In certain circles (eh hem…), the Beatles’ array of instruments is as celebrated as their music, the lore originating with The Cavern and weaving through early hits to their height of fame and beyond.
Collectors, dealers, followers, and fans of the band talk about “lost” Beatles instruments like the Höfner Club 40 and a Sonic Blue Stratocaster, both used by John Lennon, and – until three months ago – this 1964 Framus Hootenanny.
Arguably the greatest guitar find in decades, it was rediscovered after having spent 50 years in an attic two hours from London.
The 12-string belonged to the former road manager for the ’60s folk duo Peter and Gordon, who had been gifted the instrument by Gordon Waller after they called it quits in 1968. Not long after, the guitar (in its unusual Maton case) was stashed away to suffer the “out of sight, out of mind” fate of so many material possessions.
Now 90, the owner and his 75-year-old wife, who are remaining anonymous, had decided to finally move out of the house where for a half-century they raised a family and created memories. Children long since grown and with space waiting in a retirement home, they put the house on the market. One day later, it sold.
To help with what suddenly became a quick move, they summoned friends and family including their son from Sweden. His task? Clearing the attic, where it didn’t take long to discover the dusty rectangular box. Lugging it down the ladder, he summoned his father. Seeing it, the man flashed back to his life with Waller and Asher, McCartney and Lennon.
Recalling news reports of Beatles guitars being sold at auction, they sent an e-mail to the London offices of Julien’s Auctions. At their desks that Saturday were Executive Directors Darren Julien and Martin Nolan. Julien received the e-mail and responded immediately. After a conversation and a glimpse of photos, they were on the road.
The Beatles’ circle of friends in the mid ’60s included Waller and his partner, Peter Asher; McCartney and Lennon wrote several hits for the duo, including “A World Without Love,” which reached #1 in the U.S. and U.K., as well as “Nobody I Know,” “I Don’t Want To See You Again,” and “Woman.” Also in that circle was the man who’d held the Hootenanny all those years, as well as Peter Asher’s sister, Jane, who dated McCartney for five years beginning in 1963; the Beatle rented a room in the Asher family home on Wimple Street, as did the Hootenanny’s owner, who recalls that McCartney, Lennon, and George Harrison would write songs at a piano near his room in the basement.
In 1963, the Beatles scored six Top 5 and other chart hits in the U.S., then things got crazy. A month ahead of three February ’64 appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the band’s American labels, Capitol and Vee Jay, each released an album of songs recorded at EMI Studios in London and mostly used on the band’s two 1963 U.K. albums. After the Sullivan broadcasts, though, demand for all things Beatles became insatiable, and the labels spent the rest of the year releasing nearly every song the band had recorded in England over the prior two years, compiled on six more albums; four reached #1 while the other two #2, sometimes held out of #1 by one of the others.
They also embarked on their first world tour, playing nearly every night in June at venues in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand followed by nine dates in England through July and early August, then wrapping with 32 shows in 25 American cities through September 20. In early October, they were back at EMI Studios, recording “She’s a Woman,” “I Feel Fine,” “Eight Days a Week,” and “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party’; the first two were released as singles on November 23.
Barely more than a year later, though, the band went from being four smiling kids riding the adrenaline high of pop-star status in England to being four guys burnt out by the hamster wheel that was touring, writing, and recording. But the commitments kept piling up.
Biggest of the lot was filming a second movie to continue capitalizing on their momentum, and recording a soundtrack to accompany it. It was a pivotal moment, as fame and celebrity wore on them; Lennon’s marriage was failing and he had a two-year-old son to raise, while Ringo Starr was a newlywed. Did they long for a different life? Perhaps, but…
“Beatlemania was still happening,” noted Andy Babiuk, author of the supremely informative book Beatles Gear, who helped Julien’s confirm the guitar’s provenance.
With a significant budget jump compared to 1964’s Hard Days Night, shooting for the movie that became Help! began February 23 in the Bahamas then moved to the English countryside before wrapping in London on April 14. Filmed in color and with top-notch production, its James Bond-satire plot blended with Marx Brothers hijinx was ultimately little more than strung-together “What the hell is going on?” moments, with script seemingly an afterthought.
However, the music created for the Help! album is strong, conceptually and compositionally, reflecting the band’s headspace in less-than-happy times.
“They had matured beyond ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah…’ to more-complex songs like ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’,” said Babiuk. “They were a step up.”
More personal, revealing, and topical, the album’s highlights include the title track along with “Yesterday,” “Ticket to Ride,” and one track for which the Hootenanny was recruited, per producer George Martin’s studio logs – “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” a folky Lennon song overtly influenced by Bob Dylan.
Further helping verify the Framus’ story is a scene from the movie in which the band awkwardly serenades heroine Ahme (played by Eleanor Bron) with the song, Lennon strumming it as he sings while Harrison “plays” a J-160E and Starr hits the tambourine at the top of each 6/8 bar.
“There are color photos from that scene, and you can see the Hootenanny’s rosette really clearly,” said Babiuk. “The wood has several different-colored pieces, and it matches the sale guitar. And of course the wood in rosettes is never the same from one to the next. Same with the pickguard, which is tortoiseshell, and the pickguard is identical to the one in that photo.”
More proof came via a December, 1965, British television special, “The Music of Lennon and McCartney,” on which Lennon and McCartney introduced British pop artists doing Beatles songs, some of which had become hits for those artists.
“Lo and behold, Peter and Gordon did ‘A World Without Love,’ and Waller is playing this guitar!” said Babiuk, who further speculates that may have been the day that the guitar changed hands.
Other Help! songs featuring the Framus are “It’s Only Love” and “I’ve Just Seen A Face.” The guitar also made the cut at least twice during the sessions for the follow-up, Rubber Soul, where Harrison used it to lay the rhythm tracks on “Norwegian Wood” and “Girl.”
“That was a very important time for them,” said Nolan. “And the fact that this guitar is documented with George playing it is important because they didn’t always share instruments. There’s also a photo of John changing a string on the guitar!”
“Rubber Soul is one of their coolest records because all four were still creating music together as a unit,” added Babiuk, who conducted the majority of the research for Beatles Gear in the early 1990s, when such work meant tracking down every related book and magazine. One periodical was particularly helpful for identifying guitars, including the Framus.
“In the ’60s, Sean O’Mahoney, the publisher of Beat Instrumental, also did a fan-club magazine called Beatles Monthly, and was given full access to the studio during the Help! sessions. He or his staff shot pictures that provided a wealth of knowledge, not only showing the instruments the guys were holding or playing, but also stuff that was laying around.” One of things on the floor was… you guessed it – the Framus.
When he first handled the guitar at the owners’ home, Nolan recalls it looked the part of a long-lost instrument with broken strings. And he had one question for them that spurred a trip to the bin.
“We asked about the Maton case, and they told us, ‘Oh, it was so beat up that we tossed it.’ Fortunately, it was a Saturday evening and there was no collection that day, so we went to haul it back.”
Lucky indeed, as it bolstered provenance.
“Looking at photographs of the band in EMI Studios at the time, they’re all there – John, Paul, Ringo, George – the guitar, and the case, on the floor with its Maton tag,” said Babiuk.
Though its exterior was in rough shape – cover peeling, handle hanging by a thread – its plush yellow interior was in near-perfect shape, which played a role in the guitar’s condition.
“The case saved the guitar,” Nolan said.
Like any guitar that had undergone 50 years of temperature and humidity cycles, it needed a bit of TLC. Julien’s contacted repairman Ryan Schuermann in Los Angeles, who was handed an instrument in “shockingly good” condition considering what it had been through.
“Usually, when a guitar sits around that long, it develops cracks and the neck angle will need to be corrected, especially Asian-and European-made guitars, which have two-piece heel construction,” he said.
Schuermann was prepared to be meticulous about separating the neck from its joint at the body, “But it lifted off freely right away, which was a fantastic sign.”
With the neck re-set, the bridge steamed back to flat, and the finish on the neck and body needing nothing more than a cleaning, the guitar was once again fully playable. Babiuk ventured to L.A. to give it a strum.
“It sounded amazing – wonderful – and it held tune really well,” he said. “It’s a great guitar… really cool.”
So, where does it sit in the pantheon of Beatles guitars?
“It’s up there, for sure,” said Nolan. “The band didn’t use many 12-strings, and the fact this one was on the Help! album, Rubber Soul, ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,’ and ‘Norwegian Wood’ adds to its draw.
“The Gibson J-160E that sold in 2015 was an important guitar that for years held the world-record sale price at $2.4 million. But when you look at this guitar and remember that it’s from the height of the Beatlemania…”
After Darren Julien told his friend Ringo Starr about the guitar, the former Beatle asked to see it.
“It was special to see 83-year-old Ringo with it, genuinely excited because the guitar took him back to his youth,” said Nolan. “He said, ‘I remember filming that scene, sitting below John with the tambourine!’ “He was very appreciative and happy for the people who found it, and the impact its sale will have on their lives.”
Listed in the sale catalog and on Julien’s website as Lot 51, “The Beatles/John Lennon ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ Acoustic Guitar,” bidding opened at $150,000 and quickly shot to $1 million, which is where it sat as this issue went to press. In the weeks leading up the sale, the guitar was displayed in London, Ireland, Nashville, and New York.
Babiuk and Nolan agree that as guitarhead memorabilia is concerned, for a lot of reasons, the Hootenanny is hard to beat.
“It just has a feel-good factor about it,” said Nolan.
This article originally appeared in VG’s July 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
