{"id":448277,"date":"2026-05-27T20:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/448277\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T20:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:06:10","slug":"how-alvin-lees-woodstock-guitar-was-accidentally-frozen-in-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/448277\/","title":{"rendered":"How Alvin Lee’s Woodstock guitar was accidentally frozen in time"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1969 Woodstock festival produced some of rock\u2019s most iconic guitar moments: Richie Havens strumming his beat-up open-tuned Guild D-40 acoustic<\/a> as he improvised \u201cFreedom.\u201d Pete Townshend taking his Gibson SG to Abbie Hoffman\u2019s head<\/a> after the political activist interrupted the Who\u2019s set. And Jimi Hendrix playing \u201cThe Star Spangled Banner\u201d on a white Fender Stratocaster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among those standouts performances is Ten Years After\u2019s Alvin Lee<\/a> leading the group through \u201cI\u2019m Going Home\u201d while playing the heavily stickered and modified Gibson ES-335<\/a> he called Big Red. The instrument would go on to become one of the most recognizable and prized electric guitars<\/a> in rock history, and is currently under lock and key in the possession of his daughter Jasmin.<\/p>\n

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The guitar\u2019s legend began in 1963 when Lee purchased it for \u00a345 with a fitted case from Jack Brentnall\u2019s, a musical instrument store in his hometown of Nottingham, England. By the time Big Red made its live debut a few years later, Lee had already begun modifying the instrument. The first distinctive change was the addition of a Fender single-coil pickup in the middle position, between the guitar\u2019s two PAF humbuckers, giving it a brighter, sharper tone when needed.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI now have a Gibson which sounds like a Tele just when I want it to,\u201d Lee explained in an August 1975 interview with International Musician & Recording World.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he began covering the instrument with stickers: peace signs, psychedelic decals, astrological imagery and the logo of the Ten Years After Music Lovers Society. By the time Lee walked onstage at Woodstock, Big Red already looked unlike any other Gibson in rock.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad was always tinkering with the guitar doing stuff with it,\u201d Jasmin tells Guitar Player. \u201cIn early 1970, he took the Bigsby off and replaced it with a TP-6 tailpiece with fine tuners. And because of that, he put more stickers on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lee added a single-coil pickup in the middle position, saying, \u201cI now have a Gibson which sounds like a Tele just when I want it to.\u201d (Image credit: Olly Curtis\/Guitarist Magazine))<\/p>\n

Ironically, the guitar\u2019s appearance was permanently frozen in time by accident. During a 1972 show at London\u2019s Marquee Club, Lee threw the guitar in the air and smashed the neck against the venue\u2019s low ceiling.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe used to throw it around quite a lot onstage,\u201d Jasmin says. \u201cUnfortunately on this particular night he threw it up and broke the dot-inlaid neck right off the guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee sent Big Red to Gibson<\/a> for repairs. When it returned, the original neck had been replaced with a block-inlay version, and all the stickers had been lacquered over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stickers became part of the guitar,\u201d Jasmin says. \u201cHe couldn’t take any off or change them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Big Red\u2019s stickers include relics of the 1960s and \u201970s, including a decal of the Woodstock festival logo. (Image credit: Olly Curtis\/Guitarist Magazine)<\/p>\n

Gibson\u2019s unsolicited preservation act ultimately helped turn Big Red into an artifact of classic rock history. It also obscured the guitar\u2019s date of manufacture. Lee referred to it as a 1958 model, but without the original neck, it\u2019s impossible to know.<\/p>\n

Lee continued using the guitar throughout the 1970s and into the \u201980s, but as its value climbed he gradually retired it from the stage. By 1992, insurance costs forced him to place it in storage altogether.<\/p>\n

Years later, Gibson attempted to produce a signature replica, resulting in a painstaking Woodstock 50th-anniversary re-creation in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cGibson actually worked quite closely with Dad on this guitar,\u201d Jasmin says. \u201cThey sent him quite a few prototypes, but he was like, \u2018Nope, nope, that\u2019s not right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the original Big Red remains secured in storage while its replicas hang at Dean St. Studios<\/a> in London. The Lee family hopes the original instrument will eventually find a new owner who understands both its musical significance and the decades of history embedded in every scratch, modification and sticker sealed beneath its lacquer finish.<\/p>\n

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Alvin Lee’s Gibson ES-335 and case are currently owned by Lee’s daughter Jasmin. (Image credit: Glen Newman | Courtesy Jasmin Lee)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 1969 Woodstock festival produced some of rock\u2019s most iconic guitar moments: Richie Havens strumming his beat-up open-tuned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-448277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}