Rickenbacker 620: The Guitar on Tom Petty’s Album Cover (That Isn’t His)

George Harrison, Roger McGuinn, Peter Buck, and Johnny Marr have never played a Rickenbacker 620. All four are genuine, historically important Rickenbacker artists — just not for this guitar. Their entire legacy runs through the brand’s semi-hollow 360 and 330 models, not this solidbody sibling. Even Rickenbacker’s own reference material concedes the point: the 620 has always been “less popular with big recording artists” than its semi-hollow cousins. But the one name on the spreadsheet that does connect — Tom Petty — comes with a twist nobody expects: the actual guitar on one of the most famous Rickenbacker album covers ever made doesn’t belong to Petty at all. It belongs to his guitarist.

The Solidbody Nobody Wanted, Then Everybody Needed

The Rickenbacker 620 belongs to the company’s 600 series, built around the distinctive “cresting wave” solidbody shape that Rickenbacker had been refining since the 1950s. Unlike the airy, resonant 360, the 620 trades semi-hollow construction for a solid maple body with true neck-through-body construction — the same design philosophy Rickenbacker used on its famous 4001 bass, applied here to a six-string electric.

The guitar’s real origin story, though, involves a prototype nobody quite knew what to do with. In 1963, Rickenbacker built three twelve-string prototypes to test the electric twelve-string concept that would soon make George Harrison famous: two semi-hollow 360/12s, and one solidbody 625/12 — a deluxe-bound relative of what would eventually become the 620/12. That solidbody prototype went essentially unnoticed for over a decade, quietly circulating in the used market while its semi-hollow siblings became the sound of the British Invasion.

In the mid-1970s, a young guitarist named Mike Campbell answered a classified ad in the Recycler expecting to find the bigger-bodied 360/12 that George Harrison and Roger McGuinn had made famous. What he got instead, for somewhere between $120 and $200 depending on which retelling you believe, was that same forgotten 1963 solidbody prototype — the third twelve-string Rickenbacker ever built, and the very first solidbody one. Campbell had no idea what he’d found. He simply liked how it sounded.

That guitar ended up around Tom Petty’s neck on the cover of 1979’s Damn the Torpedoes — one of the most recognizable album covers of the era, and one that Rickenbacker itself has credited with putting the brand back on the map after a fallow decade. The demand the cover generated was enormous enough that Rickenbacker pushed the 620/12 into full production for the first time in January 1980, with six-string 620 versions following close behind. Rickenbacker reportedly made more 620s in 1980 alone than in the entire previous decade combined.

The story didn’t end with the album cover. Campbell went on to use the guitar extensively on Heartbreakers records through the following decade, and the connection ran deep enough that in 1989 Rickenbacker built the band a small batch of custom instruments, including a unique semi-hollow Campbell model based on a John Lennon-style body with a hotter treble pickup, a one-off solidbody guitar for Petty that appeared on the cover of Full Moon Fever, and eventually a proper Tom Petty 660/12 signature model built directly from the lessons of that original accidental discovery. What started as a $120 mistake at a swap meet had, within a decade, reshaped an entire corner of Rickenbacker’s product line.

Full Specifications: Rickenbacker 620 (Six-String)

Construction and Tone: The Rickenbacker Jangle, Minus the Air

The core difference between the 620 and its semi-hollow siblings is exactly what the specs suggest: this is a genuinely solid guitar, not a chambered or hollow one. That solid maple body, combined with true neck-through-body construction running the maple neck all the way through the instrument, gives the 620 more sustain and a tighter, more controlled low end than the 360, at the cost of some of the airy resonance that makes the semi-hollow models feel almost acoustic in the hands. Forum consensus among players who’ve owned both consistently describes the 620 as having “a little more attack” than the 360, attributable specifically to the solidbody construction rather than any difference in pickup placement or wiring — the electronics between the two models are otherwise very similar.

That similarity matters for players chasing the classic Rickenbacker jangle without inheriting a semi-hollow guitar’s feedback sensitivity at stage volume. The 620 uses the same Hi-Gain single-coil pickups found across Rickenbacker’s modern 300 and 600 series lines, delivering the brand’s signature bright, articulate midrange bite, but with a fundamentally different foundation underneath it — useful for players who want that chime pushed through a loud, driven amp without fighting feedback the way a true hollow body might.

Famous Players: The Album Cover That Told the Wrong Story

The spreadsheet’s list for this guitar — George Harrison, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Peter Buck, Johnny Marr — reads like a greatest-hits list of Rickenbacker’s semi-hollow legacy. That’s exactly the problem.

Not Applicable to This Model

George Harrison‘s entire Rickenbacker identity is the semi-hollow 360/12. Roger McGuinn built The Byrds’ sound on a six-string 360 and later a modified twelve-string in the 360/370 family. Peter Buck has described his black Jetglo 360 as his main guitar on every R.E.M. record. Johnny Marr‘s defining Rickenbacker, by his own account, was a Jetglo 330. None of the four has a documented connection to the solidbody 620 — a pattern consistent with Rickenbacker’s own acknowledgment that the model has always run in the shadow of its semi-hollow siblings among major recording artists.

Genuine, But Not the Guitar You Think

Tom Petty is a real, deep Rickenbacker connection — but the twist is that the actual guitar photographed on the cover of Damn the Torpedoes belonged to his longtime guitarist and songwriting partner, not to Petty himself. Petty did go on to develop his own documented solidbody Rickenbacker relationship afterward: Rickenbacker built him a one-off solidbody prototype (seen on the cover of 1989’s Full Moon Fever), and the label later released a Tom Petty 660/12 signature model directly inspired by the Damn the Torpedoes story. So Petty’s connection to this guitar family is genuine — it’s just secondhand at the exact moment that made the guitar famous.

The Real Headline: Mike Campbell

Mike Campbell is the actual owner and player of the guitar that made the 620/12 famous. He bought the third twelve-string Rickenbacker ever built — and the first solidbody one — through a classified ad in the mid-1970s for around $120, with no idea of its significance. He’s used Rickenbackers on Heartbreakers hits including “Listen to Her Heart” and “Here Comes My Girl,” and by his own telling, the fame generated by that single album cover “shot the price up quite a bit” on an instrument he’d bought for pocket change. It’s a rare case in this entire guitar-gear series where the person actually responsible for a guitar’s fame isn’t the frontman whose face is on the album.

Modern Secondary Players

Away from the classic-rock era, Wikipedia’s own reference entry for the 620 points to a newer generation of indie and alt-rock guitarists who’ve made the model their own: Christopher Owens of Girls, Chris Urbanowicz of Editors, and Caleb Harper of Spacey Jane. None has the mainstream household-name recognition of a Harrison or a Petty, but all three represent the 620’s ongoing, if quieter, second life among guitarists who want Rickenbacker’s jangle without the semi-hollow body.

The 600 Series: More Than Just the 620

The “cresting wave” solidbody shape underpins a wider family than the 620 alone. The 610 is a simpler, less-bound version of the same basic platform, aimed at a lower price point. The 620/12 carries the direct Campbell/Petty lineage as the production twelve-string descendant of that original 1963 prototype. The Tom Petty 660/12 signature model, released in the mid-to-late 1990s, took the story full circle — a production instrument built specifically to honor the guitar that started as an anonymous classified ad find, featuring a wider neck than the original at Petty’s specific request along with cosmetic changes like a gold pickup and pickguard on a sunburst finish. Rarer still are the handful of one-off solidbody prototypes Rickenbacker built for Petty and Campbell personally around 1989, essentially unique instruments that occasionally surface in collector circles and Rickenbacker forum discussions but were never part of any regular production run.

Tone Recipes

Heartbreakers jangle-rock rhythm (Campbell-style): both pickups engaged, amp set for a bright, present clean tone, light compression to even out pick attack for chiming arpeggiated chord work.

Driven alt-rock without feedback: bridge pickup, amp pushed into natural breakup or paired with an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer for extra push — the solidbody construction tolerates higher gain and volume than a true semi-hollow Rickenbacker.

Clean chime for indie and jangle-pop: both pickups blended, into a clean platform like a Fender Deluxe Reverb-style amp, letting the Hi-Gain pickups’ natural bite carry the top end without added drive.

Twelve-string texture (620/12): full chord voicings low on the neck, standard tuning, letting the reversed-octave stringing ring out with minimal muting for the fullest chime.

How the 620 Compares

Against the Rickenbacker 360, the difference comes down entirely to construction: the 360’s semi-hollow body offers more natural resonance and a lighter, airier feel, while the 620’s solid maple body and neck-through construction trade some of that air for tighter sustain and better high-volume stability. Against a genuine solidbody rival like the Gibson Les Paul Standard, the 620 stays distinctly in Rickenbacker’s own lane — brighter, more midrange-forward, and built around a fundamentally different pickup philosophy than a humbucker-loaded Les Paul. Against a Fender Stratocaster, another classic American solidbody, the 620’s neck-through construction and Hi-Gain single-coils deliver a punchier, more compressed attack than a Strat’s bolt-on snap and spank.

Buying Guide

• 6-string vs. 620/12: the twelve-string carries the direct Petty/Campbell mythology and Beatles-adjacent lineage, but the six-string 620 is the more practical, everyday instrument and shares the same underlying construction and tone.
• 620 vs. 360, if you’re torn: choose the 620 if you want more sustain, tighter low end, and better feedback resistance at higher volumes; choose the 360 if you want more natural resonance and the lighter, airier semi-hollow feel.
• Color options: Fireglo, Mapleglo, Jetglo, and Midnight Blue are the standard factory finishes; vintage examples occasionally surface in rarer period colors.
• Don’t overpay chasing “the” guitar: the specific 1963 solidbody prototype Campbell owns is a one-of-a-kind museum-grade instrument, not something you’ll find for sale; a standard production 620 or 620/12 gives you the same core recipe without the impossible provenance chase.
• Expect a wait: as with all Rickenbacker instruments, handcrafted Santa Ana production means dealer waiting lists for new guitars are common.
• Vintage 620/12 prototypes are essentially unobtainable: the original 1963 solidbody prototype lineage that Campbell’s guitar belongs to was never a production run; what’s available on the vintage market are genuine post-1980 production 620s and 620/12s, still historically significant but not the exact prototype instrument itself.

Practical Ownership Notes

The 620’s neck-through construction means truss rod and neck issues are rarer than on bolt-on or set-neck guitars, but any structural work should go through a tech genuinely experienced with Rickenbacker’s specific hardware and neck-through design rather than a generalist. The narrow 1.63″ nut width and slim neck profile feel distinctly different from a Fender or Gibson neck — try one in person if you’ve never played a Rickenbacker before committing. As with the 360, the small mixer/blend control alongside the standard volume and tone knobs takes some learning; it blends the two pickups independently of the 3-way selector switch and rewards deliberate experimentation rather than being left at a default setting.

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