After 45 years, Randy Bachman's cherished 1957 Gretsch guitar finally found — in Tokyo
CBC
For 45 years, Randy Bachman tried filling the void left behind by a guitar — the guitar — he strummed some of rock music's most iconic songs with.
He purchased hundreds of other Gretsch guitars, but the former Guess Who guitarist was unable to find that guitar — a 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model in western orange with black DeArmond pickups.
"I would take the guitar in its case into my hotel room with a hopsack with 12 feet of tow-truck chain," Bachman recalled during an interview on Friday from his home in Sidney, B.C.
"I put my guitar next to the toilet in the bathroom, wrap the chain through the handle of the case, around the case and around the toilet twice and lock it twice. So if anyone was going to steal it, they'd have to rip the toilet off the floor of the bathroom."
The guitar, which he used to pen the likes of No Sugar Tonight, Takin' Care of Business and American Woman, was stolen from a Toronto-area hotel in 1976.
Bachman was putting together an album for Bachman–Turner Overdrive in Toronto when his road manager brought the guitar back to the hotel as they checked out. According to Bachman, the guitar was put in the hotel room with other luggage, and in the five minutes it took for the hotel bill to be paid, the instrument was swiped.
"It was just terrible," Bachman said. "I cried for literally all night.... I loved this guitar so much."
