- 15 hours ago
The final collection of the late Gary Moore's equipment will be sold at auction by Bonhams on the 20th Nov 2025. Before the auction, Bonhams offered Guitarist magazine the opportunity to pay homage to this legendary instrument at Fender's London HQ. We enlisted the help of Cardinal Black's guitar ace Chris Buck to put Gary's Strat through its paces - the results speak for themselves!
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00:37So Chris, thanks so much for coming down
00:39to play really quite a historic guitar.
00:43It's a chore but someone's got to do it.
00:46Gary Moore's 1960 Strat aka the Red Strat
00:51used for a very famous performance of Red House
00:53to celebrate a Fender anniversary
00:55and in a kind of weird way
00:58even though he was very associated with Gibson's
01:00it's an iconic Gary Moore guitar.
01:04Well that's an iconic performance isn't it?
01:07I looked at it on YouTube the other day
01:08just to kind of refresh my memory of it
01:09and not just the millions of views that's had
01:12but it seems sort of transcended
01:14the amount of views that it's had
01:16just in this sort of legendary performance data
01:18so I remember watching that transfixed as a kid
01:20you know.
01:21So yeah, it's a bit surreal to behold, isn't it?
01:24And your roots as a player are in
01:27quite sort of
01:29aggressive rock players like Slash and so on.
01:31Where does Gary Moore stand in that sort of pantheon of players?
01:34Gary was a huge influence, you know
01:36like I vividly remember one of the few solos that I've ever
01:40like tried to diligently learn note for note
01:42was out in the fields and this that fast run
01:45and conveniently the music video had this like
01:48proto GoPro type headstock camera mounted
01:52looking up the fretboard and even with the aid of that
01:54I could still not figure out what the hell he was doing
01:57but I remember getting tablature for that
01:59and just practicing and practicing and practicing it
02:01and eventually giving up.
02:04It was just a monster play, you know
02:05and kind of whether it was the harder 80s stuff
02:08or kind of transitioning to the later blues stuff
02:10just such a tasteful, aggressive play, you know
02:14such a, you watch him playing
02:16and I don't think I've ever seen anyone sweat
02:17so much on stage, you know
02:19such a, yeah, aggressive I guess
02:23just kind of in the moment guy
02:24who kind of gave everything, 110% to every performance
02:27you know, that in itself is just inspiring to watch as a kid
02:30you know, and so many defined eras of Gary's playing
02:32everyone distinct from the latter, you know
02:35I mean, you, you don't play strats so much these days
02:39but you sort of started out with strats
02:42Yeah
02:43What do you think as a rock guitar
02:45what do you look for in a good strat?
02:48I mean, my only kind of barometer
02:50or kind of benchmark I have really
02:52I've got a 62 by total chance
02:54which I guess aesthetically looks fairly similar to this
02:57save for a couple of dings and bumps
02:58but what always surprises me about strats is
03:02how different they can be
03:04mine is a July 62
03:06and I played, not long after I bought it
03:08played an August 62
03:10which pretty much the only two things
03:12the only thing tying those two guitars together
03:14was the name Stratocaster on the headstock
03:16you know, mine is like a bludgeon
03:18mine's very kind of aggressive and forthright
03:21and then the one that was a month earlier
03:23or a month later was delicate
03:25and more strat-y I guess
03:27more typically strat-y
03:28this seems to fall into that kind of latter category
03:31of being, you know, kind of quite
03:33Knopfler-esque, I guess
03:35quite articulate, quite delicate sounding
03:36but still, you know, having a bit more of a kind of strident
03:39sort of neck pickup on it
03:41which lends itself to kind of dig in a little bit more
03:43it's, yeah, it's a great guitar, very cool
03:46when you were playing just now
03:47I was really struck by, I mean
03:49you know, dynamic range
03:52is something that fenders are known for
03:53and I kind of were playing through a Fender Twin as well
03:56but for a moment
03:57I thought you were playing through the bridge pickup
03:59and you're actually just digging in on the neck pickup
04:01Yeah, yeah
04:02so it's weird how they've got that all within them
04:04Yeah, absolutely
04:05especially this one we have in a three-way switch
04:07it's a pretty stiff one
04:08so you can kind of just about jam it in the two and four there
04:12but yeah, there's such, you know, dynamic is the word
04:16you know, you kind of get so much use out of that kind of volume pot
04:19and get so many, you know, shades of grey in between that
04:22it's, yeah, it's a beautiful sounding guitar
04:25Do you want to just walk us through some of the pickup sounds quickly
04:27because you did some beautiful playing earlier
04:29but it'd be nice to hear them just one after the other
04:32Yeah, so, neck pickup
04:56Next position, two or four, never quite remember
05:00we've got the neck and the middle together
05:28middle position then, on its own
05:29guitar solo
05:31guitar solo
05:39guitar solo
06:01The next even numbered position, two or four, which is going to be the middle and the bridge together
06:05the next even numbered position, two or four, which is going to be the middle and the bridge together
06:32and then, last but not least, we've got the bridge
06:34I've got a feeling this may be in a little bit of need of some TRC
06:38I guess, to give it a steal, it's 65 years old
06:41and it's been woken up from a decade long slumber
06:43I'd probably be a little bit cranky as well
06:49guitar solo
06:51guitar solo
07:09one thing that's um we've we've sort of talked about before with um other very um special guitars
07:16is uh there's no treble that hurts the ears you know yeah it's kind of weird that that happens
07:22do you think that's a vintage guitar thing or or guitars that have been played a lot of thing
07:26we've been into uh dangerous territory now um i don't know honestly it seems to be um it's kind
07:32of like a mellowness i guess but still all of those frequencies that you need to you know
07:38be forthright and cut through um whether that's a vintage thing i guess there is something to be
07:43said for a guitar having been played to death i mean clearly look at the look at the buckle rash
07:47you know listen to the noises um it's just clearly it's a guitar that's been used and loved
07:52and whether or not something molecular happens to a guitar over time you know the more it's played i
07:58guess there is um something to be said for that but you know i'm veering into uh dangerous territory
08:02here for which youtube will undoubtedly crucify me so um yeah i i would say i guess i think it's
08:08something that happens over time this uh i guess if nothing else the kind of the magnetic pull of
08:13the pickups will probably lessen maybe slightly over the years at which point you end up with
08:17you know um i hesitate to use the word woody but it feels like a very um the the electric
08:26sound of
08:26the guitar feels like a very true reflection of its acoustic sound you know which is something not
08:31necessarily solely or ex you know exclusively associated with all guitars in my experience but
08:36it seems to be a higher likelihood of that being the case so um sorry advanced youtube
08:42um what were your other impressions of the guitar like the neck the sort of weight that sort of thing
08:47um it's good weight actually it feels very balanced um again the only kind of obvious
08:53um comparison i have is my strap which is pretty heavy um but yeah it feels you know very balanced
09:00very um it's a nice weight it feels very resonant it's not quiet it's not overly shouty it just feels
09:09like a very well balanced well placed right and um i mean gary obviously played this in you know
09:15somewhat heavier context than you know like mark knopfler or something like that um what what do you
09:22kind of have to do if you're you're playing humbucker guitars you know might be they gibsons or whatever
09:28but you also want this to sit alongside them in your set what have you have you approached that
09:32sort of issue with drives and stuff like that um i mean more often than not it's usually a case
09:37of
09:37you know having a couple of different drives on the board gives you a little bit of flexibility in
09:41that respect so you don't have to be bending down mid-set to try and boost the level to compensate
09:45also having a front of house guy who's aware of what's about to happen is is helpful there but it's
09:49i think you can try and compensate to the extent where you actually start stripping guitars of the
09:54individual character a strat is inherently quieter than a less poor is quieter than three through five
10:00is different fundamentally different to a telly you know plugging this in alongside that that's a
10:05big loud shouty aggressive guitar you know this feels a little bit more delicate if you start trying
10:10to compensate for that too much with your with your settings or with your amp or with your your attack
10:14on the guitar then it suddenly becomes a little bit homogenized i guess so it's nice to just let those
10:19characteristics ring i mean it's interesting that you sort of um you got the vibe that this is a
10:26quite one of the more sort of delicate strats you know it's quite sort of you can see hear all
10:29that
10:29detail when you're yeah yeah it's clean stuff it's interesting that gary sort of chose this one yeah
10:34um i guess you know opposites attract maybe um it yeah admittedly it doesn't leap out as the type
10:42of strat that he would necessarily associate with gary's playing but that said gary was so articulate
10:48as a play you know and so kind of um defined you know there was there was never a misplaced
10:52note
10:52there was never a messy note or a kind of slightly slurred or smudged note it was always super articulate
10:58and super erudite you know musically erudite so in that respect a guitar that echoes that probably
11:05makes perfect sense you know even if it doesn't necessarily strike you as oh that's a gary sounding
11:10guitar um everything else about it makes perfect sense um and you're you're like gary you're another
11:16guitarist who uses lots of different guitars at various different times about where the
11:20comparisons end as well unfortunately yeah well um but that's not the case for all guitarists i mean
11:26that brian may being the ultimate yeah just being sort of wedded to one guitar um what what do you
11:32think uh the the the benefit is of having um you know all of these things in your arsenal is
11:39it as a
11:40live player is it something that you just have to kind of adjust to as you're going through a set
11:44or is
11:44it do the the benefits clearly outweigh the the drawback yeah i think there's a kind of there's
11:49a middle ground to be kind of struck there you know i've never been particularly musically monogamous
11:53you know it's they're tools ultimately and i've always been fairly pragmatic in my approach to
11:57guitars different tools do different jobs you know if you're if you're building a shed you're not
12:01exclusively going to use one tool from start to bottom you know it's um do what or you use whatever
12:07tool kind of best serves the purpose of which you're trying to express you know and
12:11that said i've done shows in the past you know kind of tour warm-ups in particular where you're
12:16kind of finding your feet and trying to kind of make the set list fit together where it's you know
12:19play a song guitar off play the next song guitar off that i can find a little bit kind of
12:24disjointed or
12:24a little bit distracting because you end up this inevitably however accustomed you are to these
12:30guitars however much time you spend with them on or off stage half of that track that you play with
12:35it if especially if it's the first track is spent kind of acclimatizing making sure that you're happy
12:39making sure you can hear everything as well as you want to and if you spend most of the set
12:43then
12:43kind of feeling like you're getting used to the guitar that you're playing i think that kind of
12:47throws you out of the moment of just trying to be musically expressive or be in the moment of
12:50you know making music for the people that have paid to come and watch you play so um yeah i
12:55think
12:55within reason it's good to have you know different guitars within your arsenal that do fundamentally
13:00different jobs i mean you know especially going back and forth between this guitar and that guitar
13:03they're worlds apart you know and they do very different jobs so um yeah you know as much as
13:09it's nice to be wedded to a certain guitar you know i guess like you said well that's brian may
13:14whether it's rory as well to a slightly lesser extent i guess you know indelibly associated with
13:20that strap still kind of kind of mixing it up here and there it's it is nice to have different
13:25tools in
13:25your arsenal and um before we come on to that telly um just a a final thing which is that
13:32you
13:32know every strap player tends to have a sort of favorite um sound in the strap i mean richard
13:37thompson likes that bridge and middle together what's your favorite sound on this strap neck is
13:42the one that i kind of gravitate towards there's just a i mean there's all the usual kind of cliche
13:47terms i guess that you would use to describe the sound of a strap but there's just a depth to
13:52the
13:53neck pickup i mean if you kind of straight away that's my kind of little go-to thing for a
14:00strat
14:00the moment i pick it up neck pickup and see how it reacts to that see how it responds is
14:09there a depth
14:09is there a clarity is there you know articulation which i want in that guitar um it's just a little
14:14kind of barometer i have i guess the judge of strat um yeah neck pickup all day long you know
14:20i
14:20would probably quite comfortably get away especially with guitars that you know are
14:24interactive on the volume control you get away with just an neck pickup on a strat for for an entire
14:29gig i think well chris thanks so much for um showing demonstrating this guitar so beautifully and
14:35thank you for reminding us of gary's incredible heritage as a musician it's uh it's an absolute
14:40pleasure to be a part of thank you for having me and uh sorry gary
14:44so
14:44uh
14:57so
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