Jimi Hendrix’s 1964/65 Fender Stratocaster (Saville Theater / Sgt. Pepper Strat)

This is the second of two red Fender Stratocasters Jimi used around May 1967. Based on available photos, it was likely first played at the Saville Theatre on May 7th (not the performance where he smashed a guitar), though it’s possible it was used earlier.

This red Strat was primarily played during the short European tour in May 1967. By the end of the tour, it developed a crack across the body after Hendrix smashed it during a performance in Copenhagen on May 21st.

I was playing in Copenhagen, and I got pulled off stage. Everything was going great. I threw my guitar back onto the stage and jumped back after it. When I picked it up there was a great crack down the middle. I just lost my temper and smashed the damn thing to pieces.

Starting at Zero: His Own Story – Jimi Hendrix

Interestingly, the guitar was seen again later that month, on May 27th, 1967, in Starpalast, Kiel. This suggests it may have been repaired, as it’s highly unlikely there were two identical red Stratocasters with a crack across the body during this period.

CBS-era maple Stratocaster?

Based on the photos, this guitar featured a transition-style logo and a small headstock, indicating it was made before late 1965, most likely sometime in 1964. By then, most Stratocasters were shipped with rosewood fretboards, but Jimi’s had a maple one. At the time, this was a special-order option, making guitars like this quite rare and highly sought after today.

Notably, this was the first maple fretboard Stratocaster Jimi was seen playing. Up until this point, he had exclusively used rosewood Strats, although later in his career, he increasingly favored maple necks.

Saville Theater, June 4th, 1967.

Although the Monterey Pop Stratocaster is better known, the Saville Strat was chronologically the first guitar hand-painted by Hendrix. It was completed by June 4th, 1967, when Jimi played it again at the Saville Theater. This concert was also a kind of farewell, as Hendrix’s work visa was expiring soon after, requiring him to leave London.

Hendrix painted the guitar with white paint, partially on the front and completely on the back. On the back, he wrote a poem:

May this be love or just confusion
Born out of frustration
Wracked feelings
of not being able to make true physical
love to the universal gypsie queen of
true, free expressed music
My darling guitar, please rest in peace.
Amen.

The front featured Jimi’s own design, similar in style to the Monterey Pop Stratocaster. From photos, it’s evident the guitar was originally painted in a darker shade of red, officially known as Candy Apple Red by Fender.

The guitar also had a split in the body in the same spot where a crack was seen in photos from May 27th in Germany. This detail, combined with the Candy Apple Red finish and the maple neck, leaves little doubt that the Saville Strat was the same guitar.

According to witnesses (since no recordings of the performance exist), Hendrix destroyed the guitar at the end of the second set—he played two shows that day. Audience members collected the pieces, as was common after Jimi’s guitar-smashing finales.

Reportedly, the two main body parts were taken by different people. Years later, they reconnected through a radio plea and auctioned the parts together. The guitar, or what’s left of it, is now housed at the MoPOP museum in Seattle.