Brian Jones and his Gretsch 6118

For the first couple of years the Stones were bashing away on some fairly ordinary guitars — mostly from the Harmony range (often seen as the poor man’s Gibson or Gretsch). However soon after the Stones recorded their first single, ‘Come on’, in May of 1964 , Brian Jones went to Sound City in London to upgrade.

He chose a 1963 Gretsch 6118 Anniversary Guitar and it became his main guitar (along with the Vox Teardrop) throughout the 60s until his untimely death in 69’.

Unlike the Beatles, The Stones almost never played Gretsch guitars. With the exception of a 57’ White Falcon Ronnie Wood picked up and played a few times in 81’ (thank you Rolling Stones Gear!) this is it for you Gretsch fans.

This Gretsch 6118 was first played on the Lennon/McCartney track ‘I wanna be your man’. You can see it clearly in this archival footage:

I actually had a Gretsch 6118 (named ‘The Avocado’ by Muky) when I was living in Sydney back in 13’. Unfortunately Cathy Pacific wanted to change me $500 USD to take it with me to Beijing so I ended up selling under duress. Here’s the only picture I’ve got of it, rescued just now from an old iPhone 4: