Randy Bachman will soon be reunited with his long lost orange 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model guitar that was stolen from a Toronto hotel in 1976.
Randy talked about finding the lost guitar:
"I talked about this guitar in every radio show I've done and everything. We got contacted by a guy in White Rock [British Columbia, Canada] who said he had facially recognized my guitar. He found a guy named Takeshi in Japan playing my Gretsch. Because Koko, my daughter-in-law, is Japanese, and Takeshi's Japanese and doesn't speak any English, she contacted him. We did a Zoom, he brought my guitar into the camera [and] I was frozen. It was my guitar. And he's a very honorable guy and he said he would give me back my guitar, but I had to find him its twin."
Bachman at one time had collected more than 350 Gretsch guitars.He reached out to longtime friend Gary Dick at Gary's Classic Guitars in Loveland, Ohio to help find another guitar, one in mint condition, for him to trade.
Randy talked about what he will have to do to get back his 1957 Gretsch guitar:
"My original '57 Gretsch is in Tokyo with Takeshi. We're gonna take this [the replacement] when we can travel, when COVID's over, and go back and trade him. Go to the Gretsch factory in Nagoya, gonna do a show in the nightclub, and Takeshi, who's a great guy, is gonna play this song with me, which I wrote on this guitar [plays the riff from 'Takin' Care of Business']. You see how this guitar has the sound like no other. It's the 'Takin' Care of Business' guitar."
Bachman played the guitar on The Guess Who's "No Sugar Tonight" and "American Woman." He says that he and Neil Young would go to look at it for hours in the window at Winnipeg Piano before he bought it in the early 60’s.
Randy said, "This was my first guitar and my first love. I got it for $400. I mowed lawns, I washed cars at a car wash, I babysat kids, I picked up garbage, I delivered papers to get the money to buy this guitar. It cost me 30-times as much to buy this one to replace it."
[Source: Classic Hits Today]