“I wanted to have the register like a violin. The luthier said to me, ‘I can build you any guitar you like.’ It was a lightbulb moment for me”: Uli Jon Roth on what you get when you cross a Strat and a Les Paul with a violin hybrid

Guitarist Uli Jon Roth performs live on stage during a concert at Tempodrom on March 29, 2018 in Berlin, Germany.

From Gary Moore’s broodingly romantic Parisienne Walkways to Rush's Xanadu and Jimmy Page ditching guitar picks for bows, guitarists have often tried to emulate the sounds of a violin. Uli Jon Roth, however, went to the extreme with his Sky Guitar.

For years, he’d been modifying his Fender Stratocasters to expand their scope. By the end of the ’70s, long before it became a cool thing to do, Roth was putting his electrics under the knife to fix issues he faced with them.