John Mayall deserves credit for bringing some great guitarists to the fore — Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor, to name a few.
But Mayall can also take a bow for bringing attention to a particular guitar model. Not the Gibson Les Paul Standard, which had been the choice of Clapton, Green and Taylor, but rather the more humble Epiphone Casino. And the band he did it with? None other than the Beatles.
As Paul McCartney related upon Mayall’s death on July 22, 2024, he and Mayall were close friends in the early 1960s.
“We would meet at one of the late-night music clubs and often go back to his house, where he had a huge and glorious collection of records,” McCartney wrote on his website. “During these moments he became a mentor and would educate me on a lot of the blues guitarists playing at the time.
“I would lounge back in the armchair, and he would play tracks by people like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Albert King and many other great players. He would then play me tracks by Eric Clapton, who was later in his band, the Bluesbreakers. The more he played, the more I could see the links between all these great guitarists. Besides being very entertaining, it was a great education noticing the similarities between these stunning players.”
It was during one of those visits that Mayall turned McCartney onto the merits of the hollowbody electric guitar.
“I showed Paul my hollowbody guitar that I’d bought when I was in the army in Japan in 1955,” Mayall told Andy Babiuk in his book Beatles Gear. “When people get together and listen to records, they talk about all kinds of things related to the music, so obviously we must have touched upon the instruments and it struck home. He got a hollowbody after to get that tone.”
As McCartney explained, Mayall’s tutelage at those sessions convinced him to go for a Casino. “He gave me a little evening’s education. I was turned on after that and bought an Epiphone.”
McCartney acquired his 1962 sunburst Casino in late 1964. It was a right-handed model with a Bigsby vibrato, and he subsequently had it altered for left-hand playing by changing the nut and bridge and adding a strap button to the right-hand horn.
McCartney has at times forgotten the source of his Casino inspiration. In one telling, he credited Jimi Hendrix for turning him on to using feedback, saying, “I went into a shop on Charing Cross Road and asked the guys if they had a guitar that would feed back, because I was very much into Jimi Hendrix and that kind of thing.”
The only problem with that story? At the time McCartney acquired his Casino, Jimi Hendrix was still an unknown guitarist playing in Little Richards’ band, the Upsetters, under the alias Maurice James.
Regardless, once McCartney purchased his Casino, he quickly put it to use on the Beatles’ album Help!, playing lead guitar with it on “The Night Before,” “Another Girl” and “Ticket to Ride.” Later tracks that feature his handiwork on the Casino include his stunning Indian-inspired solo on Revolver’s “Taxman,” his dual-guitar leads with Harrison on that album’s track “And Your Bird Can Sing,” the Sgt. Pepper’s cut “Good Morning, Good Morning,” and of course the guitar solos near the conclusion of “The End,” from Abbey Road.
Once McCartney had demonstrated the merits of the hollowbody electric guitar, it didn’t take long for his bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison to purchase their own sunburst Casinos in spring 1966, either prior to or during the recording sessions for Revolver. Both were 1965 Casinos with a sunburst finish, only Harrison’s had a Bigsby, while Lennon’s wore the standard Epiphone trapeze tailpiece.
Harrison used his Casino briefly in 1966, and can be seen with it in photos from the group’s U.S. tour that August, though he is more commonly seen playing a 1964 Gibson SG Standard during this time.
However, Lennon and the instrument became inseparable. His Casino was his main guitar through the remainder of the Beatles and into his work with the Plastic Ono Band. In 1968, he and Harrison sanded off the finish on their Casinos on the advice of British folk singer Donovan, who told them it would make the guitars sound better. Lennon apparently loved the results.
He can be seen playing his stripped Casino at the Rolling Stone’s Rock and Roll Circus with the Dirty Mac (whose members included Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell), through the sessions for Let It Be, as seen in the 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back, and with the Plastic Ono Band in 1969.
As for McCartney, the Casino remains his favorite to this day. Questioned about it in 1997, he said, “If I had to choose one electric guitar, it would be that guy.”
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