The almighty Fender Stratocaster- the guitar most people think of when they hear the word ‘guitars‘. A mainstay in the music industry since its invention, and will continue to be for a long time. Time to mentioned some of the amazing players who have put this guitar into rock legend.

• Iron Maiden. All three members of Iron Maiden have at one time or another played with a Fender Stratocaster. Other than Steve Harris, Dave Murray is the only other founding member of Iron Maiden that is still with the band. Murray has used Paul Kosoff’s Fender strat up until 1990 when he retired it. Fender have released a signature model of the guitar, with Hotrail pickups and Floyd rose tremolo system, two items rarely seen on any Fender guitar. The two other guitar players in Iron Maiden, Janick Gers and Adrain Smith also play Strats, yet Smith seems to always be photographed with a different guitar in his hands.
• Eric Clapton. Ol’ ‘slow hands’ as hes known, has played as many guitars as most people have had hot dinners, using everything from a Gibson Les Paul from his days in Cream and a Telecaster when he was in the Yardbirds. Clapton is mostly known for playing a Fender Strat called ‘Blackie’, which was used until the guitar was ‘retired’ in 1985. Blackie was sold at auction to help fund the Crossroads centre for drug and alcohol addictions, and sold for $959,500 in 2004. Clapton swapped over to Fender Strats in 1969, and never looked back.
• Jimi Hendrix. Jimi is considered the greatest guitar player ever after changing the way we use a electric guitar. Hendrix started playing the guitars in 1966, and then started to use them exclusively for recordings and live performances. Hendrix also tried out many different styles of guitars before choosing a Fender Strat, much like Clapton. Hendrix was also the first well known left handed player to take a right handed guitar and string it in reverse order and play it upside down, as left handed guitars cost alot more back then. As a birthday gift Clapton had bought Hendrix a left handed Strat, but Jimi sadly died before he could get the said gift. A strat was the guitar which Hendix set on fire on his 1969 Monterey international pop festival performance.

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