Well, as he explains here, in an interview that takes us from his 1991 GW cover shoot to the present day, there was a knock at the door. Enter, Eric Clapton’s roadie… But first, what about that Strat from the GW cover?
I have no idea. I have probably 12 Strats, but I noticed when looking at the picture that it’s not one of my more favored Strats. I think I picked it up because sometimes when I do a photo session, I take a guitar that I very rarely use. I still do it today with the acoustic guitars that I play some of the Renaissance music with.
Just because it’s in the photograph, it usually means I don’t use it. And looking at that guitar, it definitely looks like one of my substandard Strats. Whereas if it was my favorite Strat, it may get lost, I may forget it or leave it somewhere or it might get damaged in transit. So the reason I’m playing that guitar in the photo is because it isn’t one of my favorite guitars – in case I lost it. My good ones are usually under lock and key.
I think we should start speaking about my favorite Strat. And that is obviously white, and has a concave neck between the frets, which I usually do myself. It’s a very arduous process that takes about four days to shave down the wood. I cover the frets with tape, but I usually wind up having the guitar re-fretted with Gibson fat frets. I like really thick frets. I find the Fender frets are a bit too thin, personally.
He said, ‘I’ll sell it to you for £60.’ I said, ‘Okay, you’re on.’ So, for £60, I bought one of Eric Clapton’s old Strats that he obviously didn’t want because he gave it to the roadie. That was my initiation into playing a Strat. Up until then, I always played a Gibson ES-335.
I think we made a record named Emmaretta, and I used a wah-wah pedal with that Strat. However, the neck was a little bit too bowed, so I moved on from that Strat to buying another Strat from my friend’s shop in London. It was a sunburst Strat and a black Strat.
I often used to change necks on my Strats, sometimes with the three or four screws on the back of the neck. If I remember correctly, I changed the neck from the black Strat to the sunburst Strat because I preferred that neck.
At this point, I had three or four Strats. The Smoke on the Water guitar, I believe, was the sunburst guitar with the black Strat’s neck. A lot of people ask me which guitar I used. I like the sunburst Strat color because of Buddy Holly, but I was always fascinated by the white.
I remember Colin [Manley] from the Remo Four playing a white Strat back in ’66. He was the first player I saw play with a white Strat, and it was very majestic and to me. It kind of said, ‘I don’t have to be any color because white stands out.’
Leave a Reply