Who are the greatest left-handed guitarists of all time? Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Kurt Cobain, Tony Iommi, Albert King, and Dick Dale all played guitar left-handed. Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page are often listed too, but both play right-handed.
This list only includes guitarists who are documented playing left-handed. Players who are often named as lefties without evidence are covered in a separate section near the end, along with a few natural left-handers who learned to play right-handed.
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, regardless of handedness. He played left-handed, mainly on right-handed guitars that were turned upside down and restrung. He wrote with his right hand. Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington in 1942 and got his first acoustic guitar in 1958, at age 15. He served in the US Army from 1961 to 1962 and then worked as a backing guitarist for acts including the Isley Brothers and Little Richard.
Hendrix moved to England in late 1966 after Chas Chandler of the Animals became his manager, and formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience there. His performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 made him famous in the United States. He helped popularize amplifier feedback as a musical sound and made heavy use of effects such as fuzz and the wah-wah pedal. Hendrix died in London in 1970 at age 27. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1992.
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool in 1942. As a teenager he traded a trumpet for a Zenith acoustic guitar and found it difficult to play right-handed. After seeing a poster for a Slim Whitman concert and noticing that Whitman played left-handed, he reversed the order of the strings and played it left-handed.
McCartney became the Beatles' bass player in 1961, after Stuart Sutcliffe left the band. He mainly used a Höfner 500/1 bass during the group's early years. He plays guitar and bass left-handed but plays drums right-handed.
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Washington in 1967. He played guitar left-handed, although he was made to write right-handed. When Nirvana started, he was playing a right-handed Univox Hi-Flier that he flipped over and strung for left-handed playing.
Cobain said he had trouble finding good left-handed guitars. He came to prefer Japanese-made Fenders partly because they were widely available in left-handed versions, and his guitars included a 1965 Fender Jaguar and a 1969 Fender Mustang. For Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance he played a right-handed 1959 Martin D-18E modified for left-handed playing. That guitar sold for more than $6 million at auction in 2020.
Tony Iommi
Tony Iommi was born in Birmingham, England in 1948 and co-founded Black Sabbath in 1968. He is left-handed and plays left-handed, which means he frets with his right hand. At 17 he lost the tips of the middle and ring fingers of that hand in an accident at a sheet metal factory.
Iommi kept playing after a factory foreman played him a recording of Django Reinhardt, who also played with an injured fretting hand. He made thimbles for his fingertips from a melted plastic bottle, switched to lighter strings, and tuned his guitar down. He has said he tried switching to right-handed playing after the accident but did not have the patience for it. He is most associated with the Gibson SG and is often called the Godfather of Heavy Metal.
Albert King
Albert King was born in Indianola, Mississippi in 1923. He taught himself as a left-hander by turning a right-handed guitar upside down, and he never reversed the strings. He is most associated with the Gibson Flying V.
His 1967 Stax album Born Under a Bad Sign is his best-known record. Stevie Ray Vaughan often cited King as his greatest influence. King was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. He died in Memphis in 1992.
Dick Dale
Dick Dale, known as the King of the Surf Guitar, was born in Boston in 1937. Like Albert King, he played a right-handed guitar upside down without restringing it. He kept the same reversed stringing even after he got a left-handed guitar.
Dale worked with Leo Fender on louder amplifiers, which led to the Fender Showman. He recorded his version of "Misirlou" in 1962, and its use in the film Pulp Fiction revived his career in the 1990s. He died in 2019.
Other notable left-handed guitarists
Chicago bluesman Otis Rush was left-handed and played left-handed with the low E string at the bottom, the same upside-down stringing used by Albert King and Dick Dale. Other guitarists documented as playing left-handed include Elliot Easton, Courtney Barnett, Omar Rodríguez-López, Eric Gales, Doyle Bramhall II, and Coco Montoya. Our list of famous left-handed musicians covers other instruments, and our guide to the best left-handed guitars covers what left-handed players can buy today.
Left-handed guitarists who play right-handed
Some natural left-handers learned guitar the right-handed way and stayed with it. They are left-handed people, but they do not play left-handed.
- Mark Knopfler: the Dire Straits guitarist is left-handed and plays right-handed. On BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 2024, he said his older sister turned the tennis racket he was pretending to play around to the right-handed position when he was a child
- Gary Moore: the Thin Lizzy and solo guitarist was left-handed and learned to play right-handed, according to his obituary in The Independent
- Joe Perry: the Aerosmith guitarist is left-handed. He has said he followed the instructions that came with his first guitar and held the neck in his left hand
If you are deciding which way to learn, see our guide on whether to learn guitar left or right-handed.
Guitarists often wrongly listed as left-handed
Several famous players appear on lists of left-handed guitarists without evidence.
Eric Clapton plays guitar right-handed, as the photo above shows. Some lists describe him as a natural lefty who plays right-handed, but we found no reliable source for that. The one left-handed guitar in his story was a gift: in September 1970 he bought a left-handed Fender Stratocaster to give to Jimi Hendrix.
Jimmy Page plays right-handed and has been photographed signing with his right hand. The claim that he is a natural lefty who was made to play right-handed is repeated on many lists but has no source we could find. Read the evidence in is Jimmy Page left-handed?
Slash, Zakk Wylde, and George Harrison were named as left-handed in an earlier version of this page. All three play right-handed, and we found no reliable source that any of them is naturally left-handed. The two left-handed Beatles were Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
Frequently asked questions
Is Jimmy Page left-handed?
No. Jimmy Page plays guitar right-handed and has been photographed signing with his right hand. The claim that he is a natural lefty is widely repeated but unverified. Read the evidence in is Jimmy Page left-handed?
Is Eric Clapton left-handed?
Eric Clapton plays guitar right-handed. He appears on some lists of left-handed guitarists, but we found no reliable source confirming that he is naturally left-handed.
Did Jimi Hendrix play guitar left-handed?
Yes. Jimi Hendrix played left-handed, mainly on right-handed guitars such as the Fender Stratocaster that he turned upside down and restrung.
Who is the most famous left-handed guitarist?
Jimi Hendrix is the most famous left-handed guitarist. Paul McCartney, Kurt Cobain, and Tony Iommi are the other best-known players who play or played left-handed.
