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拍品專文
This important vintage White Stratocaster, dating to 1960, was acquired by Jeff Beck in mid 1976. Devastated by the theft of the white Strat given to him by friend and collaborator John McLaughlin during their co-headline tour in 1975, which had been used to record much of his solo album Wired, Beck quickly sought to replace the guitar with a similar pre-CBS era Strat. Both Al Dutton, Beck’s longtime road manager, and Jan Hammer recalled the fateful moment in early 1976 when, having been shipped to Jan’s upstate New York Red Gate Studio by the airline, the guitar cases arrived empty. Beck and Dutton had travelled to Hammer’s studio to record some final parts for the Wired album, as well as one of its stand-out tracks ‘Blue Wind’. The guitar used for ‘Blue Wind’ was a Strat which Jan already owned, having itself been purchased from Manny’s in September 1975. That guitar was not used by Jeff again following the sessions, and Jan told us it was sadly smashed the following year during The Jan Hammer Group’s tour in 1977.
Beck had been playing Strats since he was a teenager in the early 1960s. Speaking to Art Thompson for Guitar Player in 2010, Beck recalled that he ‘discovered the Strat when I saw Buddy Holly's first album, The 'Chirping' Crickets. Buddy was proudly holding a Strat, and I thought, 'I've got to have one of those.' The Strat was the icon. Then when I saw Jimi Hendrix play, I thought, 'that's it. He's making the right noises with that.' Then I went back to the Strat and stayed with it.’
As discussed in the footnote to the preceding lot, Beck had acquired a distinctive looking Stratocaster, stripped of its finish and with broken pickguard ‘horn’ in 1968 when on tour with the Jeff Beck Group. A photograph of the 1972 sessions for Stevie Wonder’s album Talking Book (see the introduction to this catalogue) shows that by 1972 Jeff was playing a new white Stratocaster of around the same date, as indicated by its large headstock – and this instrument appeared on stage with his new power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice in 1973. It is not known what became of this guitar, but it was almost certainly stolen, a fate that would also befall Beck’s next white Strat, the aforementioned John McLaughlin Wired guitar.
A photograph taken by Harvey Moltz of Rainbow Guitars in Tuscon, Arizona, on 11 June 1976 in Phoenix, shows a line-up of three of Jeff Beck’s Stratocasters backstage in his dressing room. Harvey told us that he’d heard from a good friend that Jeff was looking for a white early 60s Strat as a backup to the one pictured in the middle – the present guitar – so took the example on the left of the picture to show to him. It was a re-finished 1960 Strat and the headstock was missing the decal, Harvey recalls, confirming that once Jeff had approved he ‘re-fretted the guitar and I flew it back out to LA and handed it to him.’ That guitar would end up having the neck swiftly replaced with Beck’s ‘Wing Reborn’ neck (see lot 12), shown in the image on the stripped Stratocaster on the right, and photos from a gig the following night at the Starlight in Burbank show this new configuration in action. In turn, the headstock from the ‘Rainbow’ white guitar was likely put straight onto the ‘stripped’ guitar, and when the latter was sold at auction for charity many years later it appears to have still been on the guitar then. At the charity auction at Warwick Castle the guitar was purchased by The Smiths and The The guitarist Johnny Marr, who later sold it on and the guitar is now on display in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The guitar in the centre of the image is the guitar offered in this lot, and likely would have been acquired a few days before Harvey Moltz’s visit, during downtime between Jeff’s shows in Oakland on 6 June and Phoenix on 11 June, although it is impossible to be sure. As reported elsewhere, it may have been bought from Norm’s Guitars, although when we spoke to him Norman Harris only recalled one white Strat being sent to Jeff during this period – the John McLaughlin Wired Strat, which one of his employees Scott Borden personally drove to the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles to give to Jeff following his and the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s co-headline gig the previous evening on 30 May 1975 at the Shrine Auditorium, but ended up selling John the guitar instead, who said he wanted to buy it as a present for Jeff, along with a Gibson Les Paul for himself.
Irrespective of when and how Jeff acquired the guitar, by the end of the year it had a completely new look – a distinctive black pickguard loaded with ‘quarter-pounder’ pickups and an unusual switch configuration, specially put together for Jeff by Seymour Duncan. Duncan recalls cutting out the pickguard shape by hand, fitting his ‘quarter-pounder’ pickups (denoting the width of the magnets to a quarter of an inch) and the switches to control them, which each have three positions – low output, off and high output, to be used in a multitude of combinations. John Dodds, Jeff’s guitar technician at the time, clearly recalled the black guard and told us that he ‘actually fitted it to the guitar when Seymour gave it to us, on the American tour with Jan Hammer in ’76. Jeff then played it a lot. He liked the pickups. The old plate sat around for a long time after that, but it was never used again on any other guitar. The old pickups were pretty knackered and sounded weak – I tried them out on another guitar!’
The guitar would be kept in the US at Beck’s California home, which he had recently taken on having been compelled by the new tax regime which had been imposed by Harold Wilson's government - whereby income was taxed at 85% - to become a US resident between 1976 and 1978. Jeff would tour with the guitar for the second leg of the Jan Hammer tour in late 1976 – first appearing at their show at the Jai Alai Fronton in Miami on 3 December – and into early 1977, including their tour of New Zealand and Australia, which took in shows in Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, as well as St. Louis and Chicago back in the US.
The guitar was subsequently taken on Jeff Beck’s joint tour to Japan with Stanley Clarke in 1978, via rehearsals in the UK, with Clarke bringing the guitar over from America with him. The tour, particularly this guitar, had a big impact on local Japanese guitar manufacturers, with both Greco and Fernandes making copies of the guitar with its anodized black pickguard - the Greco SE500J and SE-600J (1979) and SE800J (1980) models, and the Fernandes FST-60J (made at the Tokai factory). Whilst not officially sanctioned as signature models by Beck himself, these guitars were associated at the time with him, and still are. The Greco Fender copies ended in April 1982, when the brand owner and the manufacturer both became partners in the Fender Japan joint venture. The Japanese budget brand Fresher also had a related Beck model.
After Japan the guitar was likely returned to the UK and kept at home, with Jeff not wishing to risk another prized white Strat being stolen. At some point the black pickguard (included in this lot) was removed and replaced with a different set of Seymour Duncan pickups fitted into a white pickguard. The guitar in that configuration can be seen in Jeff’s home studio in the short film ‘At Home with Jeff Beck and his guitars’, produced by Viv Johns and Lykke Strunk and included as a bonus feature on the 2011 live concert DVD Rock 'n' Roll Party - Honouring Les Paul. When tested in late 2021, the bridge pickup was found to be inoperative, the pickguard was removed (included in this lot) and the pickup was sent to Seymour Duncan for repair, with a loose pickguard and set of electronics which Jeff had at home being put onto the guitar in its place in the current configuration.
Beck had been playing Strats since he was a teenager in the early 1960s. Speaking to Art Thompson for Guitar Player in 2010, Beck recalled that he ‘discovered the Strat when I saw Buddy Holly's first album, The 'Chirping' Crickets. Buddy was proudly holding a Strat, and I thought, 'I've got to have one of those.' The Strat was the icon. Then when I saw Jimi Hendrix play, I thought, 'that's it. He's making the right noises with that.' Then I went back to the Strat and stayed with it.’
As discussed in the footnote to the preceding lot, Beck had acquired a distinctive looking Stratocaster, stripped of its finish and with broken pickguard ‘horn’ in 1968 when on tour with the Jeff Beck Group. A photograph of the 1972 sessions for Stevie Wonder’s album Talking Book (see the introduction to this catalogue) shows that by 1972 Jeff was playing a new white Stratocaster of around the same date, as indicated by its large headstock – and this instrument appeared on stage with his new power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice in 1973. It is not known what became of this guitar, but it was almost certainly stolen, a fate that would also befall Beck’s next white Strat, the aforementioned John McLaughlin Wired guitar.
A photograph taken by Harvey Moltz of Rainbow Guitars in Tuscon, Arizona, on 11 June 1976 in Phoenix, shows a line-up of three of Jeff Beck’s Stratocasters backstage in his dressing room. Harvey told us that he’d heard from a good friend that Jeff was looking for a white early 60s Strat as a backup to the one pictured in the middle – the present guitar – so took the example on the left of the picture to show to him. It was a re-finished 1960 Strat and the headstock was missing the decal, Harvey recalls, confirming that once Jeff had approved he ‘re-fretted the guitar and I flew it back out to LA and handed it to him.’ That guitar would end up having the neck swiftly replaced with Beck’s ‘Wing Reborn’ neck (see lot 12), shown in the image on the stripped Stratocaster on the right, and photos from a gig the following night at the Starlight in Burbank show this new configuration in action. In turn, the headstock from the ‘Rainbow’ white guitar was likely put straight onto the ‘stripped’ guitar, and when the latter was sold at auction for charity many years later it appears to have still been on the guitar then. At the charity auction at Warwick Castle the guitar was purchased by The Smiths and The The guitarist Johnny Marr, who later sold it on and the guitar is now on display in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The guitar in the centre of the image is the guitar offered in this lot, and likely would have been acquired a few days before Harvey Moltz’s visit, during downtime between Jeff’s shows in Oakland on 6 June and Phoenix on 11 June, although it is impossible to be sure. As reported elsewhere, it may have been bought from Norm’s Guitars, although when we spoke to him Norman Harris only recalled one white Strat being sent to Jeff during this period – the John McLaughlin Wired Strat, which one of his employees Scott Borden personally drove to the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles to give to Jeff following his and the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s co-headline gig the previous evening on 30 May 1975 at the Shrine Auditorium, but ended up selling John the guitar instead, who said he wanted to buy it as a present for Jeff, along with a Gibson Les Paul for himself.
Irrespective of when and how Jeff acquired the guitar, by the end of the year it had a completely new look – a distinctive black pickguard loaded with ‘quarter-pounder’ pickups and an unusual switch configuration, specially put together for Jeff by Seymour Duncan. Duncan recalls cutting out the pickguard shape by hand, fitting his ‘quarter-pounder’ pickups (denoting the width of the magnets to a quarter of an inch) and the switches to control them, which each have three positions – low output, off and high output, to be used in a multitude of combinations. John Dodds, Jeff’s guitar technician at the time, clearly recalled the black guard and told us that he ‘actually fitted it to the guitar when Seymour gave it to us, on the American tour with Jan Hammer in ’76. Jeff then played it a lot. He liked the pickups. The old plate sat around for a long time after that, but it was never used again on any other guitar. The old pickups were pretty knackered and sounded weak – I tried them out on another guitar!’
The guitar would be kept in the US at Beck’s California home, which he had recently taken on having been compelled by the new tax regime which had been imposed by Harold Wilson's government - whereby income was taxed at 85% - to become a US resident between 1976 and 1978. Jeff would tour with the guitar for the second leg of the Jan Hammer tour in late 1976 – first appearing at their show at the Jai Alai Fronton in Miami on 3 December – and into early 1977, including their tour of New Zealand and Australia, which took in shows in Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, as well as St. Louis and Chicago back in the US.
The guitar was subsequently taken on Jeff Beck’s joint tour to Japan with Stanley Clarke in 1978, via rehearsals in the UK, with Clarke bringing the guitar over from America with him. The tour, particularly this guitar, had a big impact on local Japanese guitar manufacturers, with both Greco and Fernandes making copies of the guitar with its anodized black pickguard - the Greco SE500J and SE-600J (1979) and SE800J (1980) models, and the Fernandes FST-60J (made at the Tokai factory). Whilst not officially sanctioned as signature models by Beck himself, these guitars were associated at the time with him, and still are. The Greco Fender copies ended in April 1982, when the brand owner and the manufacturer both became partners in the Fender Japan joint venture. The Japanese budget brand Fresher also had a related Beck model.
After Japan the guitar was likely returned to the UK and kept at home, with Jeff not wishing to risk another prized white Strat being stolen. At some point the black pickguard (included in this lot) was removed and replaced with a different set of Seymour Duncan pickups fitted into a white pickguard. The guitar in that configuration can be seen in Jeff’s home studio in the short film ‘At Home with Jeff Beck and his guitars’, produced by Viv Johns and Lykke Strunk and included as a bonus feature on the 2011 live concert DVD Rock 'n' Roll Party - Honouring Les Paul. When tested in late 2021, the bridge pickup was found to be inoperative, the pickguard was removed (included in this lot) and the pickup was sent to Seymour Duncan for repair, with a loose pickguard and set of electronics which Jeff had at home being put onto the guitar in its place in the current configuration.