Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I purchased a '66 360 12 on eBay recently with a "letter of provenance" from Billy Cioffi of the Monte Carlos stating Del Shannon had given it to him in May '89 during one of Del's final recording sessions. Del and Billy were recording with Bob Mair (drums) Mel Watt (Keyboards) and Phil Krawzak (Saxes)... According to the letter, the tracks featured background vocals by Tom Petty, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynn. Billy Cioffi played guitars.

Interestingly, at around the same time, Dell was also separately recording tracks for "Rock On" with Jeff Lynn, Mike Campbell and others.

The 360 has a mysterious screw hole in the lower horn indicating a past association with a "lefty"... and given the Dell's association with Harrison, I had flights of imagination that this may have been played by Paul McCartney!!??!?... It came in a case, apparently original (black tolex) with a "MIDIMAN" sticker on the side..

I'm interested in any information shedding more light on the interesting background of this vintage beauty.

Don't know anything re your questions, but I remember that auction and think you got that guitar at a very good price.

Agreed.... I was surprised myself. I think the seller scared off bidders, beginning the description with "Guitar has been played and shows it." But it arrived in excellent playing (and cosmetic!) condition despite the neck wear.

I doubt highly that Macca played that guitar, especially since Macca and George were not spending much time together at the time that Del and George were. Also, an occasional user of a guitar is not going to drill a hole for a strap button. So I doubt very highly that anything like that occurred.

I say this emphatically because this is how stories get started. Someone makes that supposition, posts a "what if"? on a site like this, and before long, it becomes part of an instrumets lore and is accepted as fact. We have all seen it happen.

Nevertheless, it is a very nice guitar. Congratulations.

Bob, I've tried to dig out the facts following a number of directions.. primarily attempting to correspond with Billy Cioffi, to no avail so far... In the process, I had a very interesting event. In doing a Google search for Billy, I found the website of Michael Monarch, Steppenwolf 1st lead guitar. I left a message on the bulletin board asking about Billy and about him.... by morning, I had two emails from Monarch, one with his verbal tab for Born to be Wild. To quote Gump, "you never know what you're going to get."