Georges' Guitars

[DoBotherMe]

Xose, I trolled around the web and couldn't definitively find anything about Twickenham filming other than some interior scenes (like the railcar bit--I Should Have Known Better). But here's a link to Beatles day by day, maybe you can glean something from this. Dana ; )

http://www.dmbeatles.com/history.php?year=1964&PHPSESSID=fa1c76a82b173462a0177f2bb594fe61

[adamzero]

Oh yes!  

My 1963 Country Gentleman......

Very nice!  Great color.  Looks like she sounds like a million bucks.  I had a Rick once (I won in a band contest, off all things).  But it got stolen.

Fortunately it was only the Glenn Frey model.  And insured.

[Hello Goodbye]

Thanks!  It's a bit darker than pictured, a dark walnut.  The flash brings out some reddish hues.  George's Country Gents were made darker for him by the factory.  And yes, with that tube amp it has that early Beatles sound.  
I love it!





Sorry about your Glenn Frey Rick, adamzero.

[An Apple Beatle]

Very fine guitars....glad u were insured AZ.

Tubes all the way! What fender amp is that?...It looks the wrong colour to be a twin?

[Xose]

Xose, I trolled around the web and couldn't definitively find anything about Twickenham filming other than some interior scenes (like the railcar bit--I Should Have Known Better). But here's a link to Beatles day by day, maybe you can glean something from this. Dana ; )

http://www.dmbeatles.com/history.php?year=1964&PHPSESSID=fa1c76a82b173462a0177f2bb594fe61

Thank you SO much for your help!!

Then..., should I definitely stick to the fact that 'If I Fell', 'And I Love Her' and 'Things We Said Today' shootages on AHDN were filmed at Scala Theatre and NOT at Twickenham TV Studios?? If so.., which was the filming date??

Thank you in advance and best wishes!!

Xose

[Hello Goodbye]

Very fine guitars....glad u were insured AZ.

Tubes all the way! What fender amp is that?...It looks the wrong colour to be a twin?

It's a 1963 Fender Vibroverb Reissue...... 2 10 inch Oxford speakers.  I bought this amp in 1991.  It's true to the original and Fender went out of their way to replicate the original in every way with just a minor update change in the circuitry for reliability.  Fender asked the Oxford Speaker Company to reproduce their early 1960s speakers for this amplifier.

[An Apple Beatle]

Very nice HG....even the name VIBOverb excites me no end. lol

[Hello Goodbye]

^   ooops....corrected that....it's Vibroverb

[An Apple Beatle]

Ahhh whoops...it still sounds 'Vibry' to me.  

I'm sure it sounds like a dream.

[adamzero]

I wondered if the lighting brought out the redness, HG.  Most I've seen are darker.  But it's a beautiful instrument.  

Thanks for the concern about the loss of the Rick.  But to be honest I was kinda embarrassed to play a bright red "Glenn Frey" model.  I used the money to buy other equipment I needed.  HG, I also love that Vibroverb look.  Very cool.

[Hello Goodbye]

I wondered if the lighting brought out the redness, HG.  Most I've seen are darker.  But it's a beautiful instrument.  

Thanks for the concern about the loss of the Rick.  But to be honest I was kinda embarrassed to play a bright red "Glenn Frey" model.  I used the money to buy other equipment I needed.  HG, I also love that Vibroverb look.  Very cool.

Yes, the flash brings out some red hues.  Here's another picture of my Country Gentleman, still with a flash but less redness from this angle.  That's a Gibson Tune-O-Matic Bridge replacing the original Gretsch Bar Bridge (which resides in the case):




The brown Tolex gives the Vibroverb a very vintage look.  Fender went to black Tolex in 1964.

[Xose]

Does anybody know where is housed George's guitar collection??

Thanks in advance!!

Xose

[Xose]

...
Resonet Futurama


...

Well, it seems that guitar was really not George's but Rory Best's, Pete Best's brother.

In the superb book David Bedford, Liddypool, Birthplace of The Beatles, Deerfield, Dalton Watson Fine Books, 2009, p. 127, the author interviews Rory -which, by the way, displays his Futurma with him in a photo dated 2008- and this one says:

"He [George] had this great Futurama guitar which, when he opened it upstairs [at The Casbah], was like looking at the Holy Grail". Rory recalled: "This was the closest you could get to the American Fenders. I liked it so much that I went out the next day and bought one. I couldn't play it but I had to have one. Afetr George broke the neck on his [just before going to Hamburg for the first time in 1960, August the 16th.], he came to me and said, 'Can I borrow your guitar, Rory?' so I said, 'Okay, as long as you teach me to play it'. He said okay, and eighteen months later I got it back, battered. And he didn't teach me to play either"

So this means that ALL the photos with George playing a Futurama guitar, don't show his but Rory's...

Best!!

Xosé

[Xose]

More about this subject at the same book:

"...Just before they had left for Hamburg, George had broken the neck of his [Futurama] guitar and had to return it to be repaired. He asked if he could borrow Rory's guitar to tide him over and on his return, tried to sell it to another band member for £30. Thankfully, George was turned down..."

Xosé

[Bobber]

I found this story confirmed in Roag Best's book 'The Beatles The True Beginnings'.
Quote from Paul McCartney: " We'd all seen these pictures of Americans with these posh guitars, Fenders and Stratocasters, but really none of us could afford them and anyway they just weren't around. But this guitar came out called the Futurama that really looked like the posh guitars so then it was the bee's knees. I remember George upstairs in the front parlour, opening the guitar case. It was like a moment of pure magic. He opened it and there it was, like the holy grail."
Rory Best: "George had a problem with the neck of his guitar. Futuramas were made in Yugoslavia and it had to be sent there to be repaired. He asked if he could borrow mine and I said, 'Only if you teach me guitar.' So he borrowed it for a year, I think. He never did teach me. And what was an absolute pristine guitar came back somewhat the worse for wear, shall we say."

There's a picture of the guitar included and it does look battered.