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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Ben Beaumont-Thomas

Guitar played by John Lennon on Help!, lost for 50 years, going up for auction

George Harrison and John Lennon. Harrison is playing Lennon’s Framus 12-string Hootenanny acoustic guitar.
George Harrison plays John Lennon’s Framus 12-string Hootenanny acoustic guitar. Photograph: Julien's Auctions/ Beatles Photo Library

A guitar played by John Lennon and George Harrison in sessions for the albums Help! and Rubber Soul, which has spent the last 50 years lying in an attic, is to go up for auction alongside other memorabilia items such as a handwritten concert setlist by Kurt Cobain, a book of handwritten lyrics by Tupac Shakur and a Fendi dress worn by Amy Winehouse.

The 12-string acoustic guitar, a Hootenanny model made by Bavarian firm Framus in the early 1960s, was primarily played by Lennon and also appears in the movie Help!, used to perform You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. The studio version of that song also features the guitar, as well as Help!’s title track, It’s Only Love and I’ve Just Seen a Face. Harrison, meanwhile, used it to play the rhythm guitar part on Norwegian Wood, and it appears on another Rubber Soul song, Girl.

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