Jimi was seen playing this modified (more on this later) 1960s Fender Stratocaster on only a few occasions. The most notable appearances were during rehearsals at The Saville Theatre in London on October 8, 1967, at L’Olympia in Paris on October 9, 1967, and in Gothenburg on January 4, 1968.
Jimi Using a Modified Guitar?
This guitar stands out as the only heavily modified Stratocaster Jimi was ever seen playing. If we assume that Jimi himself requested the modifications—or had someone do them for a specific reason, such as addressing something he didn’t like about a standard Strat—it would seem logical for him to continue using the guitar. Yet, for some reason, he chose not to.
It’s also possible that someone wired a separate pickguard, handed it to Jimi to try out, and after experimenting with it, he simply didn’t like it and moved on.
Building on this theory, there’s at least one guitar that could have served as the donor for this modified pickguard: a white, early to mid-1960s Stratocaster with a tortoiseshell pickguard that Jimi played just a day earlier, at The Saville Theatre on October 8, 1967. In theory, he could have swapped the pickguard on that guitar, tried it out, and reverted to the original after deciding the modified version wasn’t working for him.
There’s also a chance this was an entirely separate guitar—possibly one that Jimi had damaged at a previous concert. A roadie might have pieced it back together, wiring it in an unconventional way for Jimi to test out.
The Mods
The modifications on this guitar appear to have been relatively simple. Instead of the stock three-way switch, the guitar featured three separate toggle switches, likely functioning as on/off controls for each pickup. This setup allowed Jimi to control each pickup individually, enabling unconventional configurations. For example, he could activate all three pickups simultaneously or use just the bridge and neck pickups—something not possible with a standard three-way switch.
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I think he stopped using it after he discovered a new pickup configuration, the middle pickup blend config.
That was known of for a long time prior to Jimi or 1967. The 3 switches would also give him that option.
More than likely he discovered how time consuming it would be to make the mod only to thrash the guitar with in a few weeks, days hours.
Given Jimi’s antics, those switches could do a lot of damage while the guitar was thrown around and the possibility of Jimi injuring himself would have made it not worth the risk.