Paul McCartney is a man defined as much by the instrument in his hands as the songs he wrote with it. The Höfner violin bass is inseparable from his image, a working-class symbol, affordable, unusual, instantly iconic. But Macca’s “favourite” guitar isn’t the one most associate with him. It’s an Epiphone Casino, and depending on which story you believe, Jimi Hendrix may or may not have been the spark that made him pick it up.
Speaking to GQ a few years ago, McCartney was clear in his own memory: “I have an Epiphone Casino, which is one of my favourites. It’s not the best guitar, but I bought it in the 1960s… I was very much into Jimi Hendrix and that kind of thing. I loved that kind of stuff and so I wanted a guitar that was going to give me feedback. So they showed me the Casino. Because it’s got a hollow body, it feeds back easier.” He went on to explain that it gave him the chance to play the solo on “Taxman” and the riff on “Paperback Writer.”
There’s just one problem with that neat narrative. Hendrix didn’t arrive in London until late 1966. By that point, McCartney had already bought the Casino, in 1964. He had already used it on record before he saw Hendrix make his London club debut at the Bag O’Nails, an appearance that blew his mind but couldn’t possibly have influenced a purchase made two years earlier.
So where did the “favourite guitar” really come from? John Mayall, British blues pioneer, once claimed it was his hollow-body Gibson, acquired in Japan during military service, that planted the seed. According to Mayall, McCartney saw it, liked the tone, and went out to get his own.
That’s the funny thing about memory. McCartney is absolutely sincere when he says Hendrix and “that kind of thing” inspired him to chase feedback. He was a Hendrix devotee from the moment he saw him plug in and unleash chaos in ’66. But in the cold light of chronology, it seems Hendrix didn’t inspire the purchase so much as validate it.
Still, it hardly matters. Whether nudged by Mayall, Hendrix, or pure accident, McCartney made the Casino his own. It wasn’t just a guitar that could scream when he wanted it to, it became a tool for invention, bending noise into melody in a way only the Beatles could. Hendrix may not have sold him the guitar, but spiritually, he’s there in every howl of feedback that came from it.
