50 years ago, rocker Kim Mitchell's guitar was stolen in Hamilton. Now his biographer wants to get it back

If you've got an orange 1963 Gretsch guitar kicking around, Bob Wegner would like to know. It may just be the cherished instrument stolen from Canadian rock icon Kim Mitchell during a trip to Hamilton in 1975.

Wegner, a professional musician and music historian, learned about the stolen guitar while writing a book on Mitchell's 1970s hard rock band, Max Webster. 

"No guitar will ever replace the guitar you cut your teeth on," he said. "Just a part of you goes missing."

Inspired by successful efforts to return lost or stolen guitars to the likes of Paul McCartney, Randy Bachman and Jimmy Page, Wegner said he wanted to do the same for Mitchell.

In the spring, Wegner launched Kim's Lost Guitar Project, a website with photos of and information about Mitchell's guitar, and an email for people to contact if they think they've found it.

Wegner, who's based in Montreal and was born in Hamilton, said only about 30 Gretsch Nashville 6120 guitars were ever made. The instrument has double cutaways, red felt around the mute switch, painted F-holes and a horseshoe on the headstock. Mitchell's had a scratch on the back of the body and a cigarette burn on the headstock by the low E tuning peg.

Mitchell's dad bought the guitar for him at a time when money was tight, Wegner said. 

"'His house was $11,000 at the time. The guitar $700. Do the math today and know that he really spent huge bucks for me,'" Wegner quotes Mitchell as saying on his website.

Did the bright orange guitar clash with Mitchell's outfits? Maybe, Wegner said. "But it doesn't matter. He could rock anything and just he looked great with it."

Wegner said Mitchell also told him that playing the guitar out of a Marshall amp was the best guitar sound he'd ever heard. 

"To have him plug that into a Marshall again would be so completely worth it." 

CBC Hamilton reached out to Mitchell for comment but did not receive a response before publication time.

Wegner said he hasn't yet received any tips about the guitar, so he's trying to raise awareness about his efforts.

Guitar stolen from van after Duffy's Tavern gig

Max Webster was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 2023, noting that with Mitchell as its frontman, the band released seven albums from 1976 to 1981 — six of which received gold status certification and one platinum certification in Canada. 

Born in Sarnia, Ont., Mitchell went on to have a successful solo career, with tunes including Go For Soda and Patio Lanterns. He's now 73 and still performing.

Wegner wasn't yet born when Max Webster broke up, but he said he grew up listening to the band and loved it.

As he got interested in music history, he realized nobody had done a book on the band, so he decided to write one. The result was Max Webster: High Class, for which he interviewed band members, including Mitchell.

Through that process, Wegner learned about the stolen guitar. He said Mitchell's bandmates recalled how devastated Mitchell was when it was taken from the band's van before they left town after a string of shows at Duffy's Tavern. 

Earl Johnson, the Hamilton-born guitarist of hard rock band Moxy, came up playing in the same area as Mitchell and Max Webster, though he said he didn't get to know Mitchell until decades later.

Johnson told CBC Hamilton that Duffy's was "a great rock club" and the place to see new music in the city. 

It was a basement club near King and John streets and open six nights a week, Johnson recalled. At the time, he said, musicians would often play six nights a week, living out of hotels and travelling between cities and towns.

It's "hard to fathom" how many clubs there were in Ontario, he said, adding there were so many venues, you could have probably toured for a month on Yonge Street in Toronto alone. 

Now, Johnson said, live music is far less profitable and young musicians he knows say they risk losing money playing live. 

As for Mitchell's stolen guitar, Johnson said he's heard of that sort of thing happening to musicians before. He said he once had a guitar fall off his vehicle, but luckily he noticed and was able to find it. 

Wegner said guitar likely has gone through many hands since it was stolen. 

The person who stole it probably "sold to someone [who] sold to somebody else, and gave it to their friend's dog, and their dog gives it to the squirrel down the street, and the squirrel dies and some guy inherits it, and now it's just sitting in this basement and he has no idea whose guitar this is. That's how these things go."

Wegner hopes anyone who thinks they know where the guitar is will "do the right thing" and get in touch via his website. He said he's not looking to get anyone in trouble and police aren't involved. 

"We do not care about who stole it. There's no retribution. There's no anger, no anything. It's just getting the guitar back into the right hands."