After dreaming of Buddy Holly’s guitar for years, in ’65 George and John finally brought home two identical Sonic Blue Stratocasters. But George’s would soon transform into the legendary “Rocky”.
«If I'd had my way», Harrison once said, «the Strat would have been my first guitar. I'd seen Buddy Holly's Strat… on the Chirping Crickets album cover, and tried to find one. But in Liverpool in those days, the only thing I could find resembling a Strat was a Futurama. It was very difficult to play, [the strings were] about half an inch off the fingerboard… But, nevertheless, it did look kind of futuristic».
After dreaming so much about Buddy Holly's guitar, in 1965 George and John finally decided to get themselves two Fender Stratocasters. Their manager Brian Epstein offered to pay for them, on the condition that they were identical. And so roadie Mal Evans showed up with two 1961–62 Fender Stratocasters, both in the rare Sonic Blue finish. George’s - serial #83840 - had a beautiful flamed maple neck and a Sound City of London dealer sticker on the back of the headstock.
You can already hear some Stratocaster on the Help! album — John plays one in Ticket to Ride — but it's in the guitar solo of Nowhere Man that both guitars truly shine, played in unison and recorded with a single microphone placed between their AC30s to create a surprisingly modern “stereo” effect.
In June 1967, in full psychedelic bloom, George grabbed his wife’s nail polish and turned his Strat into what would become known as “Rocky” — one of the most iconic guitars of the Summer of Love. You can spot it shortly after in the first global satellite broadcast of All You Need Is Love, and again in Magical Mystery Tour, during I Am the Walrus.
The one in our photo is a 2022 Fender Artist Series Rocky Stratocaster, limited to 1,000 pieces. You can see it in our Now and Then video. You’ll also spot a Sonic Blue Strat assembled to match George Harrison’s original pre-Rocky specs, and an American Standard model in our I Am the Walrus video.
