Epiphone Got the Nod from the Kings of Pop When the Beatles Made the Casino Their Axe of Choice
 At the height of Beatlemania, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison could have played any guitars they wanted. Cost certainly would have been no issue.
But the guitar each of them chose was a modest budget thinline: the Epiphone Casino. From 1965 to 1969, the Beatles would put the Casino's woofy midrange tone to memorable use on countless songs, including "Another Girl," "The Night Before," "Drive My Car," "Taxman," "Revolution," "Get Back," and "The End."
McCartney, in particular, was an Epiphone fan, and also purchased an Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar, which he used for writing and recording acoustic gems like "Yesterday" and "Michelle." While Gretsches, Rickenbackers, and Gibsons were also well represented among the Beatles' guitars, only Epiphone can claim to have had one model that was favored by each of the group's guitarists. To quote an obscure Beatles tune, that means a lot.
Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison were still finding their way as musicians when Gibson bought out the Epiphone brand in 1957. Epiphone had been in decline since the death of its leader, Epaminondas "Epi" Stathopoulo, in 1943.
fter the purchase, Gibson started making the two brands alongside each other in its Kalamazoo, Michigan, factory, using up leftover Epiphone parts. Introduced in 1958 as a continuation of Epiphone's FT79 flattop acoustic, the Texan serves as an example of the company's thrift. The earliest versions paired a mahogany 25 1/2–inch-scale Epiphone neck with Gibson's slope-shouldered J-45 body, which featured mahogany back and sides and a spruce soundboard.
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