Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen Still Waiting on Paul McCartney's Autograph
Cheap Trick have never shied away from their Beatles influences -- they're even known in Japan as the "American Beatles." Their brushes with the Fab Four are many: drummer Bun E. Carlos worked with John Lennon and the band collaborated with Beatles producer George Martin and recording engineer Geoff Emerick on several of their albums. With all these associations, it seemed logical that guitarist Rick Nielsen, who has amassed over 2,000 guitars, would think of parting with one of his prized possessions -- a Les Paul left-handed bass which he thought would be ideal for lefty Paul McCartney.
"I had it years back. I got it because they only made three of them in 1960 and I've been a guitar collector since the '60s," Nielsen tells Spinner. "It was a beautiful guitar but rather than completely changing it and fixing the nut on it and turning the bridge around and a lot of stuff that shouldn't be done to it [for a right-handed person], I said in a guitar magazine, 'McCartney should have this one. He's the only guy that can afford it!' At the time, the guitar was going for about $10,000 and now that guitar is worth at least a million. He read that and, between him and this guitar tech, ended up with it."
Nielsen still gently weeps that McCartney never sent him a personal "thank you" note or even an autographed photo. "In some magazines they mention, 'Oh yeah, we got this guitar from Rick Nielsen.' I've never gotten an 8x10 or anything like that saying, 'Hey, Rick, thanks for the guitar!' I asked George Martin to see if he could get one from Paul because he sees him more often and he said, 'Paul is kind of in a bad mood this week,'" Nielsen recalls. "Whatever! So I never got anything. McCartney's got plenty of money and he really got a
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