Most guitarists have a story of buyer's remorse. But seller's remorse happens too. Just ask Bryan Adams.
The Canadian music legend let a piece of his music history go in the late 1980s and eventually came to regret it. The guitar was nothing special, he tells Guitar World, just a "stock, off the shelf" 1980s-era Gibson Les Paul.
That guitar, however, had a special connection. It was one of two electric guitars that dominated the creation of his 1984 album, Reckless. Although Adams’ third album, Cuts Like a Knife, is the disc that brought the guitarist, producer and songwriter his first real success, it was its follow-up, Reckless, that made him a global superstar, thanks to hits like "Run to You," "Somebody," "Heaven" and the smash "Summer of '69." Reckless took over the airwaves and went on to sell more than 12 million copies.
But, unlike the timeless “Summer of ‘69,” the Gibson didn’t see out the decade.
“There were two guitars on Reckless,” Adams says. "One was a 1960 Stratocaster." The other was the Les Paul.
“And the interesting thing about the Les Paul is that, around the end of the ’80s, I sold it. I thought, I’m never going to use this… I mostly use Strats." He also developed a connection with his Gibson ES-295 hollowbody. "I just didn’t play the Les Paul anymore. So, I sold it.”
By the late 1990s, his longing for the Les Paul began to grow, but he couldn’t recall what had happened to it.
“The internet started coming about, and I started seeing pictures of myself playing that Les Paul live,” Adams says. “I thought, Shit, I think I sold that.
“And sure enough, I had sold it. It was gone. I had no idea where it was.”
He found out in the unlikeliest way in 2005.
“I was signing records, and this guy comes up, and I'm thinking, Oh, he wants me to sign his guitar,” Adams recalls. It clearly wouldn’t have been the first instance he’d signed a guitar, by the sounds of it. But his first impression was wide of the mark.
“He said, ‘Hey, I bought your Les Paul years ago. I'm really in hard times — would you like to buy the guitar back?’
“I was like, ‘Oh, yeah!’ So, we did the deal right then and there.
“It had taken a bit of a beating since I'd had it,” he adds. “But the best thing about getting that guitar back was that I re-recorded 'Summer of ‘69' with it”
In fact Adams re-made a score of his biggest hits for the 2022 album, Classic, two years after Taylor Swift — who he says is the only musician to have done a cover of the track justice — did likewise with her back catalog.
Similarly, John Fogerty revisited his Creedence Clearwater Revival catalog after getting back the rights to his music following a 50-year legal battle. And, like Adams, he reacquired a long-lost guitar when his famous Rickenbacker 325 — heard across CCR's catalog — found its way back to him, courtesy of his wife.
For other lost-and-found guitar stories, see the mysterious journey of Nuno Bettencourt's Washburn double-neck, how George Harrison got back his kidnapped "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" Les Paul back, the tale of Randy Bachman's 1957 Gretsch 6120, and the story of how Bachman helped reunite Neil Young with his own beloved Gretsch 6120.
Lita Ford, meanwhile, rediscovered her stolen B.C. Rich Mockingbird in the hands of a guitarist auditioning to join her band, but she decided against asking for it back.
In a wild turn of events, Bryan Adams played with Eddie Van Halen during an all-star jam in 1996 that has since been dubbed "The show that was never supposed to be seen."
