Stratocaster Chronicles (BLAD)

I never did meet Leo Fender, but I wish I had. If Icould go back and somehow talk to him about theStratocaster, I’d say, “You’ve created something thatcan’t be bettered, really. How did you do that?" Iknow there were prototypes with the Telecaster andthe Esquire, and some early experimental stages, butnevertheless, the fact that he got to this conclusion soquickly is remarkable, isn’t it? Leo Fender was so farin advance of anybody else, developing the Strat tothe point where it just can’t be bettered, even now.My hat’s off to him.

One reason why I hadn’t played Strats earlier wasthat the necks always looked so narrow I thought, Iwon’t be able to bend any strings, no room, but in factI was wrong. And any Strat that I'd seen up until thattime had a rosewood fingerboard, and I had an aver-sion to rosewood fingerboards — don't ask me why— even though some of my earlier guitars had them.I’d always preferred ebony. I liked that silky finish.Of course, when I got my hands on a maple-neckStrat with the white fingerboard, I was surprised athow easy it was to play.

I had a lot of influences when I took up the Strat.First there was Buddy Holly, and Buddy Guy. HankMarvin was the first well known person over here inEngland who was using one, but that wasn't reallymy kind of music. Steve Winwood had so much cred-ibility, and when he started playing one, I thought,oh, if he can do it, I can do it.

Picking up a Stratocaster makes me play a bit dif-ferently. I find that over the last few years I play morewith my fingers because of the way my hand sits onthe guitar. I don’t feel the need to use a pick quite somuch as I would with any other guitar, where thebridge sits higher off the body. With the Strat thebridge is almost flush with the guitar, so my hand

rests on the body, part of my heel rests on the bridge,and then my fingers rest on the scratchplate. It’s reallyeasy to play either way, but I’ve found more and morethat I’m using just my fingers.

It’s got those famous lead tones, but it’s so versatileyou can use it in any kind of rhythmic sense as well —great big power chords, or that really light kind ofTamla/ Motown chord sound with very little volume.Unlike most other electric guitars, it sounds almostbetter when the guitar’s volume knob is on 2 or 3,really under-amplified and quiet.

My first Strat was Brownie, and I played it for yearsand years, a wonderful guitar. Then I was in Nashvilleat a store called Sho-Bud, as I recall, and they had awhole rack of old ’50s Strats in the back, goingsecond-hand. They were so out of fashion you couldpick up a perfectly genuine Strat for two hundred orthree hundred dollars — even less! So I bought all ofthem. I gave one to Steve Winwood, one to GeorgeHarrison, and one to Pete Townshend, and kept a fewfor myself. I liked the idea of a black body, but theblack one I had was in bad condition, so I took apartthe ones I kept and assembled different pieces tomake Blackie, which is a hybrid, a mongrel.

I played those old ones so much they wore out.Blackie’s neck was actually narrower because of allthe playing I’d done on it, and the frets were quitelow. I hadn’t done much restoration on my old ones,so I gave Blackie’s neck to Fender as a template, andthey built the Eric Clapton Signature guitars I’mplaying now, which are more robust, with morepower in the pickups.

I keep coming back to the Stratocaster because it’sso practical. It doesn’t move very much, it’s stable, itstays in tune, and has a great sound. It’s fairly invin-cible, quite difficult to damage. I really like the old coil

F O R E W O R D8

pickups, especially that middle and bridge combina-tion. I used that for the solo in “Bell Bottom Blues,”which would be a classic example of that sound. ButI’ve got those new Noiseless pickups now, and activecircuitry, and I get so many different sounds comingout of the Stratocaster that it’s hard to compare it toany other guitar. My other guitars, I only visit themfrom time to time. I very rarely use anything else butthe Strat.

My feelings about a perfect design is that it has tobe functional, and with the Strat, its functionalityreally steers it. That's what makes the design so beau-tiful. It’s superbly thought out. At first I thought itwas odd to have only one volume control, but that’sonly because I was used to a different set-up. All thethings I love about it aesthetically are there for a realpurpose, like the contoured back. If those things werebased just on the way they looked, that would be fine,but everything on that guitar is there for a reason.Like the pegboard, with all the tuning pegs on the top.That’s such a logical thing to do when you think abouthow accessible it is.

I come back to the fact that I don’t think there’sanything on that guitar that doesn’t come from purelogic. I would challenge anybody to come up with abetter design for a guitar. The Stratocaster is as goodas it gets, isn't it?

Eric Clapton

The Strat is now exalted routinely, even predictably,as a cultural icon. Rolling Stone went so far as toinclude it in its May 2003 “American Icons” coverstory, along with Elvis Presley, the American flag, theCorvette, and “blonde bombshells”; note that the mag-azine picked only one musical instrument for this 35thAnniversary Special Issue, and it was the Fender Stratocaster rather than the generic electric guitar. As David Fricke wrote, the Stratocaster “looks andsounds like America.”

But if we can chisel away the accumulated crust ofits rumors and legend, let’s remember that under-neath it all this icon is “just” a guitar, succeedingdecade after decade for the same old reasons, thesame advantages Mr. Fender and his small crew builtinto the originals in the early months of 1954. It stilllooks cool, and it still makes you look a little coolerthan the other players in the band. It’s still comfy, stilldurable, and it still sounds … well, like a Stratocaster.That sound.

As we celebrate the golden anniversary of theStratocaster, Mr. Fender’s vision still unfolds, stillreveals itself. Fifty years out, we stand in awe at theessential rightness of the Strat as generation aftergeneration responds to its call with passion and cre-ativity, taking the guitar — and music — to placesClarence Leo Fender never could have imagined. Asa musical instrument, the Stratocaster will always beLeo Fender’s guitar. As a dream machine, it belongsto the world.

– Tom Wheeler, 2004

22 THE STRATOCASTER CHRONICLES

“The amazing thing about the Stratocaster is that Leo did nothave Jimi Hendrix in mind when hedesigned it, and look where itwent. For musicians to pick up aninstrument that was designed socompletely in one direction, andtake it in such a different direction,speaks of the almost unconsciousmind of Leo Fender.”

– Rick Turner, designer & luthier, Renaissance Guitars


“Once you start playing one,it’s hard to play anything else.”

– Eric Johnson

From Mr. Fender’s point of view, the Strat wasn’tabout radical visions or revolutionizing the industryor anything so momentous. He was interested inseemingly mundane pursuits: methodical analysis,trial and error, improving existing guitars (specifi-cally his own Telecaster) feature by feature, andassessing feedback from musicians, including somewho shared county fair stages with sequin-encrustedwestern music stars, and others who played in dinkydives and bowling alley bars. The result may havebeen the sleekest, sexiest guitar anyone’s ever seen,enshrined as an artwork as well as an instrument, butit was rooted in long days and nights at a sheet-steelworkbench, in midnight oil and elbow grease. Long-time associate Bill Carson: “Leo used to say, if we’veonly got a hundred dollars to develop this item, it’sgot to be reliable, and it’s a life or death matter for themusician for that thing to perform every time. Wewill spend as much of that hundred dollars as neces-sary to get that. If we’ve got four or five dollars leftover, we’ll work on the cosmetics.”

Leo Fender had plenty of help, from Bill Carson,George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares, all of whomcontributed to the design; Don Randall, a marketinggenius without equal in the annals of the musicindustry; Forrest White, who straightened out thefactory operation; and a crew of skilled workers,some of whom spent decades winding pickups andsanding bodies for their plain-spoken boss.

Still, even a grasp of the raw genius of Leo Fender,the impressive list of his guitar’s attributes, and thecontributions of talented associates aren’t enough toexplain the Stratocaster’s journey from the outback ofthe guitar market to its summit.

Something else is at work here. Since the dawn of the last century, music technolo-

gies have produced not only intended results such asimproved methods of recording musical signals butalso any number of unintended consequences, includ-ing changes in the forms and styles of the music itself.The mechanical-acoustic recording methods of theearly 1920s favored the instruments whose volumesand timbres allowed them to be heard, as well as

INTRODUCTION 15

Eric Clapton’s first Stratocaster, nicknamed Brownie. Claptonused it on his 1970 masterpiece Layla. Nearly two decadeslater, the June 1956 2-color sunburst guitar (serial no.12073) brought nearly half a million dollars at an auction toraise money for The Crossroads Centre, a rehabilitationclinic founded by Clapton in 1998. According to FenderEurope’s Michael Charalambous, Clapton purchased Browniein London while touring with Cream in May 1967.

The “Derek” Clap-Tone, Track 31

110

Dick Dale rocks Southern Califor-nia at the dawn of the surf era. InMay 1962, Dale and his Del-Tones

unleashed “Miserlou.” This songhad everything: Dale’s forearm-

bustin’ speed picking, a soaringMiddle Eastern melody, and thenoble machismo of the bullring

(courtesy of mariachi horns), allpunctuated with swirling harp

arpeggios and cattle-drive whoopsand hollers. Did instrumental rockever get any better? The titles ofDale’s later singles would conjureup the adrenaline and hot-asphaltenergy of the culture coalescing

around surfing and hot-rodding(“Mr. Eliminator,” “BanzaiWashout,” etc.), while his ferocious concerts at the

Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboawould enter into legend.

Dick Dale: “For the particularsound you want – punch, power,

a driving force of true rock and roll – you’ve got to

play a Stratocaster.”

Dick Dale Impales!, Track 15

CHAPTER FOUR – ROSEWOOD BOARDS & CBS 111CHAPTER FOUR – ROSEWOOD BOARDS & CBS 111

Fender's three classic reds, from left:Candy Apple, Dakota, and Fiesta. Candy

Apple was announced in November 1963.This example was sprayed over a silverundercoat in ’65 – “right about the time

they switched to gold undercoats,” according to Joe Menza, who owns the

left and center guitars. “The gold makes for a slightly warmer red that’s

not quite as bright as this one.”

Compared to the orange/red Fiesta,Dakota Red is more of a fire-engine red

(John Peden: “almost a barn red or brickred”). Joe Menza: “I’ve seen quite a few

Dakotas with rosewood boards, but neveranother maple. Most Dakotas and Candy

Apples hold their color pretty well. This one, a ’58, hasn’t faded a bit.” The

original hang tag specified the price, $301.

The Fiesta on the right is owned byFrançoise Blasé, who observed: “CandyApple is the most common of the reds,

then Fiesta, then Dakota. But it’s relative –they’re all rare compared to sunbursts, and

this one is very sweet. Sometimes Fiestaturns a little coral or salmon, but this onekept its color.” In the lower right corner of

the color chart, Fender’s first, we seeFiesta on top, followed by Dakota and (at

bottom) Shell Pink, which was replaced byCandy Apple Red on the late-’63 chart.

Broadcaster, serial no. 0027. Indesigning his first commercial electricSpanish guitar (the Broadcaster, soonrenamed Telecaster), Mr. Fenderapproached the challenge from twoperspectives. Whereas Gibsonadapted its first electrics from thefine acoustic arch-tops it had beenbuilding for decades, Leo had nosuch experience; in fact, he didn’tparticularly like acoustic guitars. He had been building an utterly different instrument, a lap steel, with a small, solid body and a singingtreble tone (lap steels are played flat on the lap, as opposed to theconventional “Spanish” or uprightposition). That type of guitar, and thatsound, and the way the instrumentinteracted with its essential but underrated partner, the amplifier,were his starting points. The otherkey factor was production efficiency.As Richard Smith has written withinsight, “Contrary to conventionalreadings of Leo’s philosophy, the firstrequirement of his design was aneasy-to-make body, not necessarily a solid one.” So Mr. Fender sought not to convertacoustic Spanish electrics to solid-body versions, but rather to converthis own solidbody electric lap steelguitars to Spanish versions, and todo it in a way that would maximizeefficiency for the builder and, consequently, affordability for thecustomer. Such a guitar demandedseveral things from its designer:considerable technical know-how,mechanical intuition, and a willing-ness to try, to fail, and to try again.Perhaps more than anything else ittook audacity. With the Telecaster,the otherwise softspoken LeoFender effectively announced to theworld: Let’s take everything we thinkwe know about electrifying guitarsand throw it out the window; let’sstart over. This attitude reached itsfullest expression in the design ofthe Telecaster’s even more auda-cious successor, the Stratocaster.

CHAPTER ONE – IN THE BEGINNING 37

“I took the first guitar to the [1950 music trade] show, and it was, ‘What’s that thing?’ We got all kinds of comments. ‘Do you paddle your

canoe with that thing? Swat flies?’ They all laughed.”– Don Randall

“When Leo’s guitar came out we weren’t too surprised, because we were familiarwith the custom solidbodies Paul Bigsby built. I was fortunate in having a group ofmen who had been trained in the old country, a lot of Hollanders. Their whole life

was woodworking and crafting. We experimented with different pickups onguitars, and they were accepted by players. But then we discovered that out in

California there were solidbody guitars and they were beginning to get a littlesection of the business away from us, so we decided that we had

to do something to compete with what Leo Fender was doing. We had to buck this competition from the West Coast.”

– former Gibson president Ted McCarty, on the origin of the Les Paul

“With the Broadcaster/Telecaster, Leo got more guitar out of less materials thananyone has ever been able to do, and it’s never been beat.”

– Rick Turner

“That thing’ll never sell.”– Fred Gretsch to Harmony’s Jay Krause,

upon seeing the Broadcaster for the first time.


Stevie was known for his heavy strings, starting with anything from a .013 (already beefierthan “heavy gauge”) all the way to a .016 for the treble E. Fender’s Ritchie Fliegler:

“We jammed together one time, and at one point we switched instruments. So he hands me this . . . impossible Strat, which was literally unplayable —

ridiculously high action, incredibly heavy strings. I looked like a guy who’d had his firstlesson two days ago. I could hardly get the strings to hit the fingerboard.” Ted Nugent:

“I played one of his Strats once, and I couldn’t bend those strings to save my life.”

Pride and joy: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Number One, a battered rosewood-board 1963 Strat (the thick, D-shaped neck is datedDEC. ’62). He acquired it in 1973 from Ray’s Music Exchange in Austin. Years later he replaced the standard tremolo with a left-hand unit, along with other modifications.

“I didn’t even try it out in the store. I looked at it and I knew. I just knew.”

Fantasy Blues Jam, Track 59Fantasy Blues Jam, Track 59

CHAPTER SEVEN – DAWN OF THE THIRD AGE 193

With his landmark debut album in 1983, Stevie Ray Vaughanalmost single-handedly rekindled interest in electric blues.

Texas Flood made him a modern blues hero, and it inspireda new generation of Texas and Texas-style blues guitarists.

“To come along at a timewhen nobody was diggingthe blues, and to not only

make it a credible art formbut also to pave the way

for so many after him,that’s incredible. . . .

He was a virtuoso, right up there with greats

like John McLaughlin, Wes Montgomery, and

Julian Bream. Stevie had the gift.”

– Nile Rodgers, producer, “Let’s Dance”

“I got to hang with Stevie quite a few times,but I never got to play with him.

One time when I was about seven he sat meon his amp and played. I was hooked, man.

The last time I saw him we talked aboutplaying, and I think he knew I was for real.

The day he died was the worst day of my life.” – Kenny Wayne Shepherd

SRV’s Clean Strat Sound, Track 55

In commemoration of what would have been JimiHendrix’ 60th birthday, in 2002, the Custom

Shop’s Mike Eldred hand-built four “clones” of theWoodstock Strat, all meticulously replicating the

specs and quirks of the original, right down tothe electrical characteristics of the

pickups, the feel of the neck,and the marks on the body.

Note the big headstock,period-correct decal,

relocated strap button,and reverse stringing.


It’s just a ’68 Strat with a big old CBS peghead. It’s not evenstock (the strap button has been relocated), and the strings are backwards. Most of us couldn’t even play “Pipeline” on it.It’s not a guitar most collectors would notice, except for onething. On a rainy Monday morning in August, 1969, JimiHendrix took the stage at Woodstock with this guitar, performed “The Star Spangled Banner,” and forever changedwhat the guitar can mean in the hands of an artist, all of whichlikely makes it the most famous Stratocaster of all time. (Or is it simply the most famous electric guitar of all time?)Details: serial no. 240981, Olympic White finish. It was sold in London in 1990 for £174,000, and again in 1993 for£750,000, more than a million dollars. The Custom Shop’sMike Eldred examined every aspect of the Woodstock Strat,inside and out, and said, “In my 24 years in this business, I have never experienced any guitar with that much vibe.”

Jimi Wah, Track 27

CHAPTER SEVEN – DAWN OF THE THIRD AGE 211

Aside from the Custom Shopclone, there was an earlier Woodstock-inspired guitar,

the “Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster” of the late 1990s, shown here.While Jimi played a flipped-over

right-handed Strat, the Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster wasbasically a left-handed guitar –but it was meant to be flippedover, with its heavy strings on

top and its strap button on the small horn (now on top),

giving right-handers a chance to experience Jimi-style,

upside-down ergonomics.

Yet another guitar was theVoodoo Strat of the late ’90s,which combined conventional

right-hand stringing, trem opera-tion, body shape, and control

placement with several reversed,Jimi-esque features: headstock,

tuner locations, string lengthsbehind the nut, polepiece

staggers, and treble pickup alignment. Reviewers found

advantages in both tone and playability.

HL00331056 ISBN#: 0-634-05678-6TRIM SIZE: 10'' X 10''PUB DATE: March 2004PRICE: U.S. $50.00SALES INFO: Call 1-800-554-0626

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Stratocaster Chronicles (BLAD)