Recreating Mike Hampton's "Earth Tour Strat" guitar

Hey everyone, longtime reader here. Just thought I’d drop a note especially for any musicians, or guitar fans - you might think this is kind of cool. In many of the big concert videos from '76-79, Michael Hampton plays a very distinctive, super-customized Fender Stratocaster, which he ended up referring to as the “Earth Tour Strat”. This has always been my favorite guitar ever, so over a long period of time, I collected parts here and there, and finally finished transforming my own stock Strat into a full-on fan-made replica of it.

I sent a photo of it to Mike Hampton’s contact email, and I was floored when he emailed back and even spoke with me on the phone about it - he said it made his day! Mike is my favorite guitarist; so suffice it to say that it made MY day, holy cow :scream: Super nice guy. I was extremely grateful for his time.

Anyway, I later made a whole YouTube video about this guitar / the replica, Michael Hampton himself, and a bit about P-Funk in general. It’s mainly geared toward guitar players, because the cool thing about Mike’s guitar is that it was actually the “first” guitar to do several key innovations. e.g. Lots of people think Eddie Van Halen was the first to build a customized guitar out of many parts and pieces in 1977 (hence called the “Frakenstrat”), but actually, Mike beat him to it by over a year. And it’s THE very first known guitar in a major band with a “backwards” neck, which is now a super-common option that many players prefer (esp metal guitarists like Mike).

But even you non-guitarists might be interested too. I also included a cover of the ~1978-era Swing Down/Mothership Connection, using the guitar for every instrument except drums and bass.
Feel free to check it out if you’d like.

But in any case, just wanted to share this cool “fan” experience about Mike. Cheers
:metal:t3:

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Adding a photo - the site wouldn’t let me include it in the original post:

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@ mikedeeez

Thanks for sharing this. The guitar and accompanying video are well done. Michael Hampton is my favorite guitar player, too (followed closely by original Toto member and former L.A. studio session ace, Steve Lukather).

Years ago, I purchased a Fender “VooDoo” Stratocaster with an upside-down neck so I could try to cop that same Kidd Funkadelic vibe (screenshot below). But I never went so far as to add the three Dimarzio Super Distortion humbuckers, Alembic pre-amp, and all the wild mirror/visual effects.

And you were able to get a phone call with Hampton to boot. Super cool!

Welcome to the board.

-Dr. Spank

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Thanks for sharing! Really cool.

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That’s awesome! As a guitar nerd and P-Funk fan I can’t wait to watch this!

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As a non-guitar player, I thought that was fantastic. Nice one :metal:

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Many thanks y’all for the kind words, much appreciated! :pray:t3:

Dr. Spank, that VooDoo Strat is sweet! I always thought those were super cool - and yep, totally reminded me of Mike’s Strat. Awesome you got one!

(Excellent choice with Steve Lukather too; super talented and versatile guy :+1:t3:)

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