“Whoever sold it to you stole it from me!” Stephen Stills cut a deal to sell Waddy Wachtel his Les Paul 'Burst — and then forgot it ever happened

When Waddy Wachtel moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1968, one of the first friendships he made in his new home was with the fledging group Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Wachtel, who'd made the trip West with his band Twice Nicely, recalls that "they were just putting CS&N together, and David Crosby asked me what I would think if he was to put a band together with Stephen and Graham. I was like, 'Are you kidding? I don't have to think about that — you're gonna be the biggest band in the world!'"

Some time afterward, CS&N and Twice Nicely were renting rehearsal rooms simultaneously at SIR Studios, in L.A., which allowed Wachtel to do a bit of unexpected guitar shopping courtesy of Stephen Stills’ collection. It netted him the 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard that he wound up playing across his career with artists like Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks. For obvious reasons, it’s among the most treasured electric guitars in his collection.

"Crosby, Stills & Nash were in the other room," Wachtel recalls as he tells Guitar Player the story. “One day, I looked in and the room was just surrounded with guitars, all around the walls."

The Les Pauls caught his eye. "I asked Stephen, 'Would you be into selling one of those Les Pauls?’" he recalls.

“He goes, 'Y'know, why don't we switch rooms tonight and you can try out any one you want and pick one.'

“How great is that, right?" Wachtel asks. "But that's what was so amazing when I moved here — the camaraderie. The shared musical warmth was really amazing.

"So we spent the night rehearsing in their room. I picked my sunburst Les Paul, and Stephen sold it to me."

Wachtel paid $350 for the instrument — about $2,700 in 2025. Not exactly cheap, but much less than a 1960 Les Paul Standard would command in the coming decades.

Apparently, Stills put the sale out of mind almost immediately.

"Several years later," Wachtel remembers, "I was doing a session for Graham, and Stephen showed up. He looked at me and said, 'Hey Waddy, I want to know who sold you that Les Paul you play — 'cause whoever sold it to you stole it from me.'

“I jumped up off the couch and pointed right in his face. I said, ‘You sold it to me, man. You, personally.'

"We had a huge laugh and Stephen finally said, 'I did... Yeah, I did.'"

A nice postscript to the story came more recently, however, at the FireAid concert on January 30, to benefit those affected by the wildfires that devastated thousands of acres throughout the Los Angeles area. Wachtel played with Stevie Nicks, while Stills and Nash performed as guests of Dawes.

"My guitar tech was there the night before I went down to rehearse with Stevie,” Wachtel says. “He was having dinner and sitting next to Stephen. Stephen asked what he was doing there and he said, 'I'm here with Waddy.'

“Stills said, 'Y'know, I still regret selling him that guitar, although I know it's in the best hands it can be in.' I thought that was really sweet."

Gibson Custom went on to make a limited edition of the Les Paul for Wachtel in 2014: the Collector’s Choice #14 Waddy Wachtel 1960 Les Paul Standard. The guitarist says the instrument has allowed him to keep his original safely "buried away" at home.

But the Les Paul isn't the only contribution he received from the CS&N camp. He recalls that, early in his West Coast tenure, Crosby offered him some valuable advice about Twice Nicely.

"David took me aside one day and said to me, 'Waddy, you know you're the only one in that band, right?' I didn't want to hear it, but I knew I was a better player than the other guys. Shortly after that, I broke the band up and started meeting some terrific musicians."

Wachtel began exploring session work. "I thought, I can do that. I learn songs quickly. I have a good sense of how to accompany a song.

“So I set my sights on being a studio musician, and soon I was playing sessions with those same great musicians I met."

The rest, of course, is history. Wachtel has amassed a Forrest Gump–like career as a player, producer and bandleader. His credits include Rondstadt and Nicks as well as Warren Zevon, Keith Richards and His X-Pensive Winos, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, Dolly Parton and scores of others.

Of course the guitarist — who shared the stories behind six of his career-defining tracks — is perhaps best known for his work with Nicks, with whom he has served as both music director and constant companion on her solo albums.

Their friendship goes back to the 1973 album Buckingham Nicks, which Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham cut that year along with Wachtel, bassist Jerry Scheff, drummer Jim Keltner and numerous other session aces. The record would famously become the group’s calling card when Mick Fleetwood was looking to replace guitarist/frontman Bob Welch in Fleetwood Mac the following year. Wachtel began working with Nicks again when she launched her solo career with Bella Donna in 1981.

"After we finished her first solo record, she asked me to come onboard as the band leader,” he explains. “It was really easy to understand each other and rock and roll together. We instantly had this bond onstage. We knew how to be with each other. We have a closeness on and offstage that's rare and very special."

Wachtel continues to work sessions — “Employment is a strange addiction," he notes with a chuckle — and is also part of the Immediate Family, an all-star band formed during 2018 with fellow sideman luminaries Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar and Russell Kunkel of the Section, and Steve Postell. The group has released two albums and the documentary film Immediate Family.

While the members' assorted schedules have put the band "on hold," they’re working on a collection of "our greatest hits," songs that the players have written and/or recorded with others during their careers.

"Everybody's working — which is almost always the case, fortunately," Wachtel says. "We've always considered ourselves band guys — that's why we instantly knew how to play together. We're band dudes. Each one of us had a particular way of laying their stuff on the table for the other guys to see and hear.

“We always wanted to be that band, and when we got a chance to do it, we jumped at it. And we'll always be up for it when everyone's available."