A 1960s/1970s Orpheum Solist electric hollowbody guitar in an orange finish. Owned and played by Randy Bachman, who has sold 40 million records worldwide as a member of The Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and as a solo artist. Part of a larger collection of archtop guitars that Randy has amassed over the last 30-plus years. According to Randy, this guitar has a connection to German Circuses.

“As I started collecting these German guitars,” Bachman recalls, “they were all kind of made by the same three or four families or makers all in Germany. And they would get different names like The Record, the Orpheum, the Paramount. I found out a lot of them were called Clown Guitars, and what was really big in Europe were the circuses. And you would have a greeter there who was in Europe, was a clown. He was called the Ringmaster, but he’d greet the people at the door. And he had what was called a Clown Guitar –– these guitars that were gaudy and Ostentatious that would be standing out and he’d walk around playing the guitar acoustically.”

A German-made, highly ornate Orpheum Solist-branded copy of a Gretsch Country Gentleman with painted f-holes. The headstock overlay has “Orpheum” and a snowflake inlay in mother of pearl along with two vertical bars, also mother of pearl. The maple neck is painted black on back and has 21 frets and mother of pearl bow tie inlays on a bound ebony fretboard with zero fret. The body, originally orange, has black purfling around its edge with two sizes of mother of pearl snowflakes throughout. Simulated f-holes painted on the body. Chrome bridge and vibrato, three way switch, five chrome knobs. Black Solist-engraved pickguard, soft wear-resistant panel on the back.

Heavily modified, presenting a number of features that appear to hail from the late 1960s-1970s including a Framus-style neck with bow tie inlays, and a Matsumoku-made vibrato commonly found on Japanese-made Lyle brand instruments, and a Gibson-style Harmonica bridge. The two knobs by the vibrato actuate the rising mechanism for the bridge mute, which is missing.

Includes hardshell case.

PROVENANCE From The Collection of Randy Bachman

Guitars & Instruments, Randy Bachman