Only 10% of people around the world are left-handed. As a result, it can be hard to find tools for those who are. Gear shifters are always on the right for manual cars. Ledgers and notebooks are made for right-handed people. And guitars—it can be very hard to find one that fits southpaws. That’s why Jimi Hendrix used to just turn his upside down.
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But along the way, in the music world, there have been plenty of left-handed guitar players that have rocked stages. Here below, we wanted to explore, well, a handful of them. These are five left-handed guitarists that rock by any definition.
[RELATED: Malina Moye: Thriving in Song]
Jimi Hendrix
As noted above, the Seattle-born guitarist, who is perhaps the best electric guitar player in the history of mankind, was a lefty. To compensate for the lack of left-handed guitars built for southpaws, Hendrix just flipped his guitar over. He would then restring his instruments so the strings would be the traditional way, with the heaviest at the top of the guitar, closest to his chin. The result was some of the most intricate and compelling music ever made.
Kurt Cobain
Another Seattle-area rock star, Kurt Cobain fronted the grunge group Nirvana, which was the biggest band in the world in the 1990s. With his blonde hair and rugged good looks, Cobain was both heartthrob and musical mastermind, growling and screaming into microphones as he played his buzzy six-string. Cobain, who actually started playing guitar right-handed before switching, showed off his lefty guitar playing style live most notably during the 1993 MTV Unplugged performance, which remains iconic today.
Malina Moye
A contemporary artist whose 2018 album Bad as I Wanna Be landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart for two straight weeks, Malina Moye plays her guitar similar to Jimi Hendrix by just flipping a right-handed instrument over. But Moye takes it one step further in that she doesn’t even bother to restring the thing. Instead, she just learned to play completely upside down. Brash and bold, her talent is obvious whenever she plays live.
Paul McCartney
The Liverpool, England-born artist rose to eternal fame with his band The Beatles. A guitar player at heart, McCartney picked up the electric bass since his bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison also played six-strings. But whether he’s playing bass, guitar, or ukulele (as he does here below), McCartney does it lefty. One of the most famous artists of all time, McCartney has given inspiration to lefties everywhere.
Dick Dale
You might not expect one of the biggest names in surf music to be born in Boston, but that is the case when it comes to the legendary guitar player Dick Dale. A lefty, Dale’s rendition of the traditional song “Misirlou” has stood the test of time—in part because of the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction, which made it famous all over again. Check out Dale wailing that song southpaw here below.
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MPL Communications Ltd/Photo by David Litchfield
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