be right, but couldn't they just have had more close-ups of Ringo on the other songs instead?

 

I never knew it got stolen. So at the LIB sessions Paul had both Hofners with him, plus the Rickenbacker (which never got used IIRC). In fact I didn't know that he used his original Hofner on those sessions at all, till i saw your photo.

 

I suspect that Act Naturally was included because of Ringo's popularity but that the live version was replaced because Ringo is very out of tune for most of it. Hardly surprising - he was trying to sing along with the sound coming through amplifiers pointed away from him, while playing drums, in the middle of a stadium's worth of people screaming.

I recently read a good book about the Shea concert in '65, the name and author of which escape me, in which, as I recall, it is stated that the reason that ETTBMY was cut was that it wasn't properly filmed.

 

That us interesting, he's so associated with them yet as a star only played them for about 3 years, 2 in America.
The casino was his main ax from late 65-71, to me he's just as associated with it.