When they were teens growing up together in Winnipeg, Randy Bachman and Neil Young used to visit their local music store and gaze at the guitars in the window. It was there that the two friends kindled their love for Gretsch, the brand behind some of the electric guitars the two rock icons have played over the years.
Both Bachman and Young would eventually buy Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins models. Bachman’s is famous as the guitar on which he wrote many hits for the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. It also has an intriguing past: It was stolen in 1976 and seemingly lost for good, until an internet sleuth rediscovered it in 2021. Today It’s once again in his possession.
Young played his 6120 while he was a guitarist with the Squires, his first stable rock and roll group, which he cofounded in 1963 while living in Winnipeg. He sold the guitar at one point, but now it’s back and strung across his shoulders as he and the Chrome Hearts tour North America. And it’s thanks to Bachman.
Young told the story at a recent show with the group at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby, British Columbia, before launching into Buffalo Springfield's "Mr. Soul."
I'd been looking for it for a while, just wondering what happened, you know, because I sold it in Toronto in a pawn shop or something.”
— Neil Young
"I found this guy who tracked down guitars, and this guitar here is my guitar that I used in the Squires in Winnipeg," Young said to applause, as reported by Tom Zillich in The Abbotsford News. "I'd been looking for it for a while, just wondering what happened, you know, because I sold it in Toronto in a pawn shop or something.”
By 1965, the Squires has disbanded and Young was attempting a new musical direction playing in Winnipeg folk clubs. He no longer needed the electric guitar, so he sold it and bought an acoustic.
“I was gonna be a folk singer, so I didn't need this anymore,” he tells the audience. “That's right, I figured it out.
“So Randy introduced me to this friend of his and the guy went on the internet with an old picture from Winnipeg with this guitar, and found it, because of the grain in the wood is just so unique, and this matched it absolutely perfectly."
CTV News reports that Bachman’s friend is William Long, the same person whose internet sleuthing helped him track down his Gretsch 6120 by matching the guitar’s woodgrain pattern to other 6120s in online photos.
As Long explained to Guitar Player in 2023, he had seen online videos of Bachman’s 6120. As fan of mysteries like the 1971 D.B. Cooper hijacking, Long became intrigued about the guitar;’s whereabouts. He enhanced a frame in an old video that showed three distinctive marks on the guitar’s finish, then scrutinized more than 300 images of similar Gretsches around the world.
It took about a week to find a match in a 6120 that a Tokyo guitar shop had sold before 2016. From there he was able to track down the instrument to its Japanese owner, who had purchased the guitar not knowing its history .
“I knew instantly that was Randy’s guitar,” Long said. “The woodgrain fingerprint was a perfect match that no other guitar could have.”
Young’s reconnection with his childhood guitar is just the latest story in his long history with Bachman, who — like Young — is fond of telling stories during his shows. He recently regaled an audience with the story of how he met his hero Stephen Stills through Neil Young, leading to their hilarious exchange.
Bachman has also revealed his and Young’s history in an interview with Guitar Player, and discussed the stories behind many of his hit songs with the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, including “American Woman,” “Undun,” “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.”
