The curious case of Eric Clapton’s missing guitar
There are quite a few famous “lost” guitars floating around the world of rock and roll. Paul McCartney’s original Hofner violin bass was stolen from a closet at Abbey Road in the late 1960s, along with George Harrison’s Gretsch Tennessean and second Rickenbacker 360-12. Jeff Beck also lost his beloved 1959 Gibson Les Paul after a show with the Jeff Beck Group in 1969. But in terms of lost iconic axes, it’s Beck’s pal Eric Clapton who probably has the most notorious case.
When Clapton spotted Freddie King playing a gold top Les Paul in the mid-1960s, Clapton decided that he needed a Gibson. At the Lew Davis guitar shop in London, he spied a Gibson Les Paul from either 1959 or 1960 (sources vary) and picked it up. Not long afterwards, Clapton was recruited into John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. If you happened to see the “Clapton is God” graffiti around London at the time, it was during the period when Clapton was playing the Les Paul.
If you need audio references, direct yourself to the legendary 1966 release debut from the Bluesbreakers, Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, better known as The Beano Album. The LP gave the guitar its famous nickname, ‘The Beano Burst’, and Clapton originally intended for it to be his main axe when he jumped ship over to Cream. But just days after the release of The Beano Album, ‘The Beano Burst’ was stolen from Cream’s rehearsal space.
In an advert posted in The Mirror, Clapton gave some cosmetic designations that could help identify the guitar. The instrument had large scratch marks down the back, as well as a number of cigarette burns in the front. Stolen along with the guitar was a plush case and a strap with the names of some of Clapton’s favourite guitarists carved into it, including Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and Big Maceo.
An interesting wrinkle in the story is that fellow guitar obsessive Joe Bonamassa claims to know where the burst is. In 2016, he told Guitarist magazine that the guitar was in a private collection somewhere on the East Coast of America. Bonamassa claimed that the guitar was actually a 1959 model and not a 1960. He also cast doubt as to whether Clapton would even recognise the instrument.
However, Clapton has previously expressed interest in being reunited with the iconic axe. Currently, he and the ‘Beano Burst’ are still separated, and it doesn’t seem as though Bonamassa is spilling the exact location of the guitar any time soon. For now, all we have of the guitar is its historic appearances on tape.
