The 1959 Gibson Les Paul that famously appeared on the Rolling Stones' breakthrough Ed Sullivan Show appearance in October 1964 is at the center of a dispute between former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Taylor's representatives are asserting that the guitar – nicknamed the “Keithburst” – belonged to him at one point, and was allegedly stolen when the Stones were recording Exile on Main St. at a mansion on the French Riviera near Nice in 1971.
Therefore, the guitarist expressed his surprise to The New York Post when the guitar resurfaced at the museum, with Taylor’s manager Marlies Damming asking the Met to “make the guitar available so that we can inspect it and confirm its provenance one way or the other.”
Now, the Met shared what it alleges to be a copy of the guitar's recorded provenance with Guitar World. “This guitar has a long and well-documented history of ownership,” states a spokesperson.
The Les Paul's story starts at Farmers Music Store in Luton, England, where it was recorded to have been bought by an individual named John Bowen in March 1961, with a Bigsby vibrato added around 1961–62 by Selmer's Guitar Store.
Reportedly, the guitar was traded for a Gretsch Country Gentleman in late 1962 at Selmer's. Keith Richards acquired it sometime before August 1964 and, according to the provenance, owned it until 1971.
Record producer and manager Adrian Miller is then listed as its owner in 1971 – however, it's not clear whether he bought the guitar from Richards or someone else. Heavy Metal Kids' Cosmo Verrico then reportedly acquired it in 1971 from Adrian Miller, trading it for £125 plus a 1959 Gibson ES-175 with PAFs.
As per the Met's records, in 1974, Whitesnake's Bernie Marsden bought it from Verrico for £400, followed by Mike Jopp in that same year for £450. Fast-forward to 2004, and the historic guitar was part of a very public attempted sale by Christie's (part of lot 267) but was left unsold after it did not reach the desired price.
Swedish producer Peter Svensson bought it two years later, while, a decade later, it was acquired by billionaire businessman Dirk Ziff, with the help and advice of producer and guitar collector Perry Margouleff.
Ziff would later loan the guitar to the Met in 2019 for the Play It Loud exhibition – later moved to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Interestingly, Richards himself was very involved in this exhibition, even sitting for an interview and loaning other instruments and gear to the exhibit. In 2024, Ziff donated the guitar to the Met, where it can be found today alongside the museum’s new collection of guitars, which spans from 1920 to 1970.
“This is not just a once-in-a-lifetime gift,” Jayson Kerr Dobney, the Met’s curator of musical instruments, comments in a press statement. “It is a once-in-a-century opportunity for the museum – a visionary, comprehensive collection of American guitars, unparalleled in both its breadth and variety.”
Guitar World has reached out to Mick Taylor's representatives for comment.
