History's most irreplaceable guitars- according to theGuardian

Musical_Mystery_Tour

p90fool said:

So not a "large majority" of his iconic recordings then. One in fact. 

Nope, at least five, Fire, Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary, Hey Joe and Little Wing (allegedly).

Cols

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

p90fool said:

So not a "large majority" of his iconic recordings then. One in fact. 

Nope, at least five, Fire, Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary, Hey Joe and Little Wing (allegedly).

Doing the dive bombs in Little Wing on a Tele would’ve been a good trick.

Litterick

The Larrivée that Chris Hadfield played on the International Space Station would have been hard to replace.

GoFish

"But the most irreplaceable guitar,

Is the one at home with

you"

They're all good guitars, Bront.

drofluf

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

Considering Purple Haze is certainly his most well known track and All Along the Watchtower is probably his best track, neither of which are on a Strat, I'd say that does constitute a large majority of his iconic tracks. YMMV.

 If you accept that he only produced 3 iconic tracks then I agree 100%

But any discussion that centres around an artist’s “best” or “most iconic” tracks is entirely subjective and never ends well. I just tried to google for consensus and that led down a rabbit hole. 

prowla

I can think of two irreplaceable guitars and one is a bass:

• Chris Squire's '64 Rickenbacker.
• Brian May's original.

An honourable mention goes to Martin Briley's Greenslade doubleneck: it was run over by a tour bus years ago and was not replaced. I was chatting with the bloke who has the front artwork pickguard, but that's all that's left of it.

LionAquaLooper

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

p90fool said:

So not a "large majority" of his iconic recordings then. One in fact. 

Nope, at least five, Fire, Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary, Hey Joe and Little Wing (allegedly).

Was just the solo on Purple Haze he used a Tele on. And only used it because his strat broke, says Roger Mayer.

But still - an upside down tele?? That would've looked even more weird than his upside down strats. 

OilCityPickups

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SSFASO1XvY

CaseOfAce

Cols said:

I have to say that I’ve never heard of Elizabeth Cotten before today, so I stuck Freight Train on.  The guitar playing’s very nice.  And evidently she’s significant and influential, having won a Grammy in the mid 80s and having had her songs performed by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and The Grateful Dead.

But I don’t think her acoustic belongs in this list, even if it is in The National Museum of American History.

I had to wikipedia her - and oh yeah... Freight Train ( which I remember claw hammering loosely  C, F and Gs way back when first learning).
I had no idea of the Grateful Dead connection with songs they've covered of hers and song titles (Sugaree, Fare Thee Well).

Musical_Mystery_Tour

Cols said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

p90fool said:

So not a "large majority" of his iconic recordings then. One in fact. 

Nope, at least five, Fire, Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary, Hey Joe and Little Wing (allegedly).

Doing the dive bombs in Little Wing on a Tele would’ve been a good trick.

Yup, which is why I put 'allegedly' after Litte Wing, and not least because it sounds like a Strat too, although of course you can dive bomb a Tele if you put a Bigsby on it. It was done at the same Olympic sessions where they had to get a Tele to replace that busted Strat, which is probably where that Tele notion was born, but given that it does sound like a Strat, one suspects by then they'd either got hold of another Strat, or fixed the top E tuner on the one Jimi knackered at that gig by the time that one was recorded. After all, sticking a new tuner on, or sorting out a bent one is not very hard to do; they could have nicked one off that Tele for a kick off.

Anyway, whatever the truth of it is, and back with the original topic, there are clearly not that many genuinely irreplaceable guitars.

LionAquaLooper

OilCityPickups said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SSFASO1XvY

Haha yep i read about this on the trivia section of the movie on IMDB. Couldn't believe it. 

Musical_Mystery_Tour

OilCityPickups said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SSFASO1XvY

Haha yep i read about this on the trivia section of the movie on IMDB. Couldn't believe it. 

Then again, who knew of this guitar before it was heavily 'modified' in that way? You could argue this incident was that which made it iconic. Prior to that, it was really just an old guitar few people had heard of.

stonevibe

No. 

Sorry, as they haven't included Cobalt Stargazer's Sleazegrinder Les Paul and so I'm out.

guitars4you

I think I've changed my slant, as to what might be termed 'irreplaceable'  - See my original post on page 1 - Are they irreplaceable as a tool of the trade in order to do a job - Then 100% yes - Whilst we all know we can bond with certain guitars and as such can be attached to them - But in reality we know we can do the same job with another guitar - So they are replaceable as a tool

But they are irreplaceable as a piece of history and all that goes with them 

Musical_Mystery_Tour

guitars4you said:

we all know we can bond with certain guitars and as such can be attached to them - But in reality we know we can do the same job with another guitar

True, but anyone who has ever had a nice guitar stolen from them will know it's often something which hurts a lot beyond what the thing actually was in purely objective terms. Still pissed off about my '69 Tele which got nicked from a rehearsal room years ago, even though some of the Teles I have now are probably better guitars. If I had the option, I'd swap all my other Teles to get that one back, even though it wouldn't really make sense in purely logical terms. The same is true of a couple of others I've had stolen, and it's especially true of my WEM Copycat which also got nicked.

That's probably why Macca wanted that Bass back so badly; he could afford any number of Basses which would be way better than that thing, but they wouldn't be that one.

GoFish

LionAquaLooper said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

p90fool said:

So not a "large majority" of his iconic recordings then. One in fact. 

Nope, at least five, Fire, Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary, Hey Joe and Little Wing (allegedly).

Was just the solo on Purple Haze he used a Tele on. And only used it because his strat broke, says Roger Mayer.

But still - an upside down tele?? That would've looked even more weird than his upside down strats. 

Not forgetting the ergonomics and, most importantly, the downright weird pickup selections teles used to have which is why, ime, ol' Jim never embraced them live.

Of equal import is the magic that Strat + Fuzzface produce. Synergy in action.

Funkfingers

Odd to namecheck Hammett but not mention the ex-Green, ex-Moore Les Paul.

My prejudices would have had me include Roy Buchanan's Telecaster AKA Nancy.

Similarly, Peter Shelley's Starway guitar - as heard on Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch EP.

Stuckfast

The inclusion of BB King's "Lucille" is kind of dumb. It was evidently replaceable, since he had numerous guitars over the years and they were all called Lucille.

What about James Jamerson's P-bass, which supposedly only he could play? Or Clarence White's original Tele with the B-bender? 

Cols

Things They Have Missed, off the top of my head:

1.  The Red Special 
2.  The Fool SG
3.  Lenny
4.  The Frankenstrat
5.  Greeny
6.  Page’s No 1

Philly_Q

Nobody mentioned Rory Gallagher's Strat?  I know he used other guitars as well, but it's got to be up there with others on these lists.