Famous left-handed guitar players

Are you a left-handed guitarist? If you are, you’re in good company – some of the biggest guitarists in history are southpaws. 

 

Jimi Hendrix

“Jimi Hendrix Experience-‘You Got Me Floatin”-1967″ by scottallenonline is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The most famous left-handed guitarist of all time is Jimi Hendrix. Unable to find a left-handed guitar, Hendrix used a right-handed guitar and flipped it over, making some changes to the hardware and switching the strings to make it playable. 

 

Tony Iommi 

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi is left-handed like his musical hero, Jimi Hendrix. Left-handed guitars were hard to come by in Iommi’s native England, so he played a right-handed Gibson SG upside down. Then, he met a person who played a left-handed guitar upside down, and the two decided to swap guitars. 

 

Paul McCartney 

The Beatle plays left-handed, although he’s not a true lefty. McCartney is right-hand dominant – however, when he started learning guitar, McCartney was unsuccessful playing right-handed. After seeing a picture of American country music artist Slim Whitman playing left-handed, he realized he could reverse the guitar. He told Guitar Player in 1990 that he can play right-handed, “only enough for parties”. 

 

Kurt Cobain

Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was a natural lefty who was forced to write right-handed. He learned guitar left-handed, and eventually Fender made him left-handed Mustang guitars once the band hit it big. 

 

Albert King

One of the all-time great blues guitarists, Albert King was left handed and played with his guitar flipped upside down. 


Courtney Barnett

Australian indie rock artist Courtney Barnett plays guitar left-handed. She uses mostly left-handed guitars (low strings at the top, high strings at the bottom). 

 

Tim Armstrong 

Rancid/Operation Ivy frontman Tim Armstrong  is left-handed and has collaborated with Fender and Gretsch for models of left- and right-handed signature guitars. 

Otis Rush 

Blues guitarist and singer-songwriter Otis Rush was a lefty. He played guitars that were strung with the low E at the bottom. 

 

Author

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

8 − 7 =