Sold at auction, Kurt Cobain’s last guitar reached new heights

CULTURE – She was his “favorite”. The guitar used by American singer Kurt Cobain during his last concert was sold at auction this Friday, November 17, at a very high price. This left-handed Fender Mustang sold for more than $1.5 million, auction house Julien’s Auctions announced.

In May, a black Fender Stratocaster smashed by the singer reached 595,000 at auction at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York. With its sky blue patina, the instrument up for auction in Nashville, Tennessee, is intact, unlike many guitars broken on stage by the grunge legend.

The Nirvana frontman played his strings during the group’s last tour in 1993-1994. After having marked a generation within Nirvana with hits like « Smells Like Teen Spirit » or « Come as You Are »during a career marked by his heroin addiction and his complex relationship with Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain committed suicide in April 1994, at the age of 27.

An Eric Clapton guitar was also sold

This Thursday, the same auction house also sold another Eric Clapton guitar, for nearly $1.3 million. Nicknamed « The Fool »this Gibson SG is strongly associated with the singer’s period with the band Cream, in which he produced one of the most distinctive sounds in rock.

Its personalized decoration, in a psychedelic style, makes the instrument one of the most easily recognizable in rock and a symbol of « Summer of Love »the 1967 counterculture movement that marked a generation.

Eric Clapton, whose riffs on songs like « Layla » or « Sunshine of Your Love » earned him the reputation of being one of the best guitarists in the world, had started using the instrument during Cream’s first US tour. A portion of the profits from the sale of both guitars will be donated to mental health charity Kicking the Stigma.

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