Every musician from Jimi Hendrix to Eric Clapton has found the neccessary tools of their trade. For these musicians the tools are great American made guitars, like the immortal Fender Stratocaster electric guitar or the Gibson Les Paul guitar and the Martin and Guild acoustic guitars. In some cases, Artist will find one guitar one that is comfortable to play, customize it to make it their own, then stay with it for their most carreer.
What Kind Of Guitar Does Eric Clapton & Carlos Santana & Jimmy Page Play?
What kind of guitar does Eric Clapton play? Early in his career Eric Clapton played a Gibson Les Paul guitar. Eric Clapton played and endorsed Guild guitars during the late 70’s into the eighties. He is best known for his work with a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. Eric has also toured with a Gibson L-5. A Gibson Chet Atkins acoustic and a custom Martin acoustic guitar made by his friend Hiroshi Fujiwara, a well known designer and musician. It’s a black guitar with pearl inlays. Both men’s initials are inscribed at the bottom of the fret board. The guitar is named Belleza Nera by Clapton and was made available by Martin guitar as a limited edition. He has a signature model and a Martin acoustic. Martin guitar has issued an Eric Clapton signature model.
What kind of guitar does Carlos Santana play? Santana played a Gibson SG Special with P-90 pickups at the Woodstock Festival. From the late 70’s to the early eighties he played a Yamaha SG 175B guitar and a white Gibson SG Custom with 3 open coil pickups. Later he used a custom PRS guitar and now uses a Santana II model electric guitar that uses PRS Santana II pickups. His custom guitar necks and fretboards are made of Brazilian Rosewood. This helps create the smooth singing glass-tone that he is famous for.
Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame played live gigs with a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar. He also played the double neck Gibson SG and Fender telecaster, a Danelectro Longhorn guitar, his Gibson Les Paul and martin acoustic guitar. The famous Stairway To Heaven solo was done with his Fender Telecaster electric guitar.
What Kind Of Guitar Did Legends Elvis, Stevie Ray Vaughn & Jimi Hendrix Play
Even though Hendrix had a nonchalant attitude to them he played Fender Stratocasters. Early on was a Danolectro Sivertone electric guitar with one pick up he named it Betty Jean during this time he was playing with the King Casuals in Tennessee around 1962 and traded the Dano in for an Epiphone Wilshire. In 1964 while playing with the Isley Brothers he played a Fender blonde 1959 Duo-Sonic. In 65 with Little Richard he played a Fender Jazzmaster.
By 66 he was using a variety of Strats playing right handed guitars backwards because he was left handed. Other than these there was Gibson ES-330, Gibson Firebird, Guild 12 string acoustic guitar, Black Widow Spider acoustic, a 67 Gibson Fling V, electric guitar, a 55 Gibson Les Paul and a 65 Gibson SG Custom guitar and a few more. It was no wonder his collection was so big being the player that he was. His most famous guitar was probably the white 1968 fender Strat that he played at Woodstock in 1969.
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitars were all pre- 1963 Fender Stratocasters, a guitar named Charlie that was out fitted with the famous danolectro lip stick tube pickups. They all had different names and were set up differently. Number One, Charlie, Butter Scotch and Lennie. Stevie used different neck adjustments string gauges. He tuned his guitars a half step and used GHS Nickel Rockers. His guitars have different bridge saddles, nuts and tremolo setups.
Ever wonder what kind of guitar Elvis Presley played? The guitar that Elvis is photographed with is the 1963 Gibson Super 400 CES. In early days he played the Harmony acoustic catalogue guitars that most musicians like Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins brought to the party.
He also used a Martin D-28 and a Martin D-18 acoustic guitars. According to Scotty Moore, Elvis’s guitar player, Elvis was not really an accomplished musician but had an amazing sense of timing and rhythm. He had a very aggressive strumming style on guitar and was rough on his instruments. Back in the day guitars were not miked and in order to be heard, he played loud and aggressively.
Jim Galloway - Professional Musician/Published Songwriter for 30 yrs. With over 200 Articles in Recording/Music Buisness/ Resources/Vintage Instruments
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