While Jimi Hendrix may be best associated with “Izabella” – his 1968 Olympic White Fender Strat – another one of his favorites in his stable of electric guitars was “Black Beauty” – his iconic black 1968 Strat.
In fact, the iconic six-string was so important to Hendrix he was seen with it a day before his death. On September 17th, 1970, Hendrix's then-girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, took photos of him drinking tea and lovingly clutching the black Strat.
The Strat ended up in Dannemann’s possession after Hendrix’s untimely death and remained with her until she died in 1996. Later on in her life, though, Dannemann had reportedly married Scorpions guitar player Uli Jon Roth, who ended up becoming the guitar’s de facto caretaker.
“That guitar is not mine. That guitar belongs to the Dannemann family,” Roth tells Guitar World matter-of-factly in a new interview. “You know, when Monika was alive, it was always just sitting there, but I never played it.
“Maybe I played a few notes on it, but I didn’t want to break a string. It is the only Hendrix guitar that is still in exactly the same condition as he left it. And it’s the one that he played through his last year on a lot of shows. It’s the one that he played Machine Gun with at the Band of Gypsys concerts, and he also played it on his last gig in Germany, where I was backstage.”
As one can safely assume, the guitar has attracted boatloads of attention from many potential high-profile buyers over the years.
“I know somebody tried to buy it for a crazy amount of money when Monika was alive, like 30 years ago,” he reveals.
“I mean, 30 years ago, a million dollars was a lot of money. I guess, it’s still a lot of money – but not for some people – and the number two guy at Microsoft, Paul Allen, who made the Hendrix museum in Seattle, offered a million dollars at the time. Monika said, ‘This guitar is not for sale,’ you know? And nowadays, it would, of course, be worth a lot more, particularly since it’s never been changed.”
Topping that, an art dealer from the Middle East allegedly offered $9 million for the black Strat, a well-known industry anecdote that Roth confirms. “I had that guy on the phone, and I said, ‘Give me one good reason why we should sell you the guitar?’ He said, ‘Well, the money…’ I said, ‘That’s not a good reason.’ So, it was a short conversation.”
And while Allen didn't manage to nab the Black Beauty, rumor has it that he did manage to buy Hendrix’s Woodstock Stratocaster for $1.3m in 1993.
Guitar World's full interview with Uli Jon Roth will be published in the coming weeks.
