A guitar played by George Harrison in the early days of The Beatles has sold at auction for $1.27million (£1.01million).
The Resonet Futurama guitar was purchased by Harrison at a music store in Liverpool in 1959 and he went on to play it at at least 324 Beatles shows.
The Nashville auction house Julien’s had listed the expected price between $600,000 and $800,000, but the eventual price tag makes the instrument the most expensive guitar owned by Harrison ever to be sold at auction.
The Futurama went on to feature on some of the band’s earliest studio visits, including the 1961 Tony Sheridan single ‘My Bonnie’ that Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney all played on in their first ever commercial recording session. Harrison also used the guitar to write and record ‘Cry For A Shadow’ with Lennon in 1961.
The item was sold as part of an auction titled ‘Played, Worn & Torn II’ that ran on November 20 and 21. Other lots from music history were also donated by the likes of The Rolling Stones, McCartney, Eric Clapton and Nirvana. A guitar played by Prince on his 1986 ‘Parade’ tour went for $381,000 (£305,000).
On November 29, a new documentary film about the Fab Four, titled Beatles ‘64, will arrive on Disney+. It will explore the band’s culture-shifting three-week trip to the US in the titular year and features rare, newly restored 4K footage of the band that was originally recorded by the Maysles Brothers for a 1964 documentary.
NME recently spoke exclusively to the new film’s director David Tedeschi about the parallels between the world today and that of 1964, the band’s interpersonal relationships and the manic reactions they got from American fans. “It was such a visceral experience that they didn’t know how to put it into words – that’s why they screamed, you know?” he explained.
The Beatles are also set to be the subject of four individual films helmed by Sam Mendes, one told from each of their perspectives. They are the first scripted films to have been granted full life story and music rights from Apple Corps Ltd. and the estates of the four band members, with Mendes anticipating he will be working on them until 2028.
