Hendrix guitar burned and bashed, but looking $1m

By STEVE BOGGAN in London

For most of us, a broken relic with snapped strings in a cupboard under the stairs would be just an old tennis racket.

But what Dweezil Zappa found turned out to be a guitar played by rock star Jimi Hendrix and now thought to be worth at least £400,000 ($1.3 million).

Hendrix set fire to the Fender Stratocaster on stage at least once before smashing it to pieces as part of his act in 1968.

But the guitar passed into rock folklore after being restored and played by Dweezil's father, music legend Frank Zappa, for at least another decade.

Yesterday, the instrument arrived in London for an auction next month that is expected to confirm it as one of the most expensive guitars in history.

Split into two pieces, wrapped in a simple white towel and packed into a black suitcase, the Sunburst Fender Stratocaster was put together again at Cooper Owen's, the music memorabilia auction house that sold John Lennon's piano for £1.5 million.

The neck of the guitar, the electronics, pick-ups and knobs were all replaced after Hendrix set fire to the Fender on stage first at the London Astoria in March 1967 and then, experts believe, a second time at the Miami Pop Festival in 1968.

But even with only the wooden body remaining, charred and just remnants of the Sunburst colours that gave the instrument its name, it has become a collectors' item par excellence.

"Hendrix gave it to my dad after the 1968 performance and my dad restored it and played it throughout the 1970s," said Dweezil Zappa, 33, a successful musician in his own right.

"Around about 1990, I found it among lots of old junk under the stairs. I told my dad and he told me to keep it."

- INDEPENDENT