Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Never seen this before...but I don't get out a lot

Stan: I've seen it before. That looks like a 360/12 MG that Pete is seen playing in lots of pictures and video around 1966-1967 (i.e. miming 'Pictures Of Lily' on Beat Club). I know Hendrix owned at least one 360/12. What's the deal with what looks like a strap going into the cat's eye and underneath the pickguard? I've always wondered about that.

Randy, wondered the same thing. Appears the strap also goes back around Jimi's right hand and is tied off. Who knows? But a nifty pic.

Stan: This is pure speculation, but maybe Jimi improvised a strap so that he could play/tryout Pete's guitar. I don't know enough about Hendrix to know whether he could play a right-handed guitar simply turned upside down.

Randy, probably so, because he played a right-handed Strat, upside down.

I'm not an authority on Hendrix, but I'm certain that all of his main guitars were right handed and strung like left handed guitars. I'm wondering whether he was able (like McCartney) to play both ways. Obviously, the picture isn't detailed enough to see how the guitar is strung. Knowing more about the context of the photo would certainly be helpful (i.e. what was the occasion, did both bands play, etc).

Here is another photo of Jimi with a 360/12.

Yes, Jimi's 12-string was a lefty.

If Jimi's one and only 360/12 was a lefty JG, that makes it more likely that the guitar in the photo is Pete's. I'm going to see if I can find out where the photo was taken (i.e. at a recording session, backstage, etc). I have a pretty good library of Who info. Judging from clothes and hairstyles (especially Daltry), I think the photo is very early in Jimi's career. I'll let you know what I can turn up.

Randy, I think the pic was taken at the Saville Theatre in Jan. '67. I gleaned this from an RS article (where the picture game from).

Randy, you are correct about how Hendrix strung his guitars.

Stan, you're probably right. I have pictures of Pete with what appears to be the same guitar in November '66 and in April '67. They played lots of shows with Hendrix, including the Saville Theatre in January '67. Every picture shows a skinny black strap on the guitar. Roger's haircut, which him the nickname 'Duchess' by the band, was also from early '67. So we still don't know what was going on with that strap or whether Jimi played that guitar. Can someone please ring Pete and test his memory?

A follow-up to my previous post:

Copy provided by Jon Price

Disc And Music Echo (2.2.67), by Mike Ledgerwood

JIMI BRINGS THE ROOF DOWN!

THE WHO, it was rumoured, had threatened to raze London's Saville Theatre to the ground in their bill-topping act last Sunday. Fortunately they didn't. It would have been a terrible waste of an excellent showplace.

But instead the roof was nearly brought down by the power-packed excitement of Jimi Hendrix - making his public debut, outside club gigs. Jimi is surely the musical phenomenon of recent times. His popularity - on the strength of just a few appearances, the odd TV, an unusual record . . . and LOTS of talk - has rocketed with a force seldom equalled in the world of pop.

Here's a musician to the very core. A guitar genius who plays with incredible feeling and fervour. If he never gets another hit disc, his showmanship and those wild exercises onstage will carry him through.

Sunday, despite early amp and mike mishaps was his night. From "Rock Me Baby' through a knockout "Like A Rolling Stone" and "Hey Joe" to his version of "Wild Thing" which, incidentally makes the Troggs' hit sound a rather tame disc.

Even the incredible Who, themselves veritable leaders on the sound scene, seemed hard-put to follow this tousle-haired giant.

The "Hendrix & Who" picture is in the current issue of Rolling Stone as part of a nice article on Hendrix in London.

Randy is "on the money" with the photo. It was taken backstage at the Saville Theatre on 29 January 1967. The Experience supported The Who....Kit Lambert had just signed up Hendrix to The Who's label.

The Rickenbacker is strung as a six string for a right handed guitarist. Interesting that one of the knobs has been replaced with an older style black knob.