The Strange Case of

In the summer of 1966, as Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton hit the record shops and the guitarist himself began rehearsals with his new band Cream, Clapton’s beloved sunburst Les Paul was stolen from a church hall practice room. Gone but not forgotten, the guitar left behind a mystery that has never been solved. Here, we trace the lifetime of this legendary ’Burst and ponder the chances of it ever being discovered.

BY TONY BACON

CROPPED DETAIL OF NPG X47345, ERIC CLAPTON BY DAVID WEDGBURY, RESIN PRINT, 1966 © NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON. THE COPYING, DISTRIBUTION, TRANSMISSION, PERFORMANCE, DISPLAY, RENTAL, LENDING, COMMUNICATION TO THE PUBLIC OR STORAGE OF THE IMAGES BEYOND THE CONTEXT OF THE SPECIFIED LICENSED DIGITAL PRODUCT IS PROHIBITED.

ERIC CLAPTON’S WORK on the 1966 John Mayall album Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton inspired an entire generation of would-be blues guitarists as he defined the tone and expression that a great guitarist can achieve. And this particular great player found a great instrument to make his music: an original Gibson Les Paul with a sunburst finish. The cover of the record showed Clapton reading the Beano comic, so it became known as the Beano album, and the instrument he used became known as the Beano guitar.

Many guitarists love Clapton’s playing on the Beano album. One such musician is Billy Gibbons, who was, at the time of its release, a budding young guitar player in Texas. “The sound was just so fierce and so attractive,” he says, “and the appeal drew everyone’s curiosity to attempt to suss out where this sound was coming from. The photograph of Eric on the back cover was a clue. We said, ‘Ah, look in the background. There’s a Marshall, but it’s not very big. And ah, look at that! They don’t make those any more — but it’s one of those Les Pauls!’”

THE STORIES SURROUNDING THE BEANO HAVE BEEN SWOLLEN WITH HEARSAY AND HALF-TRUTHS

The actual guitar Clapton used has since taken on an almost mythical quality, not least because it was stolen not long afterward and has never been seen since. It was the short-lived variant known today as the ’Burst, for its sunburst finish, produced by Gibson from 1958 until discontinued in 1960 and replaced by the new double-cutaway SG design. By the mid ’60s, the original single-cut Les Pauls were being called the “old model.”

The theft of the Beano ’Burst helped it pass into legend. And as with many legends, the stories surrounding it have been swollen with hearsay and half-truths ever since. Peter Green estimated the potential value of the lost Beano while talking to Neville Marten for Guitarist magazine in 1999. “Eric’s Les Paul would go for 50 million [pounds] now,” he said with admirable exaggeration. “It was a special one.”

STEPPIN’ OUT

Eric Clapton was 20 years old when he joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in April 1965. At first he played a Telecaster, but soon he wanted something different. One of his favorite guitarists was Freddie King, who was pictured on the 1962 album Let’s Hide Away and Dance Away, playing an old goldtop Les Paul. The picture on the jacket’s front showed a guitar that looked more brown than gold — more like a sunburst finish than a gold one, perhaps. Clapton must have made a mental note.

Christopher Hjort, who researched and wrote about this period of the guitarist’s career for his 2007 book, Strange Brew, pinpointed the time during 1965 when Clapton bought the Beano ’Burst. “The chronology starts with the lastknown photograph of Eric with the Telecaster he used until then, a fan snapshot on Sunday 30 May,” Hjort tells us, “when the Mayall band visited Kirklevington Country Club in Yorkshire. Five days later, on Friday 4 June, a local newspaper photographed Eric at the Ricky Tick club in the Plaza Ballroom in Guildford, Surrey, playing his newly acquired Les Paul. This pins down the acquisition to some point in the week between that Sunday and the Friday.”