The man in this picture is world-famous guitarist Joe Satriani. Mr. Satriani is, as of today, the proud owner of my vintage 1960 Fender Stratocaster.I got an email this afternoon from Chris, the owner of Real Guitars in San Francisco where my Strat has been residing on consignment for about 2 months. He told me that he had received a serious offer on the guitar and did I want to accept it. "By the way, it's a famous person." "Am I allowed to know who it is?" "Yeah, it's Joe Satriani". It was a couple of thousand less than I had hoped for so I called my little brother Rob for his opinion. He echoed what Chris had said... that with the economy and specifically the vintage guitar market down, it would probably be good to take the deal. So I did... and I am glad.
Rob headed over to Real and was there while Satriani was paying for my guitar and two others. He told Joe, "Take care of that guitar... I learned to play on it!" "Oh, this is your guitar?", Satriani asked. "No, it's my brother's. He let me use it when I was in high school." "Well," Joe said, "I will only play good notes on it!" Rob does big time audio-visual for events, conventions, concerts, etc. in the bay area so he is used to hanging with celebrities. So when I asked if he had gotten his autograph, he said, "No, I'm not like that!" "Well, I AM like that!", I said. I would have loved to have had an autograph with a nice note like, "Thanks for the great guitar... Joe Satriani". Oh, well.
I thought I would be sort of melancholy when the sale was eventually made but knowing that it went to a guy like that, I'm OK. Now, will I see my Strat on stage in Satriani concert footage in the future? Not likely. He has a contract with Ibanez to promote his "Joe Satriani Signature Model" so I think that will always be in his hands when the cameras are on. Maybe he will record with my guitar, display it, who knows? All the same, you can bet that I will look carefully at every inch of Satriani concert video I come across from now on, just in case.
Thanks again to my brother Rob for his freely-given help, advice and support. And now, goodbye for good, old girl. You are in good hands.
