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Lot Essay
Johnny Marr acquired this 1960s Lake Placid Blue Stratocaster in the mid-1980s from The Who bassist John Entwistle via guitar tech Alan Rogan. In conversation with Martin Kelly for Marr’s Guitars, Marr recalled: Around [the] time when The Smiths started to have a run of hits - 1985, I guess - I became friends with a guy called Alan Rogan, who is sadly no longer with us. He was the guitar tech for Pete Townshend, and he'd also looked after Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and George Harrison among many other people over the years. Alan was one of the most respected guitar experts there'll ever be, and because he was working for The Who I got a few guitars from John Entwistle. Speaking to Premier Guitar in 2018, Marr confirmed that his 60’s Lake Placid Blue Strat was among the handful of guitars that he purchased from Entwistle and explained how the deal came about: John knew that Alan was doing some work with me and Alan guided me towards it and thought I should have some guitars. Alan pretty much marched me round to John’s and made me buy them!
Marr used the Lake Placid Blue Strat to record the solo on ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’ for The Smiths’ fourth and final studio album Strangeways, Here We Come. Recorded between March-April 1987 at Wool Hall Studios in Bath, it was notable as his first proper solo on a Smiths’ record. As Marr recounted in his 2016 autobiography, he went into the making of the Strangeways, Here We Come album with an agenda to use fewer overdubs and not fill up all the space in the sound. Interviewed for Guitar Player in 1990, Marr recalled: I was getting a little tired of the things I was coming up with on [the Rickenbacker]. About '86, I got really into the Les Paul and rediscovered Peter Green. I tried to play less chordally, a little more solo-notey. But the solo on ‘Paint A Vulgar Picture’ was done on a Strat. Asked how it felt to play a regular single-note solo after becoming known as the man who never soloed, Marr replied: I was really pleased that the first solo as such on a Smiths record was one you could sing… I like improvisation in the right place, but I find most solos corny. That "now I'm gonna solo my ass off" attitude is the equivalent of someone just being a loudmouth and talking rubbish. Speaking to Michael Leonard for The Guitar Magazine in 1997, Marr joked that the solo was a big deal… I had to make everyone leave the studio, bring in a few candles… no, not really. The song just suited it. I always thought that if you played a guitar solo it should be something people could whistle. While the sessions started smoothly, relations in the band began to deteriorate while making the album, and by the time Strangeways… was released by Rough Trade in September 1987, The Smiths had broken up.
At some point in the late 1980s, Marr switched the original rosewood neck from this guitar with the 1957 bird's-eye maple neck from his 1963 Sunburst Strat (lot 37), as he thought the Lake Placid Blue would look better with a maple neck. In late 1989, Marr was photographed with the maple neck iteration of the Lake Placid Blue Strat for a cover feature in the January 1990 issue of Guitar Player magazine. When Marr asked luthier Bill Puplett to restore the Sunburst Strat to its Smiths-era configuration and appearance at some point in the 2010s, Puplett swapped the maple neck back to the Sunburst Strat and fitted the present 1965 rosewood neck to this guitar. Marr later loaned the guitar to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, who confirmed that both he and Nick McCarthy used the Lake Placid Blue Strat on the 2015 album FFS, which Franz Ferdinand recorded as a supergroup with American art pop duo Sparks under the name FFS.
Marr used the Lake Placid Blue Strat to record the solo on ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’ for The Smiths’ fourth and final studio album Strangeways, Here We Come. Recorded between March-April 1987 at Wool Hall Studios in Bath, it was notable as his first proper solo on a Smiths’ record. As Marr recounted in his 2016 autobiography, he went into the making of the Strangeways, Here We Come album with an agenda to use fewer overdubs and not fill up all the space in the sound. Interviewed for Guitar Player in 1990, Marr recalled: I was getting a little tired of the things I was coming up with on [the Rickenbacker]. About '86, I got really into the Les Paul and rediscovered Peter Green. I tried to play less chordally, a little more solo-notey. But the solo on ‘Paint A Vulgar Picture’ was done on a Strat. Asked how it felt to play a regular single-note solo after becoming known as the man who never soloed, Marr replied: I was really pleased that the first solo as such on a Smiths record was one you could sing… I like improvisation in the right place, but I find most solos corny. That "now I'm gonna solo my ass off" attitude is the equivalent of someone just being a loudmouth and talking rubbish. Speaking to Michael Leonard for The Guitar Magazine in 1997, Marr joked that the solo was a big deal… I had to make everyone leave the studio, bring in a few candles… no, not really. The song just suited it. I always thought that if you played a guitar solo it should be something people could whistle. While the sessions started smoothly, relations in the band began to deteriorate while making the album, and by the time Strangeways… was released by Rough Trade in September 1987, The Smiths had broken up.
At some point in the late 1980s, Marr switched the original rosewood neck from this guitar with the 1957 bird's-eye maple neck from his 1963 Sunburst Strat (lot 37), as he thought the Lake Placid Blue would look better with a maple neck. In late 1989, Marr was photographed with the maple neck iteration of the Lake Placid Blue Strat for a cover feature in the January 1990 issue of Guitar Player magazine. When Marr asked luthier Bill Puplett to restore the Sunburst Strat to its Smiths-era configuration and appearance at some point in the 2010s, Puplett swapped the maple neck back to the Sunburst Strat and fitted the present 1965 rosewood neck to this guitar. Marr later loaned the guitar to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, who confirmed that both he and Nick McCarthy used the Lake Placid Blue Strat on the 2015 album FFS, which Franz Ferdinand recorded as a supergroup with American art pop duo Sparks under the name FFS.