The Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward on a beautiful June weekend in 1967, at the start of the Summer of Love, capturing a decade’s spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding made career-defining appearances at Monterey. Still, they were just a few performers in a wildly diverse lineup. But did you know what Paul McCartney’s condition in joining the organizing committee was?
Paul McCartney agreed to join the Monterey Pop Festival’s organizing committee on the condition that the Jimi Hendrix Experience is invited to perform. They were invited, and Jimi ended his performance by setting fire to his guitar, instantly making him a rock legend.
Introducing Jimi Hendrix
Sunday, June 18, 1967, was The Monterey International Pop Festival’s third and final day. That night’s lineup included The Who, Buffalo Springfield, The Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin. But, before the Who takes the stage, a relatively unknown 24-year-old guitarist delivers a visual and sonic feast that is nothing short of mythical in an industry whose marketing departments now produce legends. Jimi Hendrix ignites the music world.
Before his performance in Monterey, almost no one in America had heard of Jimi Hendrix. When he triumphantly exited the stage, he left behind much more than the shattered pieces of his smoking guitar. He brutally carved an immortal legend of himself into Rock’s face. Jimi’s immortal vision is of an eternally young god kneeling before his sacrificial hell guitar, summoning the gods to raise the flames higher with his magic fingers.
Music advanced irreversibly from that point forward, propelling the electric guitar to the forefront and transforming it into a raw instrument of limitless power. (Source: Nitor Lack)
The Legendary Monterey Guitar
Pamelina Hovnatanian, better known as Pamelina H, is a decorating guitar artist who has worked on numerous spectacular exhibitions for the Fender Custom Shop. She was tasked with creating a design for a Fender Stratocaster to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1997. He was driving his hand-painted Red Strat Fiesta. Hendrix sprayed lighter fluid on the body before setting it on fire and smashing it to pieces in the famous moment captured on film.
The only reference I had at my fingertips was a video of the concert, I was given a VHS that I watched in frames.
Pamelina Hovnatanian, Guitarist
Hovnatanian, who saw the show with her mother as a 7-year-old, was tasked with creating a hand-painted work of art that would “evoke, rather than reproduce” the guitarist’s original work.
His design refined Hendrix’s psychedelic bunches while incorporating quirky original features like the backstage pass over the guitar’s body. Each of the 210 guitars in the limited run came with a matching laminated backstage pass. Hendrix’s original guitar was a 1965 model built during CBS’s acquisition of Fender, and it is an authentic reproduction, complete with the “transition” logo.
Janie Hendrix approved the final design. The guitar has an alder body. A “C” shaped maple neck with vintage-style fret size and radius, three vintage-style pickups, and an exceptional white fringed leather case inside the hard case. A suede strap in the same style as the case, a vintage-style bridge cover, a backstage pass, and a metal and leather binder containing the Custom Shop COA, as well as an 8 “x10” photograph of Hendrix playing the original instrument, were also included in the limited edition package. These custom reproductions are now among the most sought-after Fender production models available. (Source: Nitor Lack)