The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand - Rhythm Guitar Cover - Rickenbacker 325c58

John's perfect rhythm guitar part for the song that broke The Beatles in America! Contrary to popular belief, Lennon was actually a controlled rhythm player in the early years, carefully strumming to make each note speak clearly. Notice how he strums tight to the strings with a "down-down-up-down" pattern on the G and D chord shuffle rhythms (0:07) and then changes to a more simple "down-up-down-up" on the Em and B7 in the verses (0:11). He lightly pulses his left hand throughout to create even more tonal variation. Watching any live performance of I Want To Hold Your Hand, especially the February 9, 1964 Ed Sullivan Show performance, verifies this observation on John's playing.

An important part of playing this song like John Lennon comes from using the 7th fret positions for the Em and B7 chords in the verse. Many others seem to play these chords in the open position, but every live performance shows John using higher chord voicing while hitting only the lower strings of the guitar. To achieve his sound you must not use wild downstrokes, rather a controlled strum with left hand pulsing.

Interestingly, John Lennon does not play the conclusionary B7 chord during the 1st (0:20) and 3rd verses (1:24), instead strumming them just before the C chord in the chorus. He does play the B7 chord in the 2nd (0:42) and 4th verses (2:06), but does not strum them in the space before the chorus.

John's bridge strumming on the recorded version is nearly inaudible because he is playing so lightly. The Ed Sullivan Show has great closeups of John's guitar and it can clearly be seen that he plays Dm/F, G6, C, and Am during the bridge.

The Rickenbacker 325c58 factory wiring allows for incredible tonal variation by using the volume and tone knobs. The middle switch position engages all of the pickups, and Lennon can be seen using this position in almost all photographs. At this time, John's wiring would have been the same as the factory wiring since wiring mistakes made while painting the guitar black were repaired by Burns London. No special looms required! In my recording, the tone was rolled completely off of the bridge pickup and the volume was on full. The neck pickup had its tone mostly rolled off and volume turned slightly down.

In the original recording, John's guitar mic was panned left. Some of his acoustic 325 was picked up in the vocal mic along with some of the room sound from his amp. I replicated this by simultaneously recording the amp sound with an Audio-Technica AT2035 and the acoustic sound with a Shure SM57.

This Rickenbacker 325c58 was modified to have the exact appearance as John’s guitar from late 1963 onward. The original Kauffmann Vibrola was replaced with a Bigsby B5 while a Bigsby Bowtie bridge was used in place of the Rickenbacker roller bridge. The TV knobs were replaced with Burns polished aluminum control knobs. A black switch cap was added for authenticity to Lennon's 325.

Instruments Used:
Rhythm Guitar: Rickenbacker 325c58 (2003)
Amp: Vox AC15
Amp microphone: Audio-Technica AT2035
Acoustic microphone: Shure SM57

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