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“That was probably the best deal I have ever made in my life”: Nile Rodgers on the origins of his iconic Hitmaker Strat
“I wasn’t particularly attracted to it for any reason other than the fact that it was the cheapest guitar in the store. I’m being perfectly honest.”
Image: Mike Coppola / Getty
Finding a guitar that you bond with like no other can be life changing – just ask Nile Rodgers.
The Chic co-founder has been reflecting on his relationship with his famous white Stratocaster, the Hitmaker. Rodgers bought the guitar in 1973, and says he’s never changed it since owning it. His studio in Miami sits just a few blocks away from the very store he purchased it from all those years ago.
Speaking in the new August issue of Guitar World, Rodgers says, “I wasn’t particularly attracted to it for any reason other than the fact that it was the cheapest guitar in the store. I’m being perfectly honest. And when I traded in my jazz guitar, the guy gave me back $300. I got the Hitmaker and $300. That was the best deal I probably have ever made in my life.”
Speaking of his realisation that the guitar was truly something special, he shares, “Shortly thereafter… our shows got better right away. We [Chic] were opening for the Jackson 5; we only did a couple of shows for them standing in for the O’Jays, but those shows got better right away because, all of a sudden, I was able to play with a hell of a lot more confidence.
“Once I got the Strat, my partner Bernard Edwards basically took me into the woodshed and just started teaching me how to chuck. He said, ‘Man, with your harmonic knowledge, if you get this down…’ And I just was in there for hours and hours and hours every day, and when we got back on the Jackson 5 tour, we were killing it.”
He later continues, “I had already learned to play guitar on acoustics, mainly classical and jazz, my muscle memory was my arms being extended out over the guitar a bit because of the depth of an acoustic and the jazz box. So l had to re-adapt, not realising that, in that re-adaptation, I was coming up with something that wound up making my chucking cooler.”
Nile Rodgers and Chic are currently out on tour.