The Beatles: George Harrison's Resonet Futurama Guitar Is For Sale
This is George Harrison’s Resonet Futurama, it was his most-played guitar in the early days of the Beatles seeing extensive stage and studio use from 1959 to 1961 including at the legendary Cavern Club in England.
It’s well-known that George Harrison, and countless other budding rock stars in Britain at the time, wanted to buy a Fender Stratocaster. The issue was that there was a UK government embargo on foreign musical instrument imports in place, and Stratocasters were almost impossible to find.
The reason the Stratocaster was so popular was partly due to the fact that it was one of the most advanced electric guitars in the world at the time, and also due to the fact that Buddy Holly used one. In the 1950s there were relatively few male teenage guitar players who didn’t want to be Buddy Holly.
Harrison bought the Resonet Futurama, a Czechoslovakian guitar, from Frank Hessy’s music store in Liverpool on November 20th, 1959. It looked a little like the Stratocaster and even though he found it more difficult to play, he did like the tone it produced. He bought it on a payment plan with his mother as the guarantor.
Source: Ben Branch/silodrome.com
