Considering the impact the Rolling Stones' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in October 1964 had on music history, it perhaps comes as no surprise that the 1959 Gibson Les Paul – complete with its sunburst finish, mahogany body, and maple top – wielded by Keith Richards, would end up at New York's esteemed Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This historic addition was gifted by a collector who, earlier this year, donated 500 vintage guitars to the museum. However, in recent weeks, a representative for former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor stated he was surprised to learn that the guitar is in the museum.
According to Taylor and his representatives, he purchased the Les Paul from one of the Stones' road managers while he was playing with John Mayall. Then, when he joined the Stones in 1969 for five years, he took it with him. His version of events became part of rock ‘n’ roll lore, with Taylor's manager, Marlies Damming, even saying in a statement last month that, at some point, the guitar had “disappeared”.
The museum is now disputing Taylor's story, stating that Taylor played the instrument but never actually owned it. In addition, the Les Paul has had a public history – the guitar went up for auction at Christie's, even appearing on the cover of the catalog, and in 2019, it was also featured in a Met exhibition, with no claims from Taylor or his team.
And while the Met states it was actually Richards who held onto the Les Paul as its owner until 1971, a 2013, 700-page anthology of Stones instruments, Rolling Stones Gear by Andy Babiuk, suggests the contested Gibson was among eight guitars stolen in 1971 when the Stones spent a summer in the French Riviera – a story that the Met refutes.
The museum's provenance does leave somewhat of a gap, however. It lists Adrian Miller as the Les Paul's owner in 1971, but there's no indication of how he acquired the guitar. Miller went on to sell it to Heavy Metal Kids' Cosmo Verrico in 1971, who, according to correspondence with The New York Times, “can't recall how Miller acquired the guitar.”
Alongside listing all the subsequent owners, the provenance also notes its attempted sale at Christie's in 2004. While the bidding did not reach the desired price, the guitar ended up being bought in 2006 by Swedish music producer Peter Svensson. A decade later, investor and billionaire Dirk Ziff acquired it and lent it to the Met in 2019 for its Play It Loud exhibition.
The story doesn't stop there – The New York Times confirms that they have received an email from Damming, saying, “We would like the Metropolitan Museum to make the guitar available so that we can inspect it, and confirm its provenance one way or the other,” as well as the manager publicly sharing a Facebook post stating, “A long-lost piece of rock ‘n’ roll history has resurfaced, decades after it vanished."
Guitar World has reached out to Mick Taylor's representatives and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for comment.
