Jimi Hendrix’s 1960s Zemaitis 12-string
One of the rare professional video recordings of Jimi with an acoustic guitar shows him playing an unplugged version of the song “Hear My Train A’ Comin'” on a twelve-string guitar. The short footage is a part of the film called “See My Music Talking”, recorded on December 19th, 1967 at the Bruce Fleming’s studio, London.
The guitar that Jimi played in the video was made by a guitar luthier called Antanus Casimere (Tony) Zemaitis, based in London, England. All of the vintage Zemaitis guitars were made by Tony himself, and many of the popular guitarists of that time were seen playing one – including Eric Clapton, Donovan, Ronnie Wood, and Keith Richards. After Tony’s death in 2002, the production of Zemaitis guitars was moved over to Japan.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any info on what happened to the guitar after Jimi’s death. It does, however, seem to be still around, as there are photos of it on a website by David Brewis (now down for some reason).
Feedback
GroundGuitar counts on your criticism and feedback. In case you notice anything wrong with the information posted on this page, or you have knowledge of something that you would like to share, be sure to leave a comment below.
If you notice a piece of gear missing, and you wanna add it yourself, you can do so on this page Add Gear to GroundGuitar.
In case you want to talk to me directly and privately, please use the Contact Form and I will get back to you as soon as possible. (Dan)
Hi there…I can say with my hand on my heart, I saw the 12 string Zemaitis guitar at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland. I was visiting out there back in 2015, and saw the guitar with a funky jacket and another guitar of Jimi’s in a large display. I hope it’s still there….peace.
That’s good to know Craig – that the guitar is still around. Did you by any chance take any photos of it while you were there? Cheers, Dan.
In the video there is a close up, and I think this Z guitar is 10 string not 12! The D and G are singles and the rest are doubles. I’ve never seen that. It looks like that’s the design, not leaving 2 strings off. I just saw the video today, 1/16/21.
If I knew how, I’d post a screenshot.
Looks like 12 stings to me…
10, not 12 string?
That’s a 12 string.
I now think he was leaving off the 2 strings, guitar was designed for 12 and he was playing with 10.
Richard, when I look at the tuning/string posts, I think I see strings on every single on of them. D string is definitely there, I can even see it along the fretboard, and the G string is usually the thinnest on a 12-string, so that’s the reason why it could be hard to see. But if you look at the headstock, you can still see that it’s on there. Dan.
Thanks. My point is that a 12 string should have 12 strings and he used 10 strings, leaving the D and G with singles not doubles, for a total of 10 strings and not 12?
Here I attached a photo marking every single string that I can see. Does that make it clearer? All 12 string are there as far as I can tell.
Good one! Thanks! I appreciate his play of this guitar and your interest!
It’s in a display case in Seattle athe the pop culture museum, formerly the Jimmi Hendrix experience. Beautifull. As of Feb. 04 2023. Can’t imagine how valuable it is,. You tell it got played though, in it’s day.