There's A First Time For Everything
the Very first...
Guitars of
John
JWL's first guitar was bought for him by his mother Julia
(he was not living with her at the time) against his Aunt Mimi's wishes,
from a catalogue that boasted that it was guaranteed not to split!
1957 Gallotone Champion
His mother taught him banjo chords, since that's what she knew, so the chord form that John is using here is odd to say the least!
this is also the occasion of the first meeting of
John & Paul, Saturday 6th of July 1957, at the Garden Fete at Saint Peter's Church, in Woolton Village.
The Quarry Men, Johns skiffle group, were playing. A mutual friend (Ivan Vaughn) invited Paul to come and hear the band. Afterward the two met, Paul tuned John's guitar to the conventional EADGBE & played ,Twenty-flight Rock, (Eddie Cochran's hit) knew all the words, John asked him to join the band, soon afterward he said yes.
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Paul
JPM's first guitar was the result of returning a trumpet that his father had given him (you can't sing and play trumpet he thought!)
1956 Zenith (model 17)
The first guitar Paul ever played
was a 1950s circa REX acoustic.
Ian James, a Grammar School chum of Paul's, recently sold that old guitar at auction.
To the tune of $613,974.00
above Paul with that REX today
(the little photo in the picture is of Paul playing this very guitar as a youngster)
[photos from Business Wire]
Paul's first bass is said to be a butchered
1960 Rosetti Solid 7 
seen here as the converted bass and below, as a six string guitar. The neck was replaced and piano strings were used to make it a bass. It couldn't stand the strain and it wasn't that great of a guitar in the first place.
( an import from Holland meant to be an inexpensive price point sale anyway.)
This guitar was destroyed on stage! in Hamburg,
long before the Who? ever did such a thing!
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George
GH's first guitar was a
1956 Egmond (the very least expensive model) for about 3pounds
Ringo's first drum kit?
well not exactly a set but a large one sided base drum purchased for 30 shillings.
As a Beatle, Ringo first played a Premier kit,
Also featured in this photo from the first session at Abbey Road is JWL's 325 Ric still natural, sporting the Bigsby tail piece, also GH's DuoJet & JPM's "Cavern" Hofner.
Notice GH's black eye! it's said that the reaction around town to Ringo replacing Pete, got violent from time to time. George took one for Ringo in a scuffle after a local show.
this is the same kit he used with
Rory Storm & the Hurricanes
.
After the first session at Abbey Road it was
all the way!
the first time feedback was intentionally used on a Record ...
I Feel Fine
John left his Gibson J-160E leaning against his amplifier. After a few minutes the "A" string began to vibrate sympathetically, and began to feedback. When being jolted by the sound they said, what was that ? can we have that on the record?
this pre-dates Hendrix by several years!
there were many firsts in the studio, however the invention of
ADT(automatic double track)
by producer
George Martin, has to rank near the top of the list
John tiring of the process of recording his vocals twice to "fatten" them up, asked George to fix it. His solution was to feed the original signal back into the recorder a second time , slightly delayed. By varying the amount of delay, gave birth to several effects such as chorus, flange, & phase .
...thank you George!
the first time Strings 
were used on a Beatle record...also first solo for Paul,(no John, George or Ringo in the session) marketed as the Beatles....Yesterday
on to Part 2
