Category Archives: Kurt Cobain

Guitar played by John Lennon on Help!, lost for 50 years, going up for auction

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Guitar also played by George Harrison on Norwegian Wood could sell for millions in May auction, alongside other memorabilia including a book of Tupac Shakur’s handwritten lyrics

A guitar played by John Lennon and George Harrison in sessions for the albums Help! and Rubber Soul, which has spent the last 50 years lying in an attic, is to go up for auction alongside other memorabilia items such as a handwritten concert setlist by Kurt Cobain, a book of handwritten lyrics by Tupac Shakur and a Fendi dress worn by Amy Winehouse.

The 12-string acoustic guitar, a Hootenanny model made by Bavarian firm Framus in the early 1960s, was primarily played by Lennon and also appears in the movie Help!, used to perform You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. The studio version of that song also features the guitar, as well as Help!’s title track, It’s Only Love and I’ve Just Seen a Face. Harrison, meanwhile, used it to play the rhythm guitar part on Norwegian Wood, and it appears on another Rubber Soul song, Girl.

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Nirvana win lawsuit over Nevermind baby album cover

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A US judge has dismissed Spencer Elden’s claim that an image of him as a naked baby on the 1991 album constituted child sexual abuse

Spencer Elden, who appeared on the cover of Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind as a baby, has lost his lawsuit claiming that the image constituted child sexual abuse.

In the suit Elden claimed that the album cover, which depicts him at four months old and was taken by a family friend, had caused him “permanent harm” and a “lifelong loss of income-earning capacity”.

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Kurt Cobain’s Smells Like Teen Spirit electric guitar to be auctioned

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The 1969 Fender Mustang, on display in Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, is expected to have a starting price of over $600,000

The electric guitar played by Kurt Cobain in the Smells Like Teen Spirit music video will be put up for sale this weekend by Julien’s Auctions.

Speaking about the 1969 Fender Mustang during his final interview with Guitar World, Cobain said: “I’m left-handed, and it’s not very easy to find reasonably priced, high-quality left-handed guitars. But out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite. I’ve only owned two of them.”

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‘It’s cooler to hang Lennon’s guitar than a Picasso’: pop culture wins out at auctions

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Sales of items from celebrities such as Janet Jackson and K-poppers BTS are trending – and reframing what goes under the hammer

Is celebrity merchandise the new Monet? Auction houses are in flux, with more and more pop culture items being sold under the hammer for six and seven-figure sums.

Last month, Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills hosted a three-day auction of Janet Jackson’s personal belongings, including some of her most iconic stage outfits. Buyers included Kim Kardashian, who snagged Jackson’s outfit from the music video for her 1993 classic If for $25,000 (£18,000) and, on Instagram, said she was “such a fan” of the singer.

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Kurt Cobain ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ guitar sells for $6m

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Nirvana frontman’s 1959 Martin D-18E sold to Australian who will put it on tour, with proceeds going to help struggling artists

The guitar used by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain during the band’s famous MTV Unplugged in New York concert has sold for more than $6m (£4.8m) at auction.

The 1959 Martin D-18E featured in the grunge group’s performance in November 1993, five months before Cobain’s death aged 27.

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