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Taking Care of Guitar Business

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This Friday is the day Randy Bachman has waited 46 years for.

He will be reunited with his 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model guitar, which was stolen from a Toronto hotel in 1976.

Last year, Bachman was contacted by a guy in White Rock, British Columbia who said he recognized the guitar being played in a video by Japanese musician Takeshi. Bachman got in touch with Takeshi, who agreed to give the guitar back in exchange for another of the same model.

Bachman, who had at one time amassed more than 350 Gretsch guitars, reached out to his friend Gary Dick at Gary’s Classic Guitars in Loveland, Ohio to help find another one, in mint condition, for him to trade.

In Japan, where the exchange will take place on Friday, Canada Day, at the Oscar Peterson Theater at the Canadian Embassy. Bachman says, “It will be life changing. This whole trip to Japan and my guitar return is a dream come true.”

The exchange will be filmed and Bachman and Takeshi will perform together.

Bachman bought the guitar in the early ’60s in his hometown of Winnipeg, and among the songs he played it on are The Guess Who‘s “No Sugar Tonight” and “American Woman,” and BTO‘s “Takin’ Care of Business.” He says he and Neil Young would go to look at it for an hour in the window at Winnipeg Piano.

Randy Bachman on what he had to do to originally buy his Gretsch in the early ’60s.

“This was my first guitar and my first love. I got it for $400. I mowed lawns, I washed cars at a car wash, I babysat kids, I picked up garbage, I delivered papers to get the money to buy this guitar. It cost me 30-times as much to buy this one to replace it.”

REUTERS PHOTO

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