History's most irreplaceable guitars- according to theGuardian

earwighoney

scrumhalf said:

Seriously irreplaceable?

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

Not known to many but one of my favourite guitarists.  Robbie Basho played the same six and twelve string guitars for all his albums and live. 

MagicPigDetective

Geordie Walker of Killing Joke used his 1952 Gisbon ES 295 for almost everything I think? Was certainly central to his sound 

BigPaulie

Winny_Pooh said:

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. 

Please accept my apologies if I misrepresented your personal view.

BigPaulie

scrumhalf said:

Seriously irreplaceable?

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

Although Tony played others before getting 58957 and later played reproductions of the guitar made by Santa Cruz due to its declining condition and serviceability, the story of this old box make it as unique and irreplaceable as the man himself. Far more so than most of the others in the Guardian article.

https://www.fretboardjournal.com/features/58957-tony-rice-and-his-holy-grail-martin-d-28/

Lewy

BigPaulie said:

scrumhalf said:

Seriously irreplaceable?

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

Although Tony played others before getting 58957 and later played reproductions of the guitar made by Santa Cruz due to its declining condition and serviceability, the story of this old box make it as unique and irreplaceable as the man himself. Far more so than most of the others in the Guardian article.

https://www.fretboardjournal.com/features/58957-tony-rice-and-his-holy-grail-martin-d-28/

This was the first one that sprang to my mind because there just aren’t any other D28s like it. It has a unique sound, unusual dimensions and a set of circumstances (flood, repair) that mean that you couldn’t replace it even with the next D28 to come out of the factory. And then add to that the fact that it was owned by not one but two genre-defining players…irreplaceable I’d say!

 

impmann

Click bait.
Nothing more.
And it has worked well.

Neil

Offset said:

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?

Wayne certainly used a few different guitars apart from his signature Strat. An Epiphone Wilshire for one.

HAL9000

My understanding is that BB’s Lucille is probably the least irreplaceable guitar on the list since it was replaced many times throughout his career - and not always with the same model of guitar! There certainly wasn’t just one Lucille.

SPECTRUM001

Hugh Cornwell is well known for his love and use of the Telecaster. I went to see him last month and was surprised to see he still plays the same 76 (or is it a 74 ?)  Tele he bought in 1982 (after his original (as played on The Stranglers' first five LPs) was stolen).

So that's over forty years with the same main guitar. Don't reckon he would say it was "irreplaceable" though - he just loves Teles. 

JamesSGBrown

I mean he's dead, so it ain't getting played out any time soon, but Rowland S. Howard's Jaguar was, as far as I am aware (besides a brief dalliance with a Firebird early in his career), the only guitar he used in his career (studio not withstanding), even despite his documented multiple pawnings of it for drug money. 

Mr_Claw

ICBM said:

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'.)

Charlie Christian? But then so few details and photos exist...

TeleMaster

SPECTRUM001 said:

Hugh Cornwell is well known for his love and use of the Telecaster. I went to see him last month and was surprised to see he still plays the same 76 (or is it a 74 ?)  Tele he bought in 1982 (after his original (as played on The Stranglers' first five LPs) was stolen).

So that's over forty years with the same main guitar. Don't reckon he would say it was "irreplaceable" though - he just loves Teles. 

I dunno, that seems like the definition of something being irreplaceable otherwise he would have replaced it with something else/better/different.

Mr_Claw

Bigsby said:

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. 

From what I understand, far from it being a Tele (which was only used on couple of solos from one session) the underappreciated Hendrix guitar is a Mustang (or might've been a Duo Sonic) popping up routinely on the sessions for Axis and Ladyland. 

Bigsby

TeleMaster said:

SPECTRUM001 said:

Hugh Cornwell is well known for his love and use of the Telecaster. I went to see him last month and was surprised to see he still plays the same 76 (or is it a 74 ?)  Tele he bought in 1982 (after his original (as played on The Stranglers' first five LPs) was stolen).

So that's over forty years with the same main guitar. Don't reckon he would say it was "irreplaceable" though - he just loves Teles. 

I dunno, that seems like the definition of something being irreplaceable otherwise he would have replaced it with something else/better/different.

That's the problem with the word and the meanings we could take from it: When I think of T.S. McPhee and his Gibson SG, or Deke Leonard and his black & white tele (which doesn't scan as well) I suspect neither of them really felt their much-loved and stolen guitars were 'replaced', despite buying replacements. 

Philly_Q

Mr_Claw said:

Charlie Christian? But then so few details and photos exist...

The poor guy died at 25, he hardly had time to have an irreplaceable guitar.  There are pictures of him with different guitars, anyway.