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Pop & Hiss

Prince’s gold Stratocaster sells for $100,000 to racer Lewis Hamilton

By Randy Lewis
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Formula 1 race car driver Lewis Hamilton has ponied up $100,000 to buy the custom gold-leaf Fender Stratocaster guitar that Prince has been playing on tour. Proceeds will go to children’s and community-based organizations.

Hamilton and his girlfriend, actress and Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger, had joined Prince onstage at a concert in Abu Dhabi following the 2010 Grand Prix.

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Prince had ordered the guitar from Fender’s Custom Shop in Corona to be a unique component of his “Welcome 2 America Live” tour when it began late last year in New York. The guitar is gold-plated from head to toe, although it is not solid gold, as has sometimes been reported.

He brought the tour to Los Angeles for a planned run of 21 nights at the Forum in Inglewood that started Thursday. The stint continues with three more shows this week -- Thursday, Friday and Saturday -- and other dates to be announced.

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How Prince’s all-gold Fender Stratocaster came to be

Live review: Prince at the Forum, April 14

-- Randy Lewis

Top photo: Prince performing last fall in Abu Dhabi. Credit: Jumana el Heloueh / Reuters. Bottom photo of custom gold-leaf Stratocaster made by Yuriy Shishkov. Credit:Fender Musical Instruments Corp.

Pop & Hiss
Randy Lewis

Randy Lewis covered pop music for the Los Angeles Times from 1981 to 2020, working in that time as a reporter, music critic and editor for the Calendar section. He has interviewed most of the members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’s also written first-person accounts of performing the music of Shostakovich and Prokofiev on clarinet and singing Mozart’s Requiem with world-class professionals. In addition, he enjoys belting out “Wooly Bully” in dive bars with his band, the Rounders.

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