TOKYO –
The long search for Canadian rock legend Randy Bachmann ended Friday when he was reunited in Tokyo with an expensive guitar 45 years after it was stolen from a Toronto hotel.
“My girlfriend is right there,” said Bachman, 78, a former member of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, as the Gretsch guitar on which he wrote “American Woman” and other hits was given to him by a Japanese musician. who had bought it from a store in Tokyo in 2014 without knowing its history.
He said all guitars are special, but the 1957 Chet Atkins orange Gretsch 6120 he bought as a teenager was exceptional. He worked odd jobs to save money to buy a $400 guitar, his first purchase of an expensive instrument, he said.
“It made my whole life. It was my hammer and tool for writing songs, music and making money,” Bachmann told The Associated Press before the presentation at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo.
When it was stolen from the Toronto hotel in 1977, “I cried for three days. It was a part of me,” he said. “It was very, very upsetting.” He ended up buying about 300 guitars in unsuccessful attempts to replace them, he said.
Bachmann often talks about the missing guitar in interviews and on radio shows, and more recently in YouTube programs where he plays with his son Tal.
In 2020, a Canadian fan who heard the story of the guitar started an internet search and successfully found it in Tokyo within two weeks.
The fan, William Long, used a small stain of the guitar’s wood visible in old images as a “digital fingerprint” and traced the instrument to a site for a vintage guitar shop in Tokyo. Further searching led him to a YouTube video showing the instrument being played by Japanese musician TAKESHI in December 2019.
After receiving the news from Long, Bachman immediately contacts TAKESHI and recognizes the guitar in a video chat they had.
“I cried,” Bachmann said. “The guitar almost spoke to me during the video, like, ‘Hey, I’m coming home.’
TAKESHI agreed to give it to Bachman in exchange for one that was very similar. So Bachmann searched for and found the “sister” of the guitar – produced in the same week, with a similar serial number, without modifications and repairs.
“Finding my guitar again was a miracle, finding her twin sister was another miracle,” Bachmann said.
TAKESHI said he decided to return the guitar because as a guitarist he could imagine how much Bachman missed it.
“I’ve only owned and played it for eight years and I’m extremely sad to give it back now. But he has been feeling sad for 46 years and it is time for someone else to be sad,” said TAKESHI. “I felt sorry for that legend.”
He said he felt good after returning the guitar to its rightful owner, but it may take time for him to grow to love his new Gretsch as much as this one.
“It’s a guitar and it has a soul. So even if it has the same shape, I can’t say for sure if I can love a replacement the same way I loved this one,” he said. “There’s no doubt that Randy thought of me and was looking hard (for a replacement), so I’ll gradually develop an affection for him, but it may take time.”
Bachmann said he and TAKESHI are now like brothers who own guitars that are “twin sisters.” They are appearing in a documentary about the guitar, on which they plan to perform the song “Lost and Found” together.
They also performed several songs on Friday’s show, including “American Woman.”
Bachmann said he would lock the guitar in his home so he would never lose it again. “I will never take it out of my house again,” he said.
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