Rory Gallagher's 1961 Fender Stratocaster

Rory Gallagher is one of the most criminally underrated guitar players of all time. He is a legend pure and simple, and his mastery of the fretboard is beyond repute. Over the course of his career, Rory of course played a number of guitars, but the most iconic and his favorite that he played until his dying day was his 1961 Fender Stratocaster.

Rory and his Strat

Rory Gallagher bought this Fender Stratocaster (Serial Number 64351) in 1963 for around £100 at Crowley's Music Store in Cork, Ireland. The guitar is thought to be the first ever Stratocaster to be shipped to the Emerald Isles. Another thing that made this guitar unique was the wood used for the body as Rory would relate, "It has a very flat kind of neck.  Although they were making the bodies out of Alder and Ash, somebody said mine is actually Maple - which is really a one off!" 

Gallagher was able to get his hands on the instrument after Jim Connolly, a showband member performing with The Irish Showband, ordered a Strat from Fender in red, and due to a mishap they shipped one finished in Tobacco Sunburst instead. Conolly opted to wait for a red one, and Rory managed to scoop up the one he discarded.  Rory himself would later relate the tale, "Early on, I got the Stratocaster - in fact it was the first one I ever saw.  It’s supposed to have been the first Strat brought into Ireland.  The guy who had it before me was in a show band and he ordered a red one.  They actually sent a sunburst so he decided to wait for a red one to arrive, and I had the sunburst - it was luxury!  It was easy to play from the start and I’ve kept it ever since."

 Over the years, Rory made some modifications here and there to the instrument. The tuning pegs were replaced oddly enough with five Sperzel pegs and one Gotoh peg. The nut has been replaced and a number of times througout the life of the guitar, and the pickguard was swapped out during his time with Taste. When it comes to electronics, at some point Rory switched out the pickups on the guitar and rewired it disconnecting the bottom tone pot essentially providing him a master tone control along with the master volume control. He also installed a 5-way selector switch in place of the vintage 3-way one.

 Of course, when one sees the guitar one of the most striking things is the worn down condition it is in. Rory was a guitar player, and when it came to his Strat he really played it. Hundreds of gigs over several decades took its toll. It didn't help that Rory had a rare blood type that was high in acid, so when he sweat, it acted almost as a paint thinner on the instrument. He didn't seem to mind though and would later say, "It was in good condition when I bought it, but it’s got so battered now it’s got a kind of tattoo quality about it. There’s now a theory that the less paint or varnish on a guitar, acoustic or electric, the better. The wood breathes more. But it’s all psychological. I just like the sound of it. It’s also a good luck thing."

Rory's Strat in 2007

At one point in the 1960's the guitar was actually stolen from Rory. His brother Donal would later tell the tale, "I remember the incident happening in Dublin. Just the sheer horror of it! What made it doubly bad is that a friend of Rory’s in York lent Rory his Telecaster for an upcoming gig in Dublin. To play in Dublin was the next big step for Rory at the time, so he borrowed this Tele so he could play slide. Sadly, they stole the Tele as well. That whole week felt like someone we knew had been kidnapped. It was that profound! Rory was so depressed. And, as family, you’d take on the depression as well."

“In Ireland at the time, there was a television show called “Gardia Patrol.” They featured Rory’s stolen guitar. And, since there was only one television channel in Ireland - everyone watched and the item became hot property. The next thing that happened was the cops found that it had been abandoned. We were very grateful. But, at the same time, when they aired the recovery on “Gardia Patrol,” the cop said, “The thief was probably doing the neighbors a favour!” The corny comment made Rory cringe. I remember screaming at the television, “If you only knew how good this guitar player is!” But, Gardia Patrol was instrumental in getting it back to him.” 

For Rory Gallagher, his beloved Stratocaster was a part of his identity. He played it from almost the very beginning of his career until the end when he sadly passed away due to complications with his liver in 1995.  "The guitar is a part of me." Rory would state, "BB King might have several Lucilles, but I’ve only got the one Strat. I don’t even call it a woman’s name. It’s what it is. I still play it every day, I just love playing it.” 

After Rory's passing, the guitar passed into the hands of his brother Donal who essentially retired it. However, in 2011, the guitar made a rare onstage appearance at a show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London in the hands of blues rock God, Joe Bonamassa. The event happened as a birthday gift to Bonamassa courtesy of his girlfriend Sandi Thom, "Sandi said to me one day, 'I'm going to give you your birthday present and your Christmas present all in one,' says Bonamassa. "So I'm thinking, OK, this is going to be pretty good, right? I had no idea that she would this off! She told me that she just spoke to Donal, and he was going to come to my London show…with the guitar! She said that if I wanted to play it, Donal would be happy to lend it to me. I was like, 'Are you kidding me?!'"

Bonamassa would go on to add, " I got to spend a couple of hours with it before I went on stage. I changed the strings – probably the second time the strings have been changed since Rory died – plugged it in and started to play. Immediately I was in 'Rory mode'. The pinch harmonics, the feel of the neck...there was big 'Wow!' factor. The thing is, this was a great guitar. If it belonged to Jerry Abrams from Peoria, Illinois, it'd still be a fantastic Strat. But it was Rory's guitar. The contours, the heel, the fretboard…you could really feel that he'd played it and made it his own."

Joe Bonamassa with Rory Gallagher's Fender Stratocaster

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John Lennon's Rickenbacker 325

The Beatles are undoubtedly the most recognized and acclaimed group of musicians to 

ever play guitar, drums and bass. For John Lennon, the guitar he chose to help 

launch the British Invasion was a 1958 Rickenbacker 325

John Lennon in Hamburg with his Rickenbacker 325

In 1960, The Beatles departed their home country and set off for Hamburg, Germany. They had spent the last months toiling in the clubs and coffeehouses around Liverpool, and decided to try and strike it out in a new place to see about changing their fortunes. The eventually signed with German promoter Bruno Koschmider and were signed to be the house band for his Indra Club. The gig wasn't exactly all it was cracked up to be, and upon arriving they spent their first night in Hamburg sleeping in leather chairs in the booths of the club.

John himself would later describe the group's living conditions in Hamburg, "We were put in this pigsty. We were living in a toilet, like right next to the ladies' toilet. We'd go to bed late and be woken up next day by the sound of the cinema show and old German fraus [women] pissing next door." The group was paid £2.50 a night, and were made to play each night out of the week from 8:30 pm until 2:00 am with only three half an hour breaks in between sets. The situation was crummy for all those involved, however one thing it did do for the group was expose them to an audience on a nightly basis, and provide them the time and room to enhance their own individual and collective abilities.

Handbill for The Beatles after they moved from the Indra Club to the Kaiserkeller

When John first arrived in Hamburg he brought with him a Hofner Senator guitar, but after some time, he decided he wanted a new instrument. The Beatle had previously seen Jean "Toots" Thielemans of George Shearing´s Quintet, playing a Rickenbacker 325 in 1959 and instantly fell in love with it. While walking down the Reeperbahn with George Harrison one day, John spotted a 325 sitting in the window of Steinways music store. It was a natural finished model and as George was to later recall, "I think we bought them on "a knocker...I don´t know if we ever paid them off", meaning they bought them for a one pound deposit and neglected to pay off the rest of the debt.

The guitar John purchased was a 1958 model, and at first came in a natural finish. It had a 4/5 scale solid top guitar, alder body and neck, 2" thick with 1/8" ply back, single gold lucite control plate, four rotary controls with Rogan knobs, three 'short pole' toaster style pickups, Kauffman vibrola, standard 3 position pickup selector switch, extended jackplate, open backed Grover Statite tuners, and Rickenbacker open top roller bridge.

Over the subsequent years, Lennon would make many modifications to the guitar, starting with the control knobs. He decided to remove the TV-style control knobs and replace them with Hofner types, he would later alternated between a set of Burns and Hofner knobs.

John's Rickenbacker 325 pictured at a trade show in 1958 (Bottom Left)

The second modification came when John returned to Liverpool when he decided to replace the stock Kauffman Vibrola tailpiece. The Kauffman proved to be unreliable and when John would lean on it, it would frequently cause the guitar to go out of tune. Thus, Lennon went to Hessy's music and bought a Bigbsy tailpiece with a bow-tie bridge from Jim Getty who installed it for him on the spot in the store. Unfortunately the Bigsby bridge was a bit too large for the smaller 325 body. The pick-guard on the Rickenbacker prevented it from fitting properly or perhaps it was improperly installed.

Additionally, at some point, the middle pickup was disconnected on the guitar as well. No one knows exactly why, and John himself never commented on the issue, but the most likely reason for this altered wiring might have been to achieve greater difference in tone between the different pickup-switch positions. In most photos of John playing the 325 John had the guitar set to the middle position, so it is plausible that he liked the setting and personally requested the change.

The last and most dramatic modification done to the instrument was the refinishing job Lennon had done to it. After ditching the leather jackets and opting for suits, ties, and cuban shoes, Lennon decided he wanted to change the look of his guitar as well. To do the refinish, John contacted Jim Burns, of Burn's Guitar to do the job. The exact date of when this took place is unknown, however the last time the guitar was photographed in the natural finish was at the Cavern Club in Liverpool around October, 1962. The first photograph of the guitar with it's new coat of black paint was taken in the Star Club in Hamburg in December of the same year, thus one can infer that somewhere during this time was when the task was completed.

Eventually, John would retire the 325 shortly after the band made their American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. The guitar was put away in storage until 1972 when John commissioned Ron DeMarino, to restore the instrument to a working order. DeMarino would later describe that upon receiving John's Rickenbacker that it was in a very poor condition. The guitar was equipped with mixed types of strings, some missing, and strung in the wrong place. The gold control plate was cracked and the wiring harness was tampered with to the point that circuit information from Rickenbacker was required to return it to original specifications. 

DeMarino was able to successfully restore the 325 to its former glory. John had made an additional request upon handing the guitar over, he wanted to remove the black paint and restore it to its original natural finish. Unfortunately, it was mistakenly refinished in plain maple rather than the correct natural/honey finish. The Burns knobs were retained on the guitar however, the pick-guard had to be replaced, with John giving the original damaged one given to DeMarino as a gift. 

John's Rickenbacker 325 after it was Restored

 It is rumored that John would later choose to use his old trusted Rick on the Double Fantasy sessions in 1980. It is rather fitting that some of the last music John would ever record was played on his old trusted Rickenbacker 325, the guitar he played when he was introduced to the world.

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Django Reinhardt's Selmer Modele Jazz Guitar

Django Reinhardt is considered by many people to be one of the greatest jazz style 

guitar players of all time. For the bulk of his career, the instrument he chose to

play was a Selmer Modele Jazz acoustic guitar.

Jean "Django" Reinhardt was born in Pont-à-Celles, Belgium in 1910. His family was basically comprised of gypsies who made wicker furniture that they weaved by hand. At the age of twelve, Django was given a banjo and taught himself how to play by observing the fingering positions of other amateur musicians that he was surrounded by at the time. Just a year later, Django was making his living by playing his banjo in whatever live setting he could find.

When Django was eighteen, he returned home from a performance and accidently knocked over a candle. His home quickly caught fire and he had to be dragged from his burning house by his neighbors. As a result, Django received first and second degree burns over half his body, his right leg was paralyzed, and most devastatingly, his ring and pinky fingers on his left hand were damaged to the point where doctors thought he'd never be able to play again.

Django proved the doctors wrong however, and taught himself to play with just his index and middle fingers. From there, he kept playing and started to gain attention and recognition for both his ability and skill playing some of the most amazing jazz guitar the world had ever heard. The great Les Paul, who had the opportunity to hear and play with Django Reinhardt on several occasions would later state, " I considered him the greatest guitar player around."

Well then, what did the greatest play? For most of his career, after he gained notoriety, Django settled almost exclusively on Selmer Modele Jazz Guitars. Selmer was founded in the later 1800's around Paris, France by Alexandre and Henri Selmer. At first the company was geared toward producing mainly clarinets and other woodwind instruments. In 1932, the company manufactured it's first Selmer Guitar, and would go on to produce around 900 of them from that point until 1952.

The original line had wide letter D shaped soundholes, but in 1936, they updated their design to feature a small oval shaped soundhole instead; this would become known as Le Modèle Jazz. The Modele Jazz had laminated Indian rosewood back and sides, a solid spruce top, an ebony fingerboard, and a walnut neck with a grafted headstock. The neck of the guitar was quite long at 26½ -inch scale length and and the tuning machines were of course sealed gears.

1936 Selmer Modele Jazz

Django would purchase his first Selmer guitar in the mid-1930's. After gaining a reputation for being one of the greatest jazz guitarists playing in the world, Selmer decided to officially endorse Reinhardt, and for the rest of his life, Django would become the ambassador of the Selmer brand. Additionally, as an endorsee, he never had to worry about purchasing guitars anymore, and would sometimes stop by the factory and pick one up and take it home with him. 

Django Reinhardt didn't have much, he made a decent living, but never achieved the sort of financial compensation one would expect for his efforts. That being said, some of this could of course be attributed to actions taken by the man himself, but, regardless of this fact, one thing is certain, he was a generous person. Indeed, more often than not, the guitars he picked up out of the Selmer factory would eventually end up in the hands of a friend. This has led to wide speculation in subsequent years that nearly any vintage Selmer guitar was at one time owned or played by Django Reinhardt. This is could obviously not be true.

The truth is, there are only two Selmer Modele Jazz Guitars in the world that can be attributed to belonging to Django Reinhardt without any trace of doubt. I do not mean at all to say that there isn't a great deal of validity to many of the claims, hell Les Paul shows off a Modele Jazz that Reinhardt had supposedly given him in the documentary Les Paul: Chasing Sound. All I am trying to convey is that beyond anecdotal evidence, there is only two Selmer Moderne Jazz guitars that there is absolutely irrefutable evidence that they belonged to Django.

Selmer Modele Jazz

The first is his most famous, Number 503. Django first acquired this guitar in 1940 and played this as his main number one instrument for the rest of his life until he succumbed to a brain hemorrhage in 1953. The guitar was then passed down to his son Babik, until his mother thought better of it, and donated the instrument to the Musée Instrumental de Paris 1964.

The second Selmer Modele Jazz is number 704. This is the only instrument the Selmer logbooks show as baving been shipped to Reinhardt. Reinhardt picked up this guitar in 1948 just before a tour of Italy, during which the originai top was crushed. An unknown Italian luthier replaced the top, using a round soundhole rather than Selmer's distinctive oval. Reinhardt gave the repaired guitar to his partner Stéphane Grappelli, who in turn gave it to an Italian friend. The guitar remained with Grappelli's friend in Rome until it was sold a few years ago. French luthier Maurice Dupont restored it to Selmer specifications using a 50‑year‑old piece of spruce and also replaced the fingerboard.

Selmer is not a household name like Gibson or Martin, but they are well known and highly prized instrument. Most of their notoriety and fame is due almost exclusively to their association with Django Reinhardt. It is due to this association as well as to the fact that less than 1,000 were ever produced, and that many remain unaccounted for that these guitars are extremely hard to come by, and prohibitively expensive.

That being said, if you happen to go up to your grandparents attic one day, and find a dusty old Selmer hidden away in some forgotten corner, I highly recommend that you wipe away the grime, extend your index and middle fingers and play "Minor Swing", with the memory of one the greatests in your mind.

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Jimmy Page's Fender "Dragon" Telecaster

Though most known for being a Gibson Les Paul man, one of Jimmy Page's most iconic instruments is his 1959 or 1960 Fender Telecaster.

This 1959 Fender Telecaster was owned by John Owen who purchased it for 107 pounds in 1961. The exact date of the instrument is unknown, but there are some clues that provide us with a pretty decent idea. Due to the fact that the guitar was equipped with a top loader bridge yet the body still has holes on the back to put the strings through, a feature that was common for Telecasters produced in 1959 and 1960. Additionally, the guitar was equipped with a rosewood fretboard, a feature that was first introduced in mid-1959.

John Owen later sold the Telecaster to the lead guitarist of the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck. Beck and Owen were old friends, having both played guitar in a short lived group known as The Deltones. While in The Yardbirds, Beck used this Telecaster mainly as a backup to his famed Esquire. While in Beck's possession, the original white Bakelite pick guard became worn down to the point that Beck ended up replacing it with a homemade black pick guard.

Jeff Beck with the Tele (Pre-Page)

 Jimmy Page acquired this guitar from his Beck in 1966. Beck gave the guitar to Jimmy as a gift s for Page had recommending Beck for the vacant guitarists slot in the Yardbirds in the first place. Jimmy had also helped Beck out in his pre-Yardbirds days by also sending some studio session work his way and recommending him to various London producers.

When Jimmy got the guitar it was painted completely white, and he left it that way for some time, but at some point in 1967, when the psychedelic movement began to take off he decided to throw 8 circular mirrors on the body of the guitar. Pink Floyd guitarist, Syd Barrett did something similar with his guitar. After leaving the mirrors on the guitar for a while, Jimmy decided to tear them off, strip the paint of the guitar completely and repaint it himself, with splashes of green, yellow and red, he also threw on a metallic pick-guard on; the Dragon Tele was born. Jimmy played this guitar as his main instrument in the Yardbirds, as well as the first year and a half of Led Zeppelin's existence.

Jimmy used this guitar to record most of the first Led Zeppelin album, and some of the second. He retired it as his main instrument when he acquired his "#1" 1959 Gibson Les Paul from Joe Walsh in April of 1969. The Dragon Telecaster would make its last live appearance in front of an audience on May 3, 1969 at a show in Pasadena, California at the Rose Palace. The guitar would make a dramatic comeback, a sort of swan song if you will on Led Zeppelin's most well known work, "Stairway to Heaven" where Page used it to record the dramatic solo near the end of the song.

Jimmy Prior to applying the Dragon Paint Job

Alas, the guitar would not survive the 1970's. While Jimmy was out touring America a friend of his decided to repaint the guitar and present it to Jimmy as a gift. In the process however, the friend completely runied the guitar and made it for all intents and purposes, unplayable. Jimmy talked about this incident with Guitar World in 1998: 

"I still have it (referring to the Dragon Tele), but it’s a tragic story. I went on tour with the ’59 Les Paul that I bought from Joe Walsh, and when I got back, a friend of mine had kindly painted over my paint job. He said, "I’ve got a present for you.” He thought he had done me a real favor. As you can guess, I wasn't real happy about that. His paint job totally screwed up the sound and the wiring, so only the neck pickup worked. I salvaged the neck and put it on my brown Tele string bender that I used in the Firm. As for the body… it will never be seen again! (laughs)"


As he stated, Jimmy would salvage the neck and place it on the body of another telecaster that would be known as his "B-Bender" Tele. He used this guitar extensively during his tenure in the band "The Firm"

Jimmy with The Firm playing his B-Bender Tele Equipped with the Dragon Tele Neck

Ever since the paint job that slayed the dragon, the body has never been seen in public. To this day, the neck still remains on his B-Bender Telecaster, however, that has neither been seen in a number of years as well.

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Eric Clapton's "The Fool" 1964/65 Gibson SG

One of the most instantly recognizable guitars in the world, Eric Clapton's 1964 Gibson SG is instantly recognizable to the masses for the psychedelic paint job applied by a Dutch artistic duo known collective as "The Fool".

Eric Clapton originally purchased this Gibson SG after his "Bluesbreakers" Gibson Les Paul was stolen. It has been speculated, but never officially confirmed that this guitar originally belonged to George Harrison of The Beatles. It is known that Harrison owned an SG and recorded the song and iconic riff "Day Tripper" with one, and that he later gave it up around the same time Clapton acquired his. This is all speculation of course, and neither party has ever confirmed the story.

Armed with "The Fool" SG, Eric Clapton innovated what is now known today as "The Woman Tone". Clapton himself has described "The Woman Tone" as, "a sweet sound… more like the human voice than the guitar." Essentially, "The Woman Tone" is the sound of a Gibson SG, plugged into a Marshall amplifier with the tone setting on the guitar turned almost all the way down and the volume full up.

One of the mysteries surrounding the guitar is exactly what year the guitar was manufactured. It is sometimes thought that the guitar is a 1961, however with six screws in the pick guard, this rules this out as a possibility (six screwed pick guards had only begun to be attached to SGs beginning in 1964). Therefore it is thought that the guitar is either a 1964 or a 1965. It is impossible to know the precise date due to the fact that when the guitar was being painted, the serial number was sanded off.

In his 2007 Autobiography, Clapton described how he linked up with "The Fool" and approached them to add their own spin to his new acquisition. "'The Fool' were...two Dutch artists, Simon and Marjike, who had come over to London from Amsterdam in 1966 and set up a studio designing clothes, posters, and album covers. They painted mystical themes in fantastic vibrant colors and had been taken up by The Beatles, for whom they had created a vast three-story mural on the wall of their Apple Boutique on Baker Street. They had also painted John Lennon's Rolls-Royce in lurid psychedelic colors. I asked them to decorate one of my guitars, a Gibson Les Paul, which they turned into a psychedelic fantasy, painting no just the front and back of the body, but the neck and fretboard too."

Note: Clapton describes the guitar in the above passage as a Gibson Les Paul, but it is obviously and most assuredly an SG

"The Fool's" work was not limited to just Eric's guitar. The collective had originally been contacted by Cream's (Eric Clapton's band at the time) manager, Robert Stigwood about doing an eye-catching psychedelic design on the instruments of all the group members. Thus, in 1967, when Cream left the U.K. for a tour of the United States, all three members, bassist Jack Bruce, drummer Ginger Baker, and Clapton, were all decked out in the latest in style of the 1960's.

The guitar was painted with oil-based enamel paint. Marijike Koger described the overall theme of the design as, "good versus evil, heaven versus hell, and the power of music in the universe to rise above it all as a force of good." The crazy hair on the head of the cherub, the centerpiece of the artwork, was inspired by Clapton's own hairdo at the time.

Simon Posthuma & Marijike Koger: "The Fool"

The guitar made its debut on 25 March 1967 at the RKO theater in New York City. It was Cream's first show in The United States and the band would go on to play a nine-show stint alongside The Who, footing the bill for headliner, Mitch Ryder. Clapton would use this guitar to record the albums, Fresh Cream, and Disraeli Gears.

After Cream broke up in 1968, Clapton decided to part ways with the Gibson SG, giving it to guitarist Jackie Lomax after working with him on a recording session for the song, "Is That What You Want?". Lomax owned the guitar for four years before deciding himself to sell the guitar to acclaimed American guitarist, Todd Rundgren for $500.

Upon acquiring the instrument, Rundgren renamed the guitar "Sunny" and took it with him on most of his subsequent tours. When he first received it from Lomax, the guitar had been worn down and beaten up from years of playing and abuse. Thus shortly after purchasing it, Rundgren had it custom restored to its former glory. Ultimately when the cost of insuring the guitar increased to a level where it was deemed impracticable to take out on tour, Rundgren had several copies of the instrument made, and put the original away in storage.

Todd Rundgren with "The Fool"

In 2000, Rundgren sold the guitar for at a Sotheby's auction for $150,000, with ten percent of the proceeds going to Eric Clapton's Crossroads Antigua Rehabilitation Center. It was later re-sold to a private unknown collector in for a staggering $500,00. It was last publicly available for viewing at the Hard Rock Cafe in San Francisco.

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Jeff Beck 1954 Fender Esquire

When Jeff Beck joined The Yardbirds in 1965 he inherited his predecessor, Eric Clapton's Fiesta Red Fender Telecaster. When it came time for the guitarist to purchase and play a guitar of his own, he chose a now iconic 1954 Fender Esquire. 

Fender began manufacturing the Esquire in 1950, with a second run produced from 1951 to 1969. Originally it was called the Broadcaster, but after finding out that Gretsch already produced an instrument, a drum set, by the same name (except spelled Broadkaster), re-dubbed their new guitar the Esquire. As opposed the Telecaster, the Esquire came equipped with only one pickup located in the standard bridge position. The Esquire came equipped with a three-way selector switch, but rather than turning on and off the pickups, it modified the tone of the guitars single pickup. In the bridge position the tone circuit was completely bypassed, in the middle position, the tone control was enabled, and in the traditional neck position, the pickup took on a much bassier tone.

Beck later recalled the circumstances in an interview with Fender about how he acquired his Esquire, "Fender had just started making Teles with rosewood necks, but I wanted one with an original maple neck. Thankfully, we’d gone on tour with The Walker Brothers, and John Maus [The Walker Brothers singer and guitarist] had a maple-neck Tele. He wanted about seventy-five pounds for it, which was only ten pounds cheaper than the new ones in the shops, but he wouldn’t budge. So I dug out the money, bought the guitar from him and I never regretted it.” As to what Beck used the guitar on, he later added, "That maple-neck Esquire was on “I’m A Man,” “Over Under Sideways Down,” “Shapes Of Things,” and numerous others." 

When Jeff received the guitar it had already been a bit battered and worn down. Maus had taken a chisel and cut slight contours into the body to make it a bit more comfortable when set on his knee. It is also presumed that he chiseled out the back as well, as the guitar is quite thin from the side profile. For the most part, Beck left the guitar as-is with only a couple of minor changes, replacing the brass bridge saddles with steel ones, and changing the pick guard out from a white one to a black version. It was a well playing instrument, and the one he would use almost exclusively for the rest of his tenure with the band.

In the end, Jeff Beck would part ways with his beloved Esquire in October of 1974, swapping it out with famed pickup designer, Seymour Duncan. "He [Duncan] snuck into the studio when I was doing Blow by Blow, and he had his eye on it. I don't know what I was doing with it...I think I didn't have it with me, this one [points to Esquire]. He said, 'Do you still have that?' and I said, 'yeah,' and he got out of the case this really heavy body tele, which was made of ash, I think. Nice heavy body, and it had humbuckers that had beautifully adapted to it. [I] plugged it in, and there was the happy medium between the Les Paul and the Fender Tele. You know I thought, 'best of both worlds', and I used that straight away on "Because We Ended as Lovers".

And he said, 'If you think if tomorrow, if you remember, can you bring that up?'. So there's me using his guitar for the session, for that day, and the next day I brought it up, and he said, 'Do you wanna make a swap?'. 'Yeah!" Has this guy lost his nut, because it was a nice guitar that he lent me. Then as he walked out for the last time with it, I went, 'Ugh...bye bye...'. There goes my old workhorse.

Today, Seymour Duncan has lent the Fender Esquire to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where all can see it, and marvel at one of the most iconic guitars ever played.

 

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Mission Statement

Welcome to Iconic Axes!

The purpose of this site is to provide people all across the world access to information about some of the most famous and renowned guitars ever played. Whether you're a fan of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmy Page, or Eddie Van Halen to name but a few, this is the place to come if you want to know all there is about the guitars they played, and what made them unique.

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