Who was first with 12 string guitar, Beatles or Beach Boys?

[Lonely Summer]

I've heard the story about the Byrds going to see the Beatles movie "A Hard Days Night", and noticing George Harrison playing a Rickenbacker 12-string; I'm sure I've heard where/when George got that guitar (can't think of any Beatles songs pre-AHDN using the 12-string) but I don't recall now; Carl also used the 12-string on a lot of Beach Boys tracks. Does anyone know which group used it first?

[bgas]

What's the timing for this shot?    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/mysteron09/carlwilson2.jpg

[Ebb and Flow]

The Beatles were first.  George Harrison bought the Rickenbacker model 360/12 when the Beatles first arrived in NYC in February '64 and subsequently made that sound famous in AHDN.  John got one soon afterward.  

I can't remember if it's been determined when Carl switched from a Fender Jaguar to Rickenbacker, but it was sometime in the summer of '64, following the release of AHDN.

Edit: this thread has a lot of good info on Carl's guitars
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,14109.0.html

[Robbie Mac]

George didn't actually buy his Rickenbacker - it was a freebie given to him by the company the Beatles were in New York for the Ed Sullivan Show ( Rickenbacker sought them out after seeing pictures of John with his black solid body Rickenbacker guitar).

[Ebb and Flow]

Makes sense they wouldn't have to pay for equipment after the Sullivan show. 

[Jon Stebbins]

The story is in the Dave Marks book...Carl and David flew to SF to see the premiere of A Hard Day's Night together in summer 1964, it showed there before L.A. They both bought Rickenbacker 12's when they got back to L.A.

[Lonely Summer]

The story is in the Dave Marks book...Carl and David flew to SF to see the premiere of A Hard Day's Night together in summer 1964, it showed there before L.A. They both bought Rickenbacker 12's when they got back to L.A.

BTW, Mr. Stebbins, been reading the Beach Boys in Concert book for a few days now and loving it.

[c-man]

What's the timing for this shot?    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/mysteron09/carlwilson2.jpg

Sometime in 1965.

[Mikie]

George didn't actually buy his Rickenbacker - it was a freebie given to him by the company the Beatles were in New York for the Ed Sullivan Show ( Rickenbacker sought them out after seeing pictures of John with his black solid body Rickenbacker guitar).

George Harrison received his first Rickenbacker 12-string, in a beautiful Fireglo finish. The guitar was given to him by Francis C. Hall, owner and president of the California-based Rickenbacker company. Hall spoke to Brian Epstein before the Beatles arrived in the U.S. and arranged a meeting with the group. Hall kind of had an "in" as John Lennon already had a Rickenbacker Model 325. On February 8 at the Savoy Hilton in New York City, he showed the band several different models. Lennon tried out the 360/12 but thought it would be better for Harrison, who was sick in bed at the Plaza Hotel. When Harrison finally got to see it, he loved it immediately. Harrison’s first 360/12 was the second Rickenbacker 12-string ever made; its serial number — CM107 — dates it to December 1963.

[guitarfool2002]

I love threads like this! 

Just some additional info, it was a genius stroke of marketing and old-fashioned salesmanship hustle by Francis Hall and the Hall family at Rickenbacker to get on board with the Beatles. A music retailer in England had contacted Hall and Rickenbacker in fall 1963 - in the real heat of UK Beatlemania when they were unknown in the US - about seeing the UK's most popular band at the time playing a then-rare Rickenbacker. The shop recommended that Hall contact Brian Epstein to follow up and go for a sales pitch.

Hall staged a coup of sorts in contacting Epstein, and urged everyone in the network of their sales and distribution to keep it top secret so other competitors couldn't one-up them by pitching the Beatles first.

As Mikie details very well, the first meeting was arranged at the Savoy Hotel in NYC, surrounding the Ed Sullivan appearance. Hall not only brought a selection and display of new Rickenbacker guitars (and a very important bass which would factor in later), but he also brought harmonica player and guitarist Toots Theilemans to ostensibly "demonstrate" the guitars, but Theilemans ended up just meeting the band. I'm not sure how, as it wouldn't have been widely known unless there was some obscure UK interview with John in '63, but it was Toots Theilemans seen playing a Rickenbacker on an album cover that caught John's attention, and when John saw that first "Hamburg" 325 model in a shop, he immediately bought it and went into debt. 

So Francis Hall, with Toots in tow, gets the NYC meeting, and shows up with the brand-new Rickenbacker 360-12...it had literally just been finished very late in 1963 and as Mikie says, Harrison's was among the first ever of that now-legendary model. But Francis Hall had more up his sleeve: Besides the guitars, he was hoping to pitch Epstein on a deal for the band to use Rickenbacker amplifiers, apparently that was a direction the company hoped to go in expanding their line. And who better than the Beatles to be seen by millions playing Rickenbacker amps?

But the Beatles didn't go for the amps, and turned them down. They did try them out in NYC, as there are photos of them with the amps, but never signed on.

And Hall, again thinking ahead of his competitors, also brought along a left-handed bass which had been brought specifically for Paul McCartney, in their most popular red sunburst "Fireglo" finish. It was offered to McCartney, but he turned it down. A year later, however, he did finally get that very bass, and it became a trademark for him, and he recorded all of Pepper with it.

John, too, managed to get free stuff. He seemed to enjoy meeting Theilemans, and as the meeting went forward Hall noticed John's original "Hamburg" 325 was pretty much beat to sh*t from all the shows and touring. For John, specifically, Rickenbacker arranged to have a new 325 built to order, a rush job, and the guitar would be delivered to the Beatles hotel in Miami Florida in time for their Ed Sullivan appearance live from Florida in a few weeks. Sure enough, Lennon got the new 325 sent in care of Brian Epstein at their hotel, he retired the Hamburg 325 for good, and took on his new Rickenbacker with updated features and design to replace his road-worn original.

Keep in mind too, Harrison had already bought out of his own pocket, before the Beatles were known in the US, a solidbody Rickenbacker on a visit to the midwest US to visit his sister in the fall of '63. Again, Rickenbacker became aware of this too through photos and reports of George playing what was and still is an obscure model Rickenbacker on some prominent UK television appearances. So Hall, even though John was clearly most associated with his Rickenbacker, also knew George was a proud owner.

Just to add on to Mikie's post with an interesting bit of info, George was very sick when they got to NYC, and was not present for the meeting with Hall and Theilemans to try out the Rickenbacker products. John did balk at the 12-string, and suggested George would be interested as George had recently played and become fond of a fellow UK musician's acoustic 12-string which that guitarist had custom made.

Somehow, Hall managed to get the meeting transferred into George's hotel room, where he was bedridden and being nursed by his sister. It was there that George tried out and immediately fell in love with the Rickenbacker 12-string, and the legend was born...not to mention Rickenbacker standing to make a fortune on their association with The Beatles. And those Rickenbacker amps were also carted into George's room, but again they turned them down in favor of what they had already been using, and Rickenbacker amps in general never caught on in any large-scale way among players. Had the Beatles played them? Who knows.

And thanks to researchers like Andy Babuiak, it was revealed that at the very moment George was testing out the new 12-string from his sick bed, his sister fielded a telephone call to go live on the radio for an interview with one of the big New York DJ's. And in that interview, it was asked in some way what George was doing, and the answer was playing this new Rickenbacker guitar!

Talk about good timing...

Note: For those looking at photos, George's 12-string that he got in New York from Francis Hall has the pointed cutaway where the neck joins the body. His next gift from Rickenbacker was the 12-string similar to the Carl Wilson signature/tribute model, with the rounded-off versus pointed cutaway.

Yet here is Carl with the pointed-cutaway Rickenbacker circa '64:


Here he is circa '65 in the photo posted above with a rounded cutaway 12-string:


And here he is again during the Smile sessions cutting a track in the booth of Western #3 with the "pointy" 12-string:



So just like Harrison, it seems Carl had an original early-production model Rickenbacker 12, then soon after got one of the "new" design 12's with the rounded cutaway. Yet he seems to have used both at least up to 1967 when he switched brands to those Gibson/Epiphone models that had a nasty habit of breaking. 

Keep in mind too that according to Jon Stebbins' research, David Marks and Carl learned their guitar skills early on using borrowed Rickenbacker "budget" models that the music studio/shop had on hand for beginning students.

[Ron]

Rickenbackers used to be cheap, right?  Budget models?

When I was first learning to play guitar in the 90's, I always wanted one but those sumbitches were a couple grand even THEN.  Beautiful guitar.

[guitarfool2002]

Rickenbackers used to be cheap, right?  Budget models?

When I was first learning to play guitar in the 90's, I always wanted one but those sumbitches were a couple grand even THEN.  Beautiful guitar.

They were never cheap, but they did make very few "entry level" designs that were stripped down and lacking ornaments and design flourishes which are what I assume David Marks and Carl had access to when they started taking guitar lessons. I'm not surprised there were "cheap" Rickenbackers available like that at a SoCal shop that gave guitar lessons: They were basically advertising the brand to a new group of young players who would soon be looking for a step-up model of their own. And Rickenbacker in California, late 50's early 60's was getting *creamed* by fellow Californians Fender in the solidbody guitar market.

Rickenbackers were always expensive, at least from the 50's onward when they got fully into the regular guitar market versus lap steels and Hawaiian-music-craze stuff that put them on the map in the 30's. They had what could be the "first" electric guitar with a pickup, the "Frying Pan" lap steel in the early 30's. But for regular-bodied guitars, they weren't much of a presence until the 50's.

George's first 12-string 360 in 1964 would have retailed around $600 US, in 1964 dollar values. Tally up how much that would cost today, and it's a pretty considerable sum that not many players could afford.

John got his 325, the original "Hamburg" model, on "hire purchase" or whatever they called it, basically installment payments that he promised to make. But it sank him into debt, and I wish I could remember reading if he ever bothered to actually pay the shop in full that he took it from! 

When I first got into guitars seriously, maybe age 13 or so, I *really* wanted a Rickenbacker (Beatles) or a Gretsch (Mike Nesmith and the Monkees). Little did I know what these actually cost. And I'd go into shops, at that age and even in later years, where I'd ask about Rickenbackers and the owners or workers would actually get hostile and act like assholes, like I asked a forbidden question. f*** 'em, I'm glad I never went back to those places...

I think Rickenbackers are priced maybe...just a bit...too high, and I've posted this before and will post again, they can be a major pain when it comes to ordering, product info, and the like. They advertise certain new models, you inquire about them, and either the model never comes out or it's a year-plus wait for anything substantial.

But they bank on that image of "exclusivity", like Bentley cars or certain wristwatches, where you have to pay top dollar and be on a waiting list if you want that high-end kind of model from them. Apart from the usual music store 330, 360, and the like.

My 2 cents only, I'm sure others have had different luck trying to get one of them.

[Sam_BFC]

I'd love to get a Rickenbacker for meself.  I even went to my local guitar shop here in North London fairly recently to see about getting one and they told a story of how they tried to order a bass in for another chap previously.  It didn't arrive for about 18 months!

Hard to get hold of indeed.

[Ron]

At the time, I had a huge music store near me and they had them in stock, hanging on the wall, but I never even played one they were so expensive. 

[Mikie]

And speaking of "A Hard Day's Night", I see where they're going to re-release it (fully restored) for download and show it in certain movie theatres this July to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the movie. Would be kinda neat if they reissued the Beatles Hard Day's Night bubblegum cards to go with it. Or posters or flyers or something as a souvenir.

[Lonely Summer]

I'm a very lucky guy - a friend of mine builds guitars, and he made me a replica of the Rick 12-string. Sounds and plays great. Now I owe it to him to make some great music on this thing.