Why did John paint it Black?

[larsongs]

Why did John paint it Black? His '58 Ric that is. It looked so good in Natural or Maple Glo. Not sure what they called that color back then?

Glenn

[kiramdear]

It may have been part of Brian's plans for gentrification of the lads.

[jimk]

Several reasons I can think of:
1. Because he could
2. He liked the idea of a black guitar
3. A black guitar looked better with the suits Brian put them in.
4. It was Lennon's attempt at being chic and artsy-smartsy
5. All of the above.
JimK

[winston]

I believe it was all Brian's fault.............in any event it's always Brian's fault even if it wasn't.

[jingle_jangle]

I don't think that Lennon gave a hoot much about whether his guitar was black or not...but Brian was really in tune with the visuals of the Lads on stage. It was the Teddy boy thing that initially got him hooked, but like anybody with a new toy, he needed to fine-tune to what he thought they should look like. First, suits and hair, then monochrome. Enter black guitar; better on TV and tougher, too.

Don't ask me why Macca's bass escaped the treatment...

[cjj]

I thought it would be rather obvious to anyone who's been on this forum lately...

Because he knew that... JETGLO ROCKS...

[winston]

I thought it would be rather obvious to anyone who's been on this forum lately...

Because he knew that... JETGLO ROCKS...

I see you finally succumbed. Welcome to the darkside CJ

[trosse]

Jimmy Burns (Burns of London) painted Johns Rickenbacker black - as far as I know because it's got a crack during heavily touring - and black is the easiest/fastest color to spray, rub and polish. It also changed knobs at the occasion (which I don't believe Brian Epstein had any opinion to).

A few years later John changed everything to white, guitars, walls, grand pianos including even the hole estate Tittenhurst which he owned by then (and where the Imagine video with Yoko takes place) etc. So I'm not sure he didn't care about these things as he always cared about sources for mentally impressions and influences.

Both John and George (and Paul) used to meet at Pauls house in St. Johns Wood in London in 1965 and painted their guitars (George light blue Stratocaster from then on called Rocky which you can hear as the main lead guitar on Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper became strangely psykedelic using among other paints Patty Boyds green nailpolish on the headstock) - and before that John and George also personally made a lot of experiments with different positioning of the P90's on their Gibson J 165E's of which Johns was one gthe guitars that got a psykedelic decoration along with Georges strat.

Johns second 325 was factory Jetglo and was the 12 string 325 custom made for him by Rickenbacker (Can be heard on "Ev'ry Little Thing").

[jps]

I thought it would be rather obvious to anyone who's been on this forum lately...

Because he knew that... JETGLO ROCKS...

I see you finally succumbed. Welcome to the darkside CJ

Took him long enough!

[cjj]

Well, I don't actually own a Jetglo, so Jeff, if you'd send that 4005 out here so's I can try it out... You know, just so I can see if it's really true...


Actually, the reason I heard that John painted it black was that he was trying to come up with new song ideas and had just heard one by Mick & the boys. All he could come up with was...

I see a git-tar and I want to paint it black...

[jps]

A 4005 would be more your size, CJ. And, no that is not an indication that one is en route to you!

[cjj]

[ken_j]

CJ you did have a chance as Jeff listed his 4005 for sale last fall. Forum members talked him out of it. Quite frankly I'm surprised that Gil didn't pick it up when he was here at Gilfest.

[cjj]

Yeah, I remember. I just couldn't see Jeff selling it. Anyway, If a 4005 came along at the right price, I'd get it even if it was Jetglo...


Now, enough of hijacking this thread with talk about Jetglo and 4005's...

[paologregorio]

The Beatles had their cream tolex AC30s recovered in JETGLO tolex as well. . . .