Dick’s hybrid Hofner "Club 50". "In my humble opinion, the best rhythm guitarist of the sixties or, to be honest, of any other era was John McNally of The Searchers. His input was the main reason the band sounded as individual and as great as they did. And all on a little Hofner Club 60, which he painted black, apparently in order to give it a little more credibility and to make it look more like a Gibson Les Paul! Oh, misguided youth - he need not have made any excuses - this guitar has no need of any. Probably the ultimate rhythm guitar, vying for that position alongside a Rickenbacker 325. Anyway, bearing in mind my absolute appreciation of the John McNally thing, I'd always harboured a hankering for a Hofner Club and when a unsympathetically butchered Club 40 came up for grabs I jumped at it, waving my ten bob note. I bought a couple of Hofner bar pickups and a dual control panel and upon their arrival, set about the patient with no anaesthetic and a sharp knife. The body had already been stripped and clear-lacquered reasonably well so I decided to keep that and just have the top sprayed black so as to adhere to the McNally ethos. I had the tailpiece gold plated to match the knobs and when I screwed it all together it came up completely trumps. It feeds my Searchers fetish along with my Burns Vibra Artist."