Fender Announces Jerry Garcia Alligator (1970-73) Stratocaster Remake

While most people think of “Wolf” and “Tiger” when hearing about Jerry Garcia’s famous guitars that made that sweet tone, which built its own genre; however there is an earlier six string that deserves equal praise. The legendary Grateful Dead founder/guitarist was recruited to work on Graham Nash’s debut solo album Songs for Beginners..As the album process was wrapping up in late 1970, Nash went to a pawn shop and purchased a 1955 Fender Strat to gift  Garcia for his contributions to the album. By the time the guitar was retired in 1973, Garcia had made the guitar his own with many modifications, including a brass plate pickguard and the now iconic alligator sticker. 

This year would’ve marked Garcia’s 80th birthday and in celebration, the Fender Custom shop has something special going on. The custom guitar shop is making a limited run of carbon-copies of the famous guitar. The brand teamed up with Steve Parish, the guitar tech who helped with the original modifications with Garcia back in the ‘70s. The replica is made to the exact likeness of the original guitar, down to every bump and scratch. 

Fender is making only 100 copies of the guitar and they’re selling for $20,000. Check out photos and more on the making of the Fender Strat here,

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One Response

  1. The video you provided is not Alligator. It’s another one of Jerry’s strats that he used for this legendary show. Please don’t disrespect the history like this.

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