History's most irreplaceable guitars- according to theGuardian

BigPaulie

Sporky said:

Winny_Pooh said:

The Kirk Hammett one is silly, so is uncluding Elizabeth Cotton ("let's shoehorn a disadvantaged woman in there to balance it out").

She is recognised as hugely influential. Dismissing her as nothing more than  "a disadvantaged woman" is daft.

Yep. Just another of the plentiful examples of thefretboard's casual misogyny.

No wonder we're a 99.9% male community.

Funkfingers

Sister Rosetta Tharpe's white SG/LP Custom.

Cols

Philly_Q said:

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.

Oooh, good call.

Bigsby

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

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

Truth is, he's reported to have played a Tele on one recording, people have speculated he may have played it on several other tracks, but nothing can validate the claim you made: "...a large majority of his iconic recordings were done on a Telecaster".
He had iconic recordings on Electric Ladyland and Axis Bold as Love on which he didn't play a Tele at all, and the majority of Are You Experienced was also not played on a Tele, including other iconic tracks. 

Anyway, it's been an off-topic diversion; when it comes to 'irreplaceable' guitars, it's more about the specific instrument in question and the owners feelings towards it than the model of guitar. So it's not about whether Hendrix thought 'stratocasters in general' are irreplaceable for recording, but whether he might've had one Strat (or other guitar) that he felt was irreplaceable. 

springhead

The Tele was just for the Octavia solo overdubs on Purple Haze and Fire from what I’ve read. 

OilCityPickups

People are irreplaceable, guitars are things ... they can always be replaced. 

I heard this morning that Alge Phillips (centre) the vocalist and bass player of one of my earliest bands passed away last year. He was a sweet guy ... he made a couple of albums  I gigged with him a bit ... he was never famous , but he was definitely irreplaceable.  I have long missed his shouts of 'fukkin shurrup' in a broad west country accent when we were mucking about at rehearsals. 
Things are not as important as folks

guitarjack66

None of this stuff is irreplaceable. Arguably the player and/or the music made on them is. 
I like Noel Gallagher's honesty on his interview with,was it 'That Pedal Show' where he says they are just tools to make his music and he doesn't attach much to a particular guitar and swaps often. He seemed to recognise the amp more in the sound.

TeleMaster

Funkfingers said:

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

Well maybe because it wasn't that irreplaceable considering it changed hands so many times? 

Hendrix used a Tele on a few tracks and only partly on some of them, not the majority of his iconic tracks. 

BillDL

The first compact digital camera that my young brother bought was while he was living in America as a young buck.  He took thousands of fantastic photos from around the world using that camera in the years that followed, and the camera and small soft carry pouch became quite worn.  He later passed it on to me but after a couple of years it went wonky and kept under-exposing shots.  Some of those shots are actually irreplaceable given that they are of our departed Father even though they could never be digitally fixed to make them good.  The technology and format of the camera was by then pretty old fashioned and you could pick up the same camera on eBay, amongst all kinds of other tat, for about £5.  I disposed of it, but the documentation, software CD, original worn soft pouch, cables, etc had been mixed with my other camera stuff and it was inadvertantly retained.

About 2 years ago my brother was reminiscing and asked if he could have the camera back, despite him now having a lot of high-end DSLR cameras and some expensive compacts.  I could sense his disappointment when I told him I had binned it after it had become faulty.  I managed to find two of exactly the same model of camera on eBay that came with different accessories, spare batteries, charger, etc, and used them to put together the exact same bundle to give to him as a replacement.  Although he was grateful that I had taken the time to do this, the camera was not the same camera that for him had so many memories and experiences wrapped up in it.  The wear on the camera in the same places as his was not from his fingers or from the places he had travelled.  It was a lacklustre apology and I'm sure he would rather have had back the original faulty camera than somebody else's camera.

In the case of irreplaceable guitars, my first thoughts were that a guitar is only truly irreplaceable if it was hand made and unique, was so modified as to be unique, or had developed such distinctive wear as to be unique, but moreover that it was not possible to make an exact replica of it that looked, functioned, felt and sounded the same as the original.  When you look at some of the "iconic" guitars like van Halen's stripy thing with bodged wiring and pickups, Malcolm Young's Gretsch with the removed pickups, Brian May's unique hand-built guitar, and others in a similar vein, they all had their own little foibles that from a functional aspect made them less than perfect.  The signature model recreations for the public by large makers no doubt "fixed" some of these idiosyncrasies to make them functionally better for buyers, so they were never intended to be replicas of the original.  It is some of those little imperfections that make those originals so hard, or impossible, to replicate and effectively replace.

As I thought about my brother's camera, however, it's impossible to retain the human aspect, the history, the specific wear created by the person that handled it, and so on even with a very exact replica.  It's like looking at a set of granite stairs in a very old building that have been worn and "dished" by the hundreds of thousands of feet that have walked up and down them, or an old penny that has been worn smooth over the many decades and millions of hands and other coins that rubbed it down, or a roman sandle that trudged through countless territories over thousands of miles.  There's a human element involved that cannot be injected into a replica.

As far as Elizabeth Cotton and other people that played absolutely stock guitars that could have merged invisibly into a rack of similar guitars, the guitars themselves have no real uniqueness other than the fact that no two acoustic guitars sound and feel exactly the same.  The uniqueness with her was that she just flipped a right-hand guitar upside down to play it left-handed and she developed a unique style with her finger on the bass strings at the bottom and thumb playing melodies on the treble strings at the top.  Albert King played his guitars the same way.  His guitars were customised though.

When it comes down to it the article with the list should really be entitled "Iconic Guitars With Irreplaceable Human History Attached".

Tall_martin

Iconic Guitars With Irreplaceable Human History Attached

Definitely a more accurate headline, not quite as snappy! 

mooncat

Off the top of my head

Bernie Marsden's The Beast.

Chris Holmes, The Yellow Shit.

scrumhalf

Seriously irreplaceable?

I cannot think of one guitarist who played only one guitar, live and in the studio, for their entire career. 

snowblind

There's a quote from someone (whose name escapes me for the moment) that there is one great song in every guitar. That would make for a pretty long list and doubtless there are many potentially iconic instruments that have not as yet had an opportunity to give up their magic. Also does something like Gilmour's black strat count? Certainly iconic but its an example of how it is more the player that is irreplaceable.

Litterick

Lucille was replaced many times. B. B. King cannot be replaced.

Teyeplayer

Surely for iconic look and sound, in a way that is synonymous with the artist and has influenced a wealth of other artists, few guitars actually come close to Roger McGuinn’s Rickenbacker 370? Yes he isn’t the classic guitar hero like Page or even Neil Young, but for something recognisable and uniquely him, few come close. 

OilCityPickups

Litterick said:

Lucille was replaced many times. B. B. King cannot be replaced.

Exactly

InactiveX

BigPaulie said:

Sporky said:

Winny_Pooh said:

The Kirk Hammett one is silly, so is uncluding Elizabeth Cotton ("let's shoehorn a disadvantaged woman in there to balance it out").

She is recognised as hugely influential. Dismissing her as nothing more than  "a disadvantaged woman" is daft.

Yep. Just another of the plentiful examples of thefretboard's casual misogyny.

No wonder we're a 99.9% male community.

Hang on @BigPaulie ;; I thought @Winny_Pooh ;;  was making a quip about the long-held image of the "right-on" Grauniad. And I think you've rather quoted him out of context, @Sporky ;;  by editing what he wote.

Winny_Pooh said:

The Kirk Hammett one is silly, so is uncluding Elizabeth Cotton ("let's shoehorn a disadvantaged woman in there to balance it out").

I liked the inclusion of old Black

They did say "Ten of", and not the ten greatest so that's accurate.

How about Django? He was partially disabled and from an ethnic minority so C'mon Gaurdianistas!

ICBM

scrumhalf said:

Seriously irreplaceable?

I cannot think of one guitarist who played only one guitar, live and in the studio, for their entire career. 

Willie Nelson.

(Even then, he had a Baldwin at the very start, before 'Trigger'.)

Winny_Pooh

InactiveX said:

BigPaulie said:

Sporky said:

Winny_Pooh said:

The Kirk Hammett one is silly, so is uncluding Elizabeth Cotton ("let's shoehorn a disadvantaged woman in there to balance it out").

She is recognised as hugely influential. Dismissing her as nothing more than  "a disadvantaged woman" is daft.

Yep. Just another of the plentiful examples of thefretboard's casual misogyny.

No wonder we're a 99.9% male community.

Hang on @BigPaulie ;; I thought @Winny_Pooh ;;  was making a quip about the long-held image of the "right-on" Grauniad. And I think you've rather quoted him out of context, @Sporky ;;  by editing what he wote.

Winny_Pooh said:

The Kirk Hammett one is silly, so is uncluding Elizabeth Cotton ("let's shoehorn a disadvantaged woman in there to balance it out").

I liked the inclusion of old Black

They did say "Ten of", and not the ten greatest so that's accurate.

How about Django? He was partially disabled and from an ethnic minority so C'mon Gaurdianistas!

Cheers for that. It was indeed a commentary re obvious politics on the part of the Guardian and that Cotton is IMO too obscure to warrant inclusion. The majority of my favourite musicians are women. 

Offset

scrumhalf said:

Seriously irreplaceable?

I cannot think of one guitarist who played only one guitar, live and in the studio, for their entire career. 

Off the top of my head - Wayne Kramer?