Original subtitles

hi this is Keith Williams welcome to

five art world works to help you get the

most music from the least gear how did

the fender stratocaster go from being

seen as some sort of factory built

gimmick to being the very definition of

an electric guitar I want to take us

through the development of the strat and

touch on some of the players that were

influential in its history if you enjoy

we're doing here at five watt world take

a minute to subscribe and hit the bell

icon to be notified when new videos are

released

if you've already subscribed swing by

the store and grab a t-shirt or a mug to

support what we're doing here

so when did the Stratocaster start

George Fullerton remembers that around

the end of 1951 in 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 Tavares was

charged with drawing up the design of

the Stratocaster the influences came

from different places the body designed

from the Fender precision basses the

peghead from the early Bigsby guitars

several features involved from the

Telecaster plus whole new items like the

pickups in the vibrato 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 recalled about 25% of every day was

spent visiting musicians trying to

figure out what would best suit their

needs

upon its release in 1954 the strat had

an ash body with two or sometimes three

pieces glued together they carved the

body with gentle but deep contours in

response to players complaining that the

hard edges of the tele were

uncomfortable this led to what fender

called the original contoured body was

carved on the back to fit against the

players body and sloped on the front

with the players arm picking arm rests

there was routing on the front and back

to house the pickups controls in the

vibrato assembly and the routing was

covered by the pick guard another small

plate covered the vibrato mechanism in

the back a cutout on the rear plate

allowed for the strings to be fed into

vibrato block and on the earliest

guitars a serial number was stamped into

the top the one-piece maple neck was

assembled in the same way as it was on

the Telecaster the 21 frets were laid

directly up into slots in the face of

the maple neck

the fingerboard radius was approximately

seven inches a metal truss rod was set

in the channel in the rear of the neck

and the channel was covered with a

walnut strip which would later be

referred to by players as the skunk

stripe the truss rod could be adjusted

by screw at the base at the neck near

the body but typically only if the neck

was removed from the guitar fitting with

fenders modular design philosophy black

plastic dots were laid in the face of

the neck and tiny position markers were

laid into the side of the neck the nut

was made of white bone and the scale

length matched that of the telly at

twenty five and a half inches if the

telly headstock seemed to be influenced

by the single sided Traverse Visby solid

body guitar the strat headstock

certainly brought to mind the old quote

imitation is the sincerest form of

flattery

Don Randall had a fenders distribution

and marking company at the time recalled

them the new headstock designed that it

was a little more graceful a little more

ludus a little more Paul Bigsby ish six

in-line closed back loosened tuners were

fitted with a thin metal shaft and small

oval buttons a small circular string

attained ur on the headstock kept the

ENB strings in place decals on the

headstock were the black outline gold

spaghetti-like fender a black

Stratocaster and a black with

synchronized tremolo and a tiny script

black that's had original contour body

the body was given a two-tone sunburst

finish common on Gibson guitars but it

was the first time fender had used one

was created by applying two coats at

different colored nitro cellulous finish

first a yellow for the brighter center

then black around all the edges a

single-layer white plastic pick guard

was applied with eight screws the three

pickups were identical white plastic

covered a bobbin wound with 42 gauge

enamel wire that was wax dipped all

around 6l nações cylindrical pull pieces

the pole pieces are revealed in the top

of each pickup cover and then pickup was

angled at the bridge like on a

Telecaster early pickup covers were made

with bakelite plastic which over the

years proved to be fragile leaving many

guitars with cracked pickup covers the

guitar was equipped with a 3-way

selector switch that would individually

choose each of the three pickups the

output jack was mounted at an angle in

the face of the guitar separate from the

pick guard in a metal plate there had

been four broto bars on guitars

four of various designs notably those by

Bigsby but the built-in vibrato on the

strat was by all accounts

Leo's pride and joy through trial and

error the final version was wildly

successful and Leo applied for a patent

for it in August of 1954 it was an

adjustable bridge tailpiece and vibrato

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 hummock hung up on the

bridge leo system moved the entire unit

tailpiece and bridge saddles together

the bridges metal baseplate was attached

to the body with six screws forward of

the saddles on which the bridge pivoted

the barato arm screwed into the

baseplate like on the telly before the

bridge came with a metal cover quickly

removed and either discarded or

repurposed as an ashtray hence the

nickname the sustain block or inertial

block extended down from the base play

into the body of the guitar the strings

were fed through the block through the

bridge over the saddles the tension of

the strings was offset by up to five

Springs that attached the block to the

body with an adjustable claw in the body

route on the back of the guitar the

springs allowed for fine-tuning the

stiffness and hence the feel of the

vibrato system the new bridge had six

bent steel saddles that were each

adjustable for height and length this

wasn't the first six way adjustable

bridge Gretsch had produced their Malita

bridge around 1952 and Gibson's

tune-o-matic appeared on the Les Paul

Custom in 1953 the real innovation here

was that the strap 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 the car designs of

the time and like the cars the parts

came together to produce an object that

was as beautiful as it was functional

another addition to the long list of

1950s designs the history remembers us

simultaneously groundbreaking and

timeless Eric Clapton would later say my

feeling about a perfect design is that

it has to be functional and with the

strat its functionality really steers it

that's what makes the design so

beautiful

it's superb Lee thought-out the first

batch of 100 stratocasters were ready to

ship on the first sales slip was dated

October 13th

19:54 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 fender set

the list price of the Stratocaster at

249 50 + 39 54 the case you could buy a

non verba version for two twenty nine

fifty despite the mass production

efficiencies it was expensive when

compared to the Gibson Goldtop which

listed for two hundred and twenty-five

dollars and the Gretsch duo jet for two

hundred thirty dollars in the same year

it's estimated that by 2010

approximately 3 million strats had been

sold but in the beginning the guitar did

not catch on right away

only about 720 strats were sold in 1954

and 1955 combined compared to 1027

Telly's for the same time period slowly

as rock-and-roll grew so did interest in

the guitar and soon fender was having

trouble keeping up a demand the big

break came on December 1st 1957 when

Buddy Holly 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 are 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 V the string guides on

the headstock changed from the early

round type to the butterfly shape and in

58 the 2 tone sunburst would change to a

3 tone adding a layer of red to the

yellow and black fender was now spending

much more on advertising and the

catalogues went full-color in 1957-58

announcing new custom colors a bright

red strat was on the cover of the 5859

catalog this is big news as prior to

that most Telly's only came in blonde

and the strats mostly came in sunburst

in 1957 fender announced a strat in

see-through blonde finish with gold

hardware Don Randall's idea it was

likely in response to Gretchen'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

blonde in gold was fenders first

official custom College Stratocaster the

custom color guitars with their

five percent up charge we're not

particularly popular as an option in the

50s hi the early 60s vender issued an

official list of available custom colors

under used paint from the DuPont do Co

color line and they were heavily

influenced by car colors even the names

came from car catalogs Fiesta red for

example can be traced to Ford's 1956

Thunderbird

according to Fullerton Fiesta red was

the first true custom color the

marketing guys were much less than

enthusiastic even wondering aloud who's

gonna want a color guitar especially a

red one the next big change would come

in 1959 with the move to a rosewood

fingerboard this was following on the

heels of the 1958 jazz master their new

premier model having appeared with a

rosewood fingerboard during 1959 all

fender guitars were switched to a

rosewood fingerboard the position dot

markers were correspondingly switched

from black plastic to a lighter color

now known as clay dots these earliest

Brazilian rosewood boards had a flat

base and became known as the slab boards

fender continued to experiment with the

Rosewood thickness to get the best sound

and by 1962 had settled on a curved bass

board a thin layer of rosewood that is

referred to as a laminate board and

maple boards were continued to be

offered as an option as well also in 59

the one layer pick guard was changed to

the three ply white black white some

believe that the white was somewhat

discolored by the layer of black

underneath leaching into the white

creating what is now described as mint

green guards Thunder used plastic

tortoiseshell pit guards on some of the

guitars in the 60s as well 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

Goldtop was stolen but he's success with

the glassy tone cutting through the mix

made many other bluesman take notice of

the strat instrumental electric guitar

music was being popularized in the

movies in 1961 Dick Dale had a big hit

with let's go trippin playing his custom

gold Sparkle finish left-handed strat

awash in a sea of reverb and the

ventures walk don't run was a big hit in

1960 before moving to MOSFET guitars the

ventures Don Wilson used the

Stratocaster and Bob Bogle played a jazz

master by 1960 demand from abroad we

came apart offenders 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 been preloaded in Britain

perhaps because the government had put a

ban in place from 1951 to 1952 on

importing certain products from America

which included guitars in love with

American pop music British singer cliff

Richards wrote to fender directly asking

for a copy of their catalogue

he received the 5859 catalogue with the

red strat with gold hardware on the

cover the generous Richards

ordered one for his guitarist Hank

Marvin so just as the ban was lifted

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 fender success grew

steadily in the early 60s topping out at

approximately forty million dollars

worth of retail sales by the middle of

the decade fender was feeding the boom

demand for electric guitars basses and

amps and a peak of its success fender

was sold in 1965 to Columbia

Broadcasting System for a reported 13

million dollars despite the fact that

CBS had no background in instrument

manufacturing was buying up instrument

companies right and left the new CBS

management were engineers interested

primarily in high production volume

criticism started to come back from

dealers right away complaining that

quote the guitars don't play like they

used to

unquote in the early 60s a new chunkier

logo 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 CBS logo that

was introduced around 1968 in 1965

fender also began using the 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 CBS was the new wider

headstock jazz master and Jaguar guitars

were made with bound necks and in 66 a

very few strats were put out with bound

necks 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 showed up playing a black

Stratocaster and his lead player Mike

filled played a blonde Telecaster George

Harrison and John Lennon of the Beatles

each 'dick wired a Stratocaster in the

mid 60's both finished in Sainik Blue

John played his strata on Ticket to Ride

recorded that January they used them on

an instrumental section of nowhere man

including the harmonic at the end

harrison repainted his into a

psychedelic masterpiece and used it in

the magical mystery tour movie during

the I am The Walrus sequence but perhaps

the biggest lift the strat received at

the end of the 60s was in the choice of

instruments of one James Marshall Jimi

Hendrix Hendricks got his first strat in

1966 he may well have chosen the strap

because his hero Curtis Mayfield was

playing one at the time early in his

career Jimi played many rows aboard

strats but in the last few years of his

life he played maple board once one

black and one in white Jimi played

standard right-handed models turned over

and restrung to accommodate being

left-handed he said the Stratocaster is

the best all-around guitar for the stuff

we're doing you can get the very bright

troubles and the deep bass sound Hendrix

died tragically in 1970 Eric Clapton

tells a story in his autobiography that

on a whim he'd bought a left-handed

white Stratocaster he'd seen in a shop

window for Jimi and had carried it to

the slime family stone concert that

night where they were to meet up

Clapton only learned the next day the

Jimi had died the night before Eric

Clapton recalls seeing Buddy Holly

perform on British television when he

was just 12 years old he purchased his

first strat in 1967 at Sound City in

London a used 1956 Stratocaster later

nicknamed brownie that looked very much

like the guitar Buddy Holly had played

on that TV broadcast Clapton used the

strat sporadically at the end of cream

but really moved over to it in late 1969

when he toured with Delaney and Bonnie

in 1970 he recorded his first solo album

Eric Clapton the London Howlin wolf

sessions and Layla and other love songs

all playing his beloved brownie late in

1970 while Clapton was in Nashville with

Derek and the Dominos he bought six

strats for about $100 each the sho-bud

music store of the six guitars purchased

he gave three to George Harrison Pete

Townsend and Steve Winwood he then took

the best parts from each of the

remaining three and put together a new

guitar Blackie

it had a 57 neck

refinished black 56 body and two 50s

pickups and a third pickup from around

1970 Blackie remained Clapton's main

guitar until 1985 over at CBS on fender

quality continued to slip as the 70s

wore on and many dealers and collectors

believe the 70s are the low point for

fender production quality first the

truss rod adjustment point was moved

from the base of the neck to the

headstock the new bullet-shaped adjuster

second a tilt neck adjustment was added

to make it easier to adjust neck pitch

angle 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 they blamed 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 its new thick-skinned finish of

dozens of coats of polyester this

finishes plastic appearance makes it

clear that a guitar came from the 70s

blues rock was huge in the 70s an

Irishman Rory Gallagher wielded his

battered 61 strat on stage it's far and

wide the guitar had been bought by

Gallagher used in a shop in Cork for a

hundred pounds in 1963 over the years to

come the sunburst finish was warmed to

bear wood over most of the guitar the

pickups were all replaced the controls

were changed to a single volume in a

tone and it was reef reddit many times

Jeff Beck had long played Les Paul's but

around the time of Beck Ola he wanted

something more original sounding he'd

had a number of strats over the years

but the one we likely and all know best

is from the cover of his album wired

which was released in 1976 on that album

he played a 1960s white Stratocaster

given to him by guitarist John

McLaughlin he used this guitar on tour

for many many years

only retiring it from the road use when

his first signature strat was built in

1991 the original Jeff Beck's signature

guitars were primarily based on that

white wired guitar also in the 70s

Ritchie Blackmore played a strat and

deep purple Curtis Mayfield continued to

weave clean strat tones on soul records

and one can't forget the famous lights

Stratocaster played by Journeys Neal

Schon on Infinity in 1978 like with Les

Paul's in the 60s players looking for

offender in the 70s we're looking to the

50s and 60s for the magic the idea that

the older guitars were better fueled the

search for vintage instruments Norman's

rare guitars opened in California in mid

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

equipped Telly's had received fender

started to pare back their offerings the

custom colors were eliminated in late

60s and early 70s

Freddy Tavares was still consulting with

fender and said that though there were

some things they wanted to change on the

Stratocaster the attitude of CBS was not

to fool with success as the 70s came to

a close

fender was producing 40,000 instruments

a year the production had grown so much

the fender had even dispensed with

putting a date on the base of the neck

these dates originally written in pencil

and later rubber stamped on the neck

were part of the history of the

instruments emphasizing the human hands

involved in the build but from 1973 to

the early 80s fender stopped doing it

altogether it seems they were either too

busy or they just didn't seem to care in

the mid-1970s fender built some

stratocasters using black hardware knob

switches and around 1975 fender moved to

closed cover tuners bought from the

German company Schaller but by far the

most important change to come out of the

70s was the move to a 5-way pickup

selector switch 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

as well as a drop in volume that players

loved some aftermarket five-way switches

were produced and instruments were

modified but it took fender until 1977

to embrace this feature remember early

3-way equipped strats did not have

reverse wound metal pickups in fact

strats made in the very desirable pre

CBS period had pickups pulled out of a

bin without regard to matching their

output levels or to the position where

they were being installed one guitarist

who made the most of this tone was Mark

Knopfler who exploded on the scene with

the dire straits in 1978 their debut

album was covered with the sound of an

in-between strat

through an early 60s brownface vibra Lux

amp Knopfler had bought the natural

finish 61 strat in 1977 but had had it

refinished in red in honor of his

childhood hero Hank Marvin in the early

80s bill Schulz was hired away from

Yamaha to become fenders president he

said about improving the strat returning

the truss rod adjustment point to the

base of the neck and using a more

vintage style headstock he also wanted

to start production in Japan because

American companies were being hammered

by the Japanese copies in the market

place Schultz cut a deal to create the

Japanese fender company with Fuji gen

building the instruments while plans

were moving forward to build what was

effectively copies of classic Fender

guitars in Japan CBS was moving the same

directions back in the States around

1980 Freddy Tavares began working on a

project to build a vintage Telecaster a

recreation of an original 1952 tele they

began the vintage reissue program in

earnest by buying up original guitarist

uses and examples along with the 52 tele

the strats were modeled on a 57 and a

rosewood board 62 these guitars are

famous for their extremely thin lacquer

coatings which wore very quickly

collectors call them Fullerton reissues

because of where they were manufactured

and they command a high premium over

later reissues meanwhile the first batch

of Japanese made Fender guitars arrived

in the States

they had a marketing dan smith

remembered everybody came up 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 the

Japanese fenders were market under the

name of Squire but by the end of 1983

under pressure to bring more modestly

priced strats to the US market the

decision was made to bring the squire

guitars to America as well at the same

time the u.s. 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 Squier guitars 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 reissues 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 though they were making history

mostly on vintage instruments David

Gilmore a dedicated Stratocaster player

from the early days of Pink Floyd was

seen on tour in support of the wall

album standing atop a giant wall on

stage playing the solo to comfortably

numb' one of the greatest rock guitar

solos of all time 1983 saw Stevie Ray

Vaughan playing a Stratocaster on both

Bowie's Let's Dance and his own album

Texas Flood his Hendrix licks filtered

through a rough Texas energy changed our

sense of blues rock forever Vaughan

often referred to his sunburst number

one guitar as a 59 but in fact it had a

62 neck and a 63 body which is likely

how it left the factory as Nexen bodies

often sat on racks after being made

while waiting to be built into a

complete instrument in the metal world

1984 saw the release of yingwan

malmsteen's rising force with the iconic

image of his 1971 Stratocaster 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 we clearly

carry us through the decades to come

CBS would sell 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 the development of the

Fender Stratocaster the company has gone

on to create its own custom shop to much

acclaim in fact a friend of mine

believes that the first run of relics

made in 96 and 97 are perhaps the finest

guitars fender has ever made periodic

improvements this strat scents have

generally taken us incrementally back

towards the vintage guitars that are so

prized today 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'd also like

to thank Perry McManus for fact-checking

the manuscript and for his continual

insistence that the Stratocaster is the

greatest guitar ever made I'd like to

thank Dave Onorato of dojo guitar repair

in Atlanta for answering my questions

in fact checking my script Dave grew up

dealing vintage guitars with his dad and

he's where I turn when I need to

these sorts of things if you're still

watching I'll assume you enjoyed the

video so don't forget to subscribe and

click the bell icon to be notified for

new videos and hit the store link in the

description to grab a t-shirt or mug is

super order until next time thanks for

being part of the five walk

[Music]