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Rock star Randy Bachman reunites with beloved stolen guitar

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Randy Bachman
Randy Bachman

The long search for Canadian rock legend Randy Bachman ended Friday when he was reunited in Tokyo with a prized 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 because he wrote American Woman and other hits on Gretsch guitars, gifted to him by a Japanese musician , his Tokyo store in 2014, do not know its history.

He says all guitars are special, but the orange 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins he bought as a teenager was special.

He said he worked multiple jobs to save money on a guitar, the first time he’d ever bought an expensive instrument.

“It’s been my life. It’s my hammer and my tool for writing songs, creating music and making money,” Bachman told The Associated Press ahead of the handover at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo.

Randy Bachman's guitar
Canadian rock legend Randy Bachman reunites with Japanese musician Samurai (Eugene Hoshiko/AP) on Gretsch guitars

When it was stolen from a Toronto hotel in 1977, “I cried for three days. It was part of me,” he said. “It’s very, very frustrating.”

He said he ended up buying about 300 guitars but was unsuccessful in replacing them.

Bachmann frequently talks about missing guitars in interviews and radio shows, and most recently on a YouTube show he performed with his son Tal.

In 2020, a Canadian fan who heard the guitar story launched an internet search and managed to locate it in Tokyo within two weeks.

Fan William Long used a small dot in the guitar’s wood grain in an old image as a “digital fingerprint” and traced the instrument to a vintage guitar shop in Tokyo.

After further searching, he found a YouTube video showing Japanese musician Takeshi playing an instrument in December 2019.

Randy Bachman's guitar
Randy Bachman holds his Gretsch guitar (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)

Bachmann contacted Takeshi immediately after hearing about Long and recognized the guitar in a video chat.

“I’m crying,” Bachman said. “The guitar almost talks to me in the video, like, ‘Hey, I’m going home’.”

Takeshi agreed to give it to Bachman in exchange for something very similar. So Bachmann searched and found the “sister” of this guitar – built the same week, with a similar serial number, no modifications, and no repairs.

“Finding my guitar again was a miracle, finding its twin sister was another,” Bachmann said.

Takeshi said he decided to return the guitar because, as a guitarist, he can imagine how much Bachmann missed it.

“I owned it and only played it for eight years, and now I’m very sad to have it back. But he’s been sad for 46 years, and it’s time for someone else to be sad,” Takeshi said. “I feel sorry for this legend.”

He says it feels good to return the guitar to its rightful owner, but it may take a while before he loves his new Gretsch as much as he loves that guitar.

Bachman says he and Takeshi are now “twin sisters” like brothers with guitars. They are working on a documentary about guitars and they plan to play a song “Lost and Found” together on the documentary.

They also performed several songs during Friday’s handover, including American Woman.

Bachmann said he would lock the guitar at home so he would never lose it again. “I’ll never take it out of my house again,” he said.

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