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In the 70s and 80s, lefty guitar was much more rare and expensive than right handed guitar. Many contemporary guitarists at the time who come from working class background like Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Billy Corgan, and Elvis Costello are all left-handed but play right handed guitar.
From wikipedia
Blinken was born on April 16, 1962, in Yonkers, New York. His father was Donald M. Blinken, a co-founder of the private equity firm Warburg Pincus who later served as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary. Blinken's uncle, Alan Blinken, served as the U.S. ambassador to Belgium.
Of course
This is part of why tone-chasers (the second-worst kind of chaser) struggle with getting Hendrix's sound on right-handed Strats -- the polepieces aren't staggered symmetrically on that particular style of single-coil pickup, and they aren't adjustable without ripping apart the whole damn thing. Basically, this made his A and D strings touchier than they normally would have been on a right-handed setup, and his B and G are a little quieter. When you're playing through an older-style fuzz like a Tone Bender or Fuzz Face, the difference is pretty noticeable because of how those circuits react to changes in input signal volume. You can sort of accomplish the same thing by tweaking the saddle heights on a Strat, but this has the added effect of ruining the radius of your strings in relation to the fingerboard.
Incidentally, before the Russia/Ukraine stuff kicked off, there was this guy in Moscow that was selling custom-made reverse-staggered pickups wound to the Fender late-1960s spec for dirt cheap on eBay. I used a set on a partscaster build several years back, and while I sound nothing like Jimi Hendrix, I do really dig the oddball response on the low strings.
Thank you for coming to my
talk.
makes sense! super cool
SRV also had the trem flipped on his signature guitars so the arm was above the strings. He felt it gave jimmi an advantage because he could control it with the ball of his hand.
That's really cool; I didn't know that tidbit! I'm gonna need a six-axis milling machine and the CAD models for a Kahler Flyer because, uh... Reasons
the easiest way of sounding like someone else is to sound like yourself
I still sound like the Shaggs. Send help.