The history of Les Paul stolen in 1971 at the Rolling Stones

That afternoon of September of 1971 to Villa in thelcôte Mick Jagger and members were watching TV when the entrance door came down suddenly. To blow it up, to sneak into the Boémien refuge on the French Rivierain France, where the Rolling Stones had refuge to record between drugs and quarrels “Exile on Main St.”, It was a group of Marseilian drug dealers to whom Keith Richards should have of money. The thieves raid: They looted the villa taking nine of Keith Richards ‘guitars, Bobby Keys’ saxophone and Bill Wyman bass. It was not an ordinary robbery: the action seemed targeted, performed by those who knew the structure of the villa and knew where to search. There were no arrests: neither the French police nor the Stones themselves put pressure to investigate thoroughly, perhaps also because of the compromising nature of the environment in which they lived. Among the tools that disappeared on that punitive expedition there was also a special guitar. A Gibson Les Paul Standard that had already entered one way or another in the history of music.

The guitar played at the ED Sullivan Show and A Altamont

Yes, because that Les Paul was the guitar – renamed Keithburst – that Keith Richards claimed to have bought in London and who played in theOctober 1964 During the first, Historical Apparition of Rolling Stones at the ED Sullivan Showwhen in the study of the iconic US program Mick Jagger and his companions launched their second album for the American market, “12 x 5” with Chuck Berry’s “Around and Around” and “Time is on My Side” by Kai Winding. Not only that: that guitar had also been a passive spectator of a tragedy, the one that was consumed a few meters from the stage where on 6 December 1969 the band of “(I Can’t Get no) Satiscation” performed at theAltamont Raceway Park With a free concert, when in the climate of violence, chaos and disorganization that characterized the band’s free show a man – Meredith Hunter – was stabbed by the Hell’s Angels, who served as a security service for the Stones. To play the Gibson Les Paul that evening at Atlamont was Mick Taylorwho had joined the band just before and would leave her in 1974, and who had purchased the instrument – also passed between the hands of Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page – from Richards in 1967.

The discovery

At the time of the theft, the owner of the six ropes was Taylor, who saw himself off the instrument from French thieves and who for over fifty years – 54, to be exact – has no longer had news of his Gibson Les Paul. Up to today. After more than five decades from that looting at Villa nellcôte, in fact, the legendary guitar has reappeared from the oblivion: The instrument was found in the midst of a collection recently purchased by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, which includes over 500 guitars “dating back to the golden age of American literia”, tools all made between 1920 and 1970. The architect of the discovery is the curator of the Department of musical instruments of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jayson Dobney. Passionate about guitars and eager to allow the New York museum to have a treasure of guitars of the twentieth century, he started looking for El Dorado di Stratocaster, Les Paul and Martin of which he had heard vocifier for years in guitar environments, going back to the two owners of the collection: Dirk Ziff, a rich heir of the family of publishers and financiers, and Perry Margouler, a record producer, a record producer and guitar expert. The two since 1987 have secretly built an impressive collection that is now revealed to the public: In the spring of 2027, in fact, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will inaugurate a permanent gallery dedicated to the evolution and cultural impact of the American guitar. And among the tools exposed there will also be the legendary Gibson Les Paul.

It really is that guitar?

But it is proper that Les Paul Standard? Yes. This was confirmed by Mick Taylor himselftoday 76 years old (he met with the Stones in 2013, over thirty years after the last performance, on the occasion of the fifty -year -old anniversary of the group), who in front of the flaming motif that characterizes the guitar had no doubt: it is the six ropes that was taken away from him that afternoon of September 1971 by the Marseilse dealers who wanted to punish Richards. The guitarist spokesman, Marlies Damming, commented: «There are numerous photos of Mick Taylor who plays this Les Paul, since it was his main guitar until the instrument disappeared. The interesting thing of these Les Paul Vintage (of the late 1950s) is that they are famous for their flaming, which is unique, like a digital footprint».