The Mystery Guitar in Great White's "Rock Me" Video

Mark Kendall in Great White’s “Rock Me” video, 1987. The builder of the guitar remains unconfirmed. Video: Capitol Records / Great White.

Great White’s “Rock Me” video has nearly every visual signature of late-1980s hard rock: spotlights, smoke, elevated platforms, and a band presented as though it had materialized inside a dark industrial dream.

But one detail deserves a closer look. In Mark Kendall’s hands is a red Superstrat that doesn’t quite announce itself as one of the era’s familiar production models. It lives in the same world as the Kramers, Charvels and Jacksons that ruled MTV, but it isn’t obviously any of them.

Who built the guitar in the “Rock Me” video?

The strongest lead points to Jim Foote and Music Works, a small but historically important guitar shop in Redondo Beach, California. But the evidence stops just short of a confirmed identification — and that gap is exactly what makes the guitar worth chasing.

The guitar in the video

Released in 1987 and directed by Nigel Dick, the video shows Great White on a dark, stylized set, with Kendall playing a custom-looking, Strat-derived electric throughout. What’s visible in the footage:

• A red/coral finish with a white pickguard
• A Floyd Rose-style locking tremolo (the fine tuners are clearly visible)
• A rosewood fretboard with dot inlays
• A black headstock — consistent in color and shape with documented Music Works examples, though the logo itself isn’t legible in the footage
• What appears to be writing or a signature on the body

That’s the basic vocabulary of a California Superstrat — a description that fits hundreds of guitars from the period. What makes this one interesting is the context around Kendall’s gear.

What Mark Kendall has confirmed

In a January 2026 interview with Guitar World, Kendall discussed the guitars he leaned on during Great White’s late-’80s peak:

• A 1974 Fender Telecaster Deluxe, used heavily on the records
• A Kramer built for him after he met Buddy Blaze (he also played a Kramer Pacer Custom I)
• A guitar built by Jim Foote at Music Works in Redondo Beach, where the band also rehearsed
• Fender and Marshall amps — notably a 1962 pre-CBS Bassman he pushed into natural distortion

He also confirmed a Music Works guitar fitted with EMG pickups, which he used on the ballad “The Angel Song.” That doesn’t prove the “Rock Me” guitar is the Foote guitar — but it establishes, in Kendall’s own words, that he owned and used a custom Music Works instrument in exactly this period.

The pickup problem

Here’s where it gets interesting — and where we have to be honest. The EMG-loaded Music Works guitar Kendall describes is documented. But the pickups on the guitar in the “Rock Me” video don’t obviously look like EMGs. EMGs of the era are typically smooth-topped and pole-piece-free; the video guitar’s pickups don’t clearly read that way in the footage.

That leaves three possibilities, none yet provable:

1. The video guitar is the EMG Music Works guitar, and the footage simply isn’t clear enough to confirm the pickups.
2. Kendall owned more than one Music Works guitar, and the video shows a different one.
3. The video guitar is something else entirely.

This is the kind of detail that turns an identification into a genuine puzzle. A clear photograph of the video guitar’s pickups — or its headstock logo — would resolve a great deal.

Jim Foote and Music Works

Music Works wasn’t just another neighborhood guitar store. In the 1980s it sat inside the network of Southern California shops, repair benches and small workshops that shaped the mechanical and visual language of the custom rock guitar. Jim Foote became known for repair work, modifications and custom builds, and — according to accounts of the era — bands including Great White, Ratt and Dokken rehearsed or had work done at the shop.

Surviving Music Works instruments suggest the shop produced a small number of custom Superstrats in the second half of the decade. One documented 1987 example had an alder body, a neck built by Foote, EMG pickups and a Floyd Rose — described as Charvel-style, in the San Dimas vein. Production figures floated by sellers should be treated as claims, not records, until shop documentation surfaces.

Why Music Works matters: the Derrig connection

Music Works has one much better-documented place in guitar history. According to a 2016 LA Weekly feature, the shop was where luthier Kris Derrig built a small number of highly accurate 1959-style Les Paul replicas. One became Slash’s main guitar on Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction — producer Mike Clink recalled knowing “instantly that was the tone for the record.” Manager Alan Niven bought that “lemon drop” Derrig from Music Works owner Jim Foote for around $2,500, as a gift for Slash.

Derrig worked out of a trailer behind the Redondo Beach shop and died of cancer in May 1987, roughly two months before Appetite was released. Foote later kept some of Derrig’s tools.

This isn’t a Slash story — but it establishes what Music Works was: not a factory with a catalog and national ads, but a local shop where individual builders, repair techs and working musicians crossed paths. A guitar could be remembered by its player, recognized by its builder, and seen by millions on television — and still leave almost no searchable model history behind.

The magazine photograph

There is one more piece of the case worth naming: a period magazine photograph shows Mark Kendall playing a Music Works Superstrat. We’ve seen the image, but haven’t yet confirmed which publication it appeared in. If we can source it — and if the guitar in it matches the one in the video — it becomes a strong link. Right now it’s a promising lead with an incomplete citation, which is why identifying the magazine is on our wanted list below.

So — was the “Rock Me” guitar a Music Works build?

The most accurate answer: possibly, maybe even probably — but not confirmed. The circumstantial case is real:

1. Kendall owned a Jim Foote / Music Works guitar in this exact period.
2. Music Works built Superstrats with the hardware and construction visible in the video.
3. Great White was among the bands connected to the shop.
4. A magazine photo shows Kendall playing a Music Works Superstrat.
5. The video guitar’s black headstock matches the color and shape of documented Music Works examples — though the logo itself isn’t legible.

But circumstantial evidence isn’t a serial number, a builder’s confirmation, or Kendall pointing at the footage and saying that one. And the pickup discrepancy is a real, unresolved wrinkle. What would settle it: a clear read of the headstock logo, a view of the neck plate, identification of the pickups, a period equipment list, confirmation from Foote or Kendall, or the source magazine for the Music Works photo.

Where is the guitar now?

No reliable public source we’ve found identifies the current owner or location. It may still be with Kendall; it may have been sold, refinished, modified, or quietly parked in a collection. It may even survive without its owner realizing it appeared in one of Great White’s defining videos.

That’s not unusual. These guitars were built in tiny numbers. Shops moved or closed, builders passed, endorsements changed, and necks, pickups and finishes got swapped. A guitar that looked unmistakable in 1987 can be unrecognizable today.

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Sources: Guitar World — Mark Kendall interview (Jan 2026) · LA Weekly — “How a Custom Guitar Made in Redondo Beach Saved Appetite for Destruction” (2016) · Great White — “Rock Me” (official video)

This is an open investigation — a work in progress. Details will be updated as new information surfaces.