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fire hi this is Keith Williams welcome

to five wart world where we're

interested in helping you get the most

music from the least gear Jimmy

Hendricks David Gilmore Eric Clapton

Stevie

Ron Jeff Beck Mark knofler Eric Johnson

all guitar Heroes and all of them chose

the Fender Stratocaster as their main

instrument how did the Fender

Stratocaster go from being seen as sort

of a factory-built gimmick in 1954 to

being the very definition of an electric

guitar I'll take us through the

development of the Strat and touch on

some of the players that were the most

influential in its history so if you've

always wanted to know more about the

history of the first great double cut

solid body guitar then stay tuned

because this is the five watt World

Short history of the fender Strater if

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links are in the description so when did

the Fender Stratocaster project start

Leo Fender's original partner nner

George Fullerton remembers that around

the end of 1951 or the early part of

1952 Leo started working on the pickups

by the latter part of 52 a lot of the

work had been done on getting the new

guitar project completed one of the

earliest Fender employees Freddy tares

was charged with drawing up the design

of the

Stratocaster the influences came from

different places the body design from

the Fender precision base the peg Ed was

influenced by early Paul bsby Custom

guitars several features evolved from

the Telecaster plus whole new items like

the pickups and the vibr were created

for the project it's clear that Leo saw

the Stratocaster as an evolution from

the Telecaster and like with the

Telecaster Leo Fender involved many

guitarists in the design process he said

that about 25% of every day was spent

visiting musicians trying to figure out

what would be best to suit their needs

when first released in 1954 the Strat

had an ash body with two or three pieces

glued together they carved the body with

gentle but deep Contours in response to

players complaining that the hard edges

of the Telecaster were uncomfortable

this led to what Fender called the

original contoured body it was carved on

the back to fit against the player's

body and sloped on the front where the

player's picking arm rests there was

routing on the front and the back of the

body to house the pickups controls in

the ver assembly and the routing was

covered by the pick guard with another

small plate covering the ver mechanism

in the back the one piece Maple neck was

assembled and bolted in place the same

way it had been on a Telecaster on the

early guitars a serial number was

stamped into that neck plate the 21

Frets were laid directly up into slots

in the face of the maple fretboard the

fingerboard radius was approximately 7

in at the start a metal truss rod was

set in a channel in the rear of the neck

and the channel was covered with a

walnut strip which would later be termed

as players as the skunk stripe the truss

rod can be adjusted by a screw at the

base of the neck near the body to do

this required the neck to be at least

partially removed from the guitar the

bolt-on neck fit with Leo Fender's

modular design pH phos ophy black

plastic dots were laid in the face of

the neck and Tiny position markers were

laid on the side of the neck the nut was

made of white bone and the scale length

was the same as a Telecaster at 252 in

if the Telecaster head sock seemed to be

influenced by the single-sided Bigsby

solid body guitar the Strat headstock

certainly brought to mind the old quote

imitation is the sincerest form of

flattery Don Randall head of fenders

distribution and marketing company at

the time recalled of the new head Soo

design that it was more graceful a

little more Lish a little more Paul

Bigsby is six inline closed-back cluen

tuners were fitted with a thin metal

shaft and small oval buttons a small

circular string retainer on the

headstock kept the E and B strings in

place decals on the headstock were the

black outline gold spaghetti like Fender

a black Stratocaster and with

synchronized tremolo all in caps in

addition in tiny lettering it read

original contoured body the body was

given a two-tone Sunburst finish common

on Gibson guitars but it was the first

time Fender had used one it was created

by applying two coats of different

colored nitr cellulose Finish First a

yellow for the brighter Center then

black all around the edges a single

layer white plastic Pickard was attached

with eight screws the three pickups were

identical white plastic covers over a

bobbin wound with 42 gauge enamel wire

all around six Alo cylindrical pole

pieces that was then wax dipped the pole

pieces are revealed in the top of each

pickup cover and the bridge pickup was

angled like that on a Telecaster early

pickup covers were made of a polystyrene

plastic which over the years became

fragile leaving many guitars with

cracked pickup covers the guitar was

equipped with a three-way selector

switch that would individually choose

each of the three pickups

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the output Jack was mounted at an angle

in the face of the guitar in a metal

plate separate from the Pickard there

had been vibr bars on guitars before by

various designs notably those by Paul

bsby but the built-in ver on the Strat

was by all accounts Leo's pride and joy

through trial and error the final

version of Leo's tremolo was wildly

successful and Leo applied for a patent

in August of

1954 it was an adjustable bridge

tailpiece and vbr system all in a single

unit it was what Leo Fender did so well

taking an existing idea and improving it

with a whole new design unlike the

Bigsby where the strings moved over a

fixed bridge often putting the guitar

Out Of Tune when the strings hung up on

the bridge Leo system moved the entire

unit tailpiece bridge and Saddles

together the Bridge's metal base plate

was attached to the body with six screws

forward of the saddles on which the

bridge pivoted like on the Telly before

the bridge came with a metal cover

quickly removed and either discarded or

repurposed as an astay hence the

nickname the sustained block or inertial

block extended down from the base plate

into the body of the guitar the strings

were fed through the block through the

bridge and over the Saddles the tension

of the strings was offset by up to five

Springs that attached to the block to

the body with an adjustable claw in the

route of the back of the guitar those

Springs allowed for fine-tuning the

stiffness and feel of the V system the

new bridge had six bent Steel sadles

each adjustable for height and

intonation fenders wasn't the first

six-way adjustable Bridge Gretch had

produced their Molita Bridge around 1952

and Gibson's tunatic Bridge had appeared

on the Les Paul Custom in

1953 the real Innovation here was that

the Strat Bridge offered adjustment of

the height as well as the intonation

something the other two Bridges did not

do it's well known that Leo was

influenced by car designs of the time

and like the cars of the 1950 the parts

came together to produce an object that

was as beautiful as it was functional

the first batch of stratocasters were

ready to ship October 13th

1954 Don Randall had come up with the

name of the Telecaster and he was also

charged with naming the

Stratocaster he said later that his

inspiration came from the beginning of

the Space Age and The Lure of the

stratosphere vendor set the list price

of the Stratocaster at

$249.00 Plus

$39.50 for the case you could buy a non-

tremolo version for

$229.00 despite the mass production

efficiencies it was an expensive guitar

compared to the Gibson Goldtop which

listed for

$225 and the Gretch Duo Jet for $230 in

the same year it's estimated that by

2010 approximately 3 million

stratocasters had been sold but in the

beginning the guitar did not catch on

right away only about 720 strats were

sold in 1954 and 55 combined compared to

1,27 telecasters for the same period

slowly as rock and roll grew so did the

interest in the guitar and soon Fender

was having trouble keeping up a demand

The Big Break came on December 1st 1957

when buddy holiday and the Crickets

performed on The Ed Sullivan Show

performing his hit that'll be the day

and his new song Peggy Sue Holly stood

at the front of the band with a shiny

new Stratocaster for the TV audience to

see by 56 small changes were already

starting to come to the Strat the bodies

were more likely to be made of Alder the

neck profile was becoming more pointed

in the back what would later be known as

a boat shape or a soft v the string

guides on the headstock changed from

early round type to the butterfly type

and in 58 the two-tone Sunburst would be

changed to a three-tone adding a layer

of red to the yellow and black Fender

was now spending much more on

advertising and the cataloges went full

color in 57 and 58 announcing new custom

colors a bright red Strat with Gold

Hardware was on the cover of the 5859

catalog this was big news as prior to

that most Tellies only came in blonde

and the strats mostly came in Sunburst a

few custom color guitars had been built

as special orders but they were very

rare in 57 Fender announced a strat and

see-through blonde white finish with

Gold Hardware Don randle's idea was

likely to respond to gret's release of

the white Falcon unfortunately the thin

gold plating wore off or corroded

quickly so this wasn't a popular option

in the long run but the blond and gold

was Fender's first official custom color

Stratocaster the custom color guitars

with their 5% upcharge were not

particularly popular as an option in the

50s but by the early 60s Fender issued

an official list of available custom

colors

Fender used paint from the deont Duco

color line essentially the car paint

colors of the time even the names came

from the car cataloges Fiesta red for

example can be traced to a Ford's 1956

Thunderbird according to George

Fullerton Fiesta red was the first true

custom color the marketing guys were

much less than enthusiastic even

wondering aloud who's going to want a

color guitar especially a red one the

next big change would come in 1959 with

the move to a Rosewood fingerboard

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this was following on the heels of the

1958 Jazzmaster with their new Premiere

model having appeared with a Rosewood

fingerboard during 1959 all Fender

guitars were switched to a Rosewood

fingerboard the position dot markers

were course spondingly switched from

black plastic to a lighter color now we

think of as clay dots these earliest

Brazilian rosewood boards had a flat

base were attached to the neck and

became known as the slab boards Fender

continued to experiment with the

Rosewood thickness to get the best sound

and likely to save on the expense of

Rosewood and by 62 had settled on a

curved base board a thin layer of

Rosewood that is referred to as a

laminate board and maple boards

continued to be offered as well as an

option also in 59 the one layer pick

guard was changed to a three- ply white

black white pick guard some believe that

the white in the pick guard was somewhat

discolored by the layer of black

underneath leeching into the white

creating what is now described as mint

green guards by the late 50s many Blues

guitarists were discovering the

Stratocaster Buddy Guy bought a strat

upon relocating to Chicago in 1957 after

his Les Paul gold top was stolen but his

success with the glassy tone cutting

through the mix made many other bluesmen

take notice of the Strat instrumental

electric guitar music was being

popularized in the movies in 196 61 Dick

Dale had a big hit with let's go

tripping playing his left-handed Strat a

wash and a sea of Reverb and the

ventures Walk Don't Run was a big hit in

1960 before moving to mosri guitars the

ventures Don Wilson used a Stratocaster

and Bob Bogle played a Jazzmaster I

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video by 1960 demand from abroad became

a part of Fender growing business so don

Randall began working out the details

Britain was particularly important as

the British Invasion was in full swing

in the early 60s demand for Fender

guitars had perhaps been pre-loaded in

Britain because the government had put a

ban in place from 1951 to 1959 on

importing certain products from America

which included guitars in love with

American pop music British singer Cliff

Richard wrote to Fender directly asking

for a copy of their catalog he received

the 5859 catalog with a red Strat with

Gold Hardware on the cover the generous

Richard ordered one for his guitarist

Hank Marvin so just just as the band was

lifted into Fame Marvin was playing that

red Stratocaster likely the first one

ever in the UK into his Vox ac30 in

front of audiences all over Britain

vender success grew steadily in the

early 60s topping out at approximately

$40 million worth of retail sales by the

middle of the decade Fender was feeling

the boom demand for electric guitars

bases and amps and just at that peak of

its success in 1965 Fender was sold to

Columbia broadcasting system for

reported $13 million despite the fact

the CBS had no background in instrument

manufacturing it was buying up

instrument companies right and left the

new CBS management were engineers

interested in primarily high production

volume criticism started to come back

from dealers right away complaining that

the guitars didn't play like they used

to early in the 60s a new chunkier logo

had started to show up on the other

guitars in the line and was added to the

Stratocaster in ' 64 known among

collectors as the transition logo

because it leads from the original thin

spaghetti logo to a bolder all black

version often referred to as the CVS

logo that was introduced around ' 68 in

1965 Fender also began using neck plates

with a stamped F on them and the F would

soon appear on the new tuners as well

the biggest difference to the Strat that

came with CVS was the new wider

headstock Jazzmaster and jaguar guitars

began to be made with bound neck and in

' 66 a few strats were put out with

bound neck as well the July 1965

performance by Bob Dylan at the Newport

Folk Festival turned into a media frenzy

when he performed with electric

instruments Dylan sh up playing a

Stratocaster and his lead player on the

date Mike Bloomfield played a blonde

Telecaster George Harrison and John

Lennon of The Beatles each acquired a

Stratocaster in the mid 660s both

finished in Sonic blue John played his

Strat on Ticket to Ride recorded that

January they used them on the

instrumental section of no man including

the harmonic at the end Harrison

eventually repainted his into a

psychedelic Masterpiece and used it on

the Magical Mystery Tour movie during I

Am The

Walrus but perhaps the biggest lift the

Strat received was at the end of the 60s

was in the choice of instruments of one

James Marshall Jimmy

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hris Hendrick's got a first Strat in

1966 he may well have chosen the Strat

because his hero Curtis Mayfield was

playing one at the time Jimmy played

many Rosewood board strats but in the

last few years of his life he played

Maple board ones one black and one white

Jimmy played standard right-handed

models turned over and restrung to

accommodate being left-handed he said

the Strater is the best all-around

guitar for the stuff we're doing you can

get the very bright trebles and the deep

bass sound hendrickx died tragically in

1970 Clapton recalled seeing Buddy Holly

perform on television when he was just

12 years old he purchased his first

Strat in 1967 at Sound City in London a

used 1956 Stratocaster he later

nicknamed brownie that looked very much

like the Guitar Buddy Holly had played

on the TV broadcast Clapton used the

Strat sporadically at the end of cream

but really moved over to it late in 1969

when he toured with Delaney and Bonnie

in 1970 Clapton recorded his first solo

albums Eric Clapton the London howand

wolf sessions and Lila and other love

songs all playing his beloved brownie

late in 1970 while Clapton was in

Nashville with dererk and The Dominoes

he bought six strats for about $100 each

at the showd music store of the six

guitars purchased he gave one each to

George Harrison Pete Townson and Steve

Winwood he then took the best parts from

each of the remaining three and put

together a new guitar with a black body

that he simply named Blackie the

refinished black 56 body had two 50s

pickups and a third pickup from around

1970 Blacky was Clapton's main guitar

car until

1985 over at CBS owned Fender quality

continued to slip at the 70s were on and

many dealers and collectors believe the

70s are the low point for Fender

production quality first the trust Rod

adjustment point was moved from the base

of the neck to the headstock with the

new bullet-shaped adjuster second a tilt

adjustment was added to make it easier

to adjust the neck pitch these two

changes were small enough in themselves

but unfortunately they coincided with

the drop in quality and became

emblematic of the problems with the

instruments at the time Dale Hyatt head

of Fender sales at the time said quote

they blame the new three-bolt neck but

it wasn't that you could have put six

bolts in it and it still would have

moved the neck Pockets were being cut

oversized but players were blaming the

new three-bolt neck the company also

moved to a new thick skin finish of

dozen coats of polyester the finish's

plastic appearance makes it clear that a

guitar came from the 70s

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Blue's Rock was huge in the 70s on

Irishman Rory Gallagher wielded his

battered 61 Strat on stages far and wide

the guitar had been bought by gager used

in a shop in Cork for 100 pound in

1963 over the years the Sunburst finish

was worn to Bear wood over most of the

guitar the pickups were all replaced and

it was refereed many times proof of his

love for that specific

Stratocaster Jeff Beck had been playing

less Pauls near the end of his time in

The Yardbirds but around the time of

beola he wanted something more original

sounding Beck had had a number of strats

over the years but the one we likely

know best is from the cover of his album

wired which was released in

1976 on that that album he played a

1960s white Stratocaster that was given

to him by guitarist John mlin he used

that white Strat on the road for many

many years only retiring it from Road

use when his first signature Strat

prototype was built for him by the

Fender Custom Shop in

1991 the original Jeff Beck signature

strats were primarily based on that

white wired guitar also in the 70s

Richie Blackmore played a strat in Deep

Purple Curtis Mayfield continued to

weave clean Strat tones on Soul records

like with Les Paul's in the 60s players

looking for aend in the 70s were looking

to get a 50s or 60s guitar for that

magic the idea that the older guitars

were better was fueling the search for

vintage instruments Norm's rare guitars

opened in California in the mid1 1970s

to help meet this demand the owner Norm

Harris said succinctly at the time you

simply can't compare what I have to

offer with what the big companies are

mass producing today based on the cold

reception that the new humbucking quii

Tellies had received venders started to

pair back on their offerings the custom

colors were eliminated in the late 60s

and early '70s

Freddy Taris was still Consulting with

Fender and said that though there were

things that they wanted to change on the

staticaster the attitude at CVS was to

not fool with success as the 70s came to

a close Fender was producing 40,000

instruments a year the production had

grown so much that Fender had been

dispensed with putting a date on the

base of the neck these dates originally

written in pencil by the Builder and

later rubber stamped on the neck were

part of the history of the instruments

emphasizing the human hands involved in

the building but from 73 to the early '

80s Fender stopped doing it all together

it seems that they were either too busy

or they just didn't seem to care anymore

around 1975 Fender moved to closed cover

tuners bought from the German company

shayer but by far the most important

change to come out of the 70s was the

move to a five-way pickup selector

switch remember early three-way equipped

strats did not have reverse wound middle

pickups in fact strats made in the very

desirable pre-cbs period had pickups

pulled from a bin without regard to

matching their output levels or to the

positions where they were being

installed Clapton had mentioned in a

1970 interview I just set the switch

between the first and middle pickups I

get a much more rhythm and blues or rock

kind of sound that way the somewhat

Hollow sound was caused by phase

cancellation between the two pickups

creating the characteristic honky sound

that players loved some aftermarket

five-way switches were being produced

and installed but it took Fender till

1977 to embrace this feature and put it

in production guitars one guitarist who

made the most of that tone was Mark

knofler who exploded on the scene with

the Dire Straits in

1978 their debut album was covered with

the sound of an in betweene Strat

running through an early 60s brown-faced

vibralux amp knofler had bought his

natural finish 61 Strat in 1977 but had

had it refinished in red in honor of his

Boyhood hero Hank Marvin in their early

80s Bill Schultz was hired away from

Yamaha to become Fender's president he

set about improving the Strat returning

the truss rod adjustment point to the

base of the neck and using more vintage

style headstocks he also moved to

producing a line of guitars in Japan

because American companies were being

hammered by the Japanese companies in

the marketplace Schultz cut a deal to

create the Japanese Fender company with

fujian building their instruments while

plans were moving forward to build what

were effectively copies of classic fer

guitars in Japan CBS was moving to do

the same thing in the states around 1980

Freddy tares began Consulting on a

project to build the Vintage Telecaster

a recreation of an original 1952 Telly

they began the Vintage reissue program

in Earnest by buying up original guitars

to use as examples along with the 52

Telly the strats were modeled on a 57

and a Rosewood board 62

see my video history on the Fender

Custom Shop for all the details of how

all this started these early reissue

guitars are famous for their extremely

thin lacker finishes which wore very

quickly collectors call them Fullerton

reissues because of where they were

manufactured and they command a high

premium price over later reissues

meanwhile the first batch of Japanese

made Fender guitars arrived at the

states the head of marketing Dan Smith

remembered everybody came in to inspect

them and the guys almost cried because

the Japanese product was so good it was

what we were having a hell of a time

trying to do starting in Europe Japanese

fenders were marketed under the name of

Squire but by the end of 1983 Under

Pressure to bring lowered price strats

to this US market the decision was made

to bring the Squire guitars to America

as well at the same time the us- made

strats had some ill conceived changes

the second tone control was removed and

the distinctive Jack Plate was removed

as well these changes only lasted until

1985 but they pushed more buyers towards

the more reasonably priced and

historically correct Japanese Squire

guitars no notable in their headstock

shape and Contours The Squire guitars

were considerably more accurate to

Vintage spec than anything Fender was

making separate from the Fullerton

reissue from this period forward into

the early 90s it can be argued that

Fender moved away from the roots of the

original Stratocaster trying and failing

to better the original design still the

1980s had no lack of famous Stratocaster

players making records though many were

playing vintage instruments David

Gilmore a dedicated Stratocaster player

from his early days in Pink Floyd was

seen on tour in support of The Wall

album playing the solo to Comfortably

Numb one of the greatest rock guitar

solos of all time 1983 saw Stevie Ron

playing his Stratocaster on both bowies

let's dance and on the release of his

own album Texas Flood his Hendrick licks

filtered through a rough Texas energy

changed our sense of blues rock forever

V often referred to his Sunburst number

one as a 59 it did have 59 pickups but

it had a 62 neck and a 63 body which is

likely how it left the factory as necks

and bodies often sat on racks after

being made while waiting to be built

into complete instruments in the metal

World 1984 saw the release of mom

Stein's Rising force with the iconic

image of his 1971 stratocast on the

cover and in 1984 a young and relatively

unknown Eric Johnson would play a 50

Strat through a wall of amps on the

Austin City Limits television show

showing us that the variety of tones you

can get from a Stratocaster would

clearly carry us through the decades to

come

[Music]

CBS would self Fender almost exactly 20

years after acquiring the company to an

investor group led by then President

William Schultz and with that I'll end

our tale of development of the Fender

Stratocaster the company has gone on to

create its own custom shop to much a

claim like Gibson and other companies

once they start down the road of trying

to recreate their Golden Years the story

of the development of the guitar model

is over in my mind periodic improvements

to the since have generally taken us

incrementally back towards the vintage

guitars that are so prized today for my

part I've never considered myself a

strat guy but many of my favorite

players are so every few years I try

another one currently that's taken me to

buying and playing a current year Squire

classic Vibe 60s Stratocaster the

classic Vibe series are built in

Indonesia and are some of the best yet

and like many I'm wrestling with making

small changes in this inexpensive but

eminently playable guitar and that candy

apple red I mean really I need to thank

John Cy and Jeff mckain for Lending me

their playing on Vintage and current

Custom Shop stratocasters throughout the

video I need to thank my friends at cter

vintage guitars for their permission to

use clips of some amazing vintage pieces

I could only have found at Carter

vintage this video was made possible in

no small part by two excellent books the

Stratocaster guitar book by Tony bacon

and the Stratocaster Chronicle by Tom

wheeler I want to thank everyone that

stopped by buy the online store and grab

some merch or a 5w world Barber

Electronics bus dual overdrive pedal you

keep the channel going and in particular

I need to thank the friends of 5watt on

patreon it's the guitar Community I've

always wanted you're all 5watt world I

just make the videos If you enjoyed this

short history of defender stratas or hit

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thanks for hanging with me until the end

until next time I'm Keith Williams

thanks for being a part of the 51 world

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oh

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