This Panorama Print features 7 detailed illustrations of famous Fender Stratocaster guitars, from George Morgan.

Produced on 250 gsm silk art paper this Panorama Print is suitable for framing with or without a mount and will be supplied inside a sturdy cardboard postal tube. This Panorama Print is not supplied with a frame.

We don't sell frames but the Panorama Print, size 50cm x 23cm (19.75" x 9") has been carefully chosen to fit conveniently into an off-the-shelf frame available from IKEA stores. The RIBBA frame provides a professional, ready-made and inexpensive framing solution in a choice of black, white or wood finishes. The IKEA article numbers are, Black 501.325.26, Wood 101.429.28 and White 400.783.32. An image of the RIBBA label for the black frame has been provided in this listing for your convenience.

The Stratocaster guitars illustrated on this Panorama Print are, from left to right:

Eric Clapton assembled the parts from three Fender Stratocasters to create Blackie. Purchased from a Nashville music shop in 1970, Eric brought them back to England and carefully selected a ’56 body, a ’57 neck and the pickups and pick guard from another. Blackie was Clapton’s main instrument for live performances and studio recordings from it’s debut at the Rainbow Concert on 13 January 1973 until it was retired in 1985. Not only had it been in the studio for every album recorded during that period but it was used at such famous events as the ARMS charity concerts in 1983 and Live Aid in 1985. Auctioned for a record $959,500 in aid of the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation facility, Blackie was purchased by the U.S. music retailer Guitar Center in 2004.

This 1961 Stratocaster was originally finished in Sonic Blue with rosewood fingerboard and white pickguard and was one of a pair purchased in 1965 for George Harrison and John Lennon ready for the Rubber Soul sessions. As 1967’s Summer Of Love began to take hold George transformed his Stratocaster using dayglo paint and his wife’s nail varnish with this psychedelic colour scheme, naming it Rocky. Rocky was used in the studio for recording You’re Going To Lose That Girl and Nowhere Man and made a film appearance in The Beatles’ film Magical Mystery Tour, performing on I Am The Walrus. Rocky’s biggest performance came in June 1967 when an estimated worldwide audience of 350 million watched The Beatles perform All You Need Is Love as part of Our World, the first live world-wide satellite television broadcast.

Hank Marvin had joined Cliff Richard’s band in early 1959 and was looking for a Stratocaster like the one Buddy Holly was photographed with on his 1957 album cover The ‘Chirping’ Crickets, but there were none to be found in post-war Britain due to import restrictions. So it was an enormous surprise when this brand new Fiesta Red Stratocaster arrived out of nowhere. Complete with gold hardware and bird’s eye maple neck, this is reputedly the first Fender Stratocaster to have arrived in the UK and is the guitar Hank played live and on recordings of Living Doll, Apache, Kon-Tiki and numerous other hits.

Kurt Cobain famously used this 1990 Japanese Fender Stratocaster at the Reading Festival in 1991. It was built with a rosewood fingerboard, black pickguard, 2 white single-coil pickups and a black Seymour Duncan humbucker in the bridge and known as the ‘Vandalism Strat’ due to the bumper sticker which reads ‘Vandalism: Beautiful as a Rock in a Cop’s Face’ from the Feederz album Teachers in Space. Owing to Kurt’s propensity for smashing his guitars on stage, it required several replacement necks during its short life, including a Fernandes neck fitted for the 1991 Seattle Paramount Theatre show where it was broken once again. The guitar was finally smashed in Paris in the spring of 1992.

A historic moment in music history came with Bob Dylan’s appearance at the Newport Folk Festival on 25th July 1965 as Dylan shocked the audience of folk purists when he took to the stage with this 1964 sunburst Stratocaster. Booing from a deeply unhappy audience forced a premature end to his set and Dylan only managed two numbers, Maggie’s Farm and Like a Rolling Stone before leaving the stage. The Newport Folk Festival was a defining moment for Dylan, marking his move from acoustic folk to electric rock’n’roll. The guitar was soon lost but eventually it surfaced and its identity was verified in 2012 after which it was sold at auction for $965,000.

The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day event held in June 1967 in California and was the first widely promoted and heavily attended rock festival, attracting an estimated 55,000 attendees with up to 90,000 people present at the event's peak at midnight on the final day. Hardly anyone in the United States had heard of Jimi Hendrix before his performance but when he made his exit, he left behind far more than the smashed bits of his smouldering Stratocaster. Ending his performance with an extended version of Wild Thing, Hendrix knelt on the stage, lay his guitar down and set it alight. He then smashed it into the stage several times before throwing the broken remains into the audience.

Buddy Guy left Louisiana in 1957  promising his mother that he would go to Chicago and make more money than they ever dreamt of then come back home and buy her a polka-dot Cadillac. 
Buddy couldn’t fulfil his promise as his mother passed away, but years later Buddy approached Fender and asked them to make him a polka-dot Stratocaster as a tribute to his mother.
Introduced in 1995, Buddy Guy’s polka-dot Stratocaster model was custom made by Fender and based heavily on the guitar Buddy was playing at that time, a Custom Shop Eric Clapton model. 
The original Buddy Guy Signature Stratocaster featured an ash body, maple neck, mid boost, TBX tone control and Gold Lace Sensor pickups.

The illustrations of these famous Stratocasters are original and have been produced by George Morgan following extensive research. They are not photographs.

Browse through more illustrated items in our ebay shop (George Morgan Illustration)