Let It Be – Guitar by Guitar

As the Beatles’ Get Back documentary prepares to head for screens, we look back at the guitars that defined the group’s long cold lonely winter of 1969.

- By Christopher Scapelliti

When Director Peter Jackson unveiled the preview of his documentary series The Beatles: Get Back this past winter, fans were dazzled by the sight of the Fab Four’s smiling faces, and with good reason. The film is a document of the group’s notoriously difficult Let It Be sessions, a tortuously bleak period in January 1969 when the British group nearly broke apart while attempting to return to the simpler style of music on which they founded their career. Jackson’s sneak-preview footage turned the old story on its head, showing the Beatles laughing and clowning with one another in a style not seen since the heady days of Beatlemania.

But it wasn’t just the Beatles’ smiling faces (or George Harrison and Ringo Starr’s snazzy threads) that caught the eyes of guitarists. You didn’t need a particularly sharp eye to notice the thrilling sight of a few new sparkling silver face Fender amplifiers, a pair of large Fender Solid-State P.A. speaker columns and George Harrison’s solid-rosewood Fender Telecaster among the treats that stood out in the newly restored film footage. No doubt many musicians will tune in to the six-hour special when it premieres this fall to see the gear as much as to view the previously unreleased Beatles footage.

The Beatles’ various eras are defined as much by musical styles as by clothing and hair fashions, and they are specified by musical equipment. Their history is full of consequential moments when new gear brought fresh sounds into the band’s music. They include the 1964 arrival of George Harrison’s 1963 Rickenbacker 360/12 12-string in time for the album