If Rory Gallagher’s Strat had been a child, social workers would have taken it away from him. It was once found in a ditch, and whenever the neck came out of alignment, Rory would wrench it back into place with a sickening crack. There is footage of the Irish great dragging his guitar frontside down across the stage – antics that would damage the neck pickup. Gallagher’s Strat is, along with SRV’s Number One, the reason why vintage Strats are commonly imagined as having barely any paint left on them. But Gallagher shared Hendrix and SRV’s knack for making a Strat sound huge.