The Stratocaster Guitar Book
A Complete History of Fender Stratocaster Guitars
Series: Guitar Reference
Publisher: Backbeat Books
Format: Softcover
Author: Tony Bacon
Leo Fender's company changed the course of popular music in 1954 when they introduced the Stratocaster. Since then, the Strat has been played by countless guitarists, from Jimi Hendrix to Buddy Guy and Jeff Beck. In this book, interviews with important Strat players from every decade illustrate the instrument's versatility, playability, and continuing importance. This is the complete story of the Stratocaster and the Fender company, from the struggles of the 1950s to the new models, retro reissues, and luscious collectibles of the 21st century. The Stratocaster Guitar Book is a glorious compendium of beautiful pictures, a gripping history, and a detailed guide to all Strat models. A must for all guitar lovers.
Width: 8.5"
Length: 11.0"
160 pages
CONTENTS:
THE STRATOCASTER STORY
THE PRE-STRAT ERA
THE FIFTIES
THE SIXTIES
THE SEVENTIES
THE EIGHTIES
THE NINETIES
RECENT YEARS
ENDNOTES
THE REFERENCE LISTING
US-MADE STRATOCASTERS
MEXICO-MADE STRATOCASTERS
JAPAN-MADE STRATOCASTERS
KOREA-MADE STRATOCASTERS
DATING & SERIAL NUMBERS
MODEL CHRONOLOGY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Leo began work as an accountant, at first in the accounts section of the state highway department and then at a tyre distribution company, but his hobby was always electronics. In his twenties, he built amplifiers and PA systems for public events: sports gatherings, dances, and so on. He took a few piano lessons before trying the saxophone, but he was never serious, and he never learned to play the guitar.
When he lost his accounts job in the Depression, Leo took a bold step and opened his own radio and record store in Fullerton, around 1938. He called the new retail and repair shop Fender Radio Service, and it seemed a natural move for the ambitious and newlymarried 30-year-old. He advertised his wares and services on his business card: "Electrical appliances, phonograph records, musical instruments & repairs, public address systems, sheet music."
His new store on South Spadra meant that Leo met many local musicians and characters in the music and electronics businesses. During the first few years he hooked up with several people who would prove important to his future success. First among these was a professional violinist and lap-steel guitarist, Clayton Orr Kauffman, known to all simply as Doc.
The story goes that some time around 1940, Doc brought an amplifier into Leo's shop for repair and the two got chatting. Doc had amplified his own guitars and made designs for an electric guitar and a vibrato system. By this time, Leo had started looking into the potential for electric guitars and was playing around with pickup designs. A crude solidbody guitar that Fender and Kauffman built in 1943 purely to test these early pickups - one design for which was patented in '44 - is today in the Roy Acuff Museum at Opryland, ashville.
Doc went to work for an aircraft company during World War II, but the two incorrigible tinkerers still found time to get together and come up with a design for a record-changer good enough to net them $5,000. They used some of this money to bolster their shortlived company, K&F (for Kauffman & Fender), and began production of electric lap-steel guitars and small amplifiers in November 1945.
In the 20s, many people in America had taken up the little lap-steel guitar, often called the Hawaiian guitar, and the instrument was still tremendously popular. The steel had been the first type of guitar to go electric in the 30s. Several innovative companies, with Rickenbacker in the lead, experimented with electro-magnetic pickups, fixing them to guitars and feeding their signal out to small amplifiers. The attraction of the steel was that it was an easy-to-play instrument, and thus one suitable for beginners, but the electric version also proved appealing to professional musicians, especially in Hawaiian music and among country-and-western bands.
The musician would play the steel guitar on his lap or would step up to an instrument mounted on legs. The name came not from its construction - Fender's steels were all wooden - but from the metal bar that the player held in his left hand to stop the raised strings, which were generally tuned to an open chord. During the 30s and later the term the stratocaster guitar book...
... quantity, naturally, is limited," announced Fender, and during 1979 and 1980 the firm proceeded to make thousands of 25th Anniversary Stratocasters ($800 including case, virtually the same price as a standard model). "They went fast in '54. They'll go fast now," ran the insistent ad. An official estimate of production mentioned 10,000 units.
Most people tend to refer to a Stratocaster as a Strat, and in 1980 Fender finally used the abbreviation officially on a new model. It was designed by Gregg Wilson, who had come up with the budget-price Fender Lead models introduced the previous year. The new Strat combined regular Stratocaster looks with updated circuitry, a 'hot' bridge pickup, and fashionable heavy-duty brass hardware. Fender also offered the hardware separately as an after-market accessory line, called Original Brass Works, following the lead of various companies that popularised a craze for retrofit replacement parts. Larry DiMarzio was a leader in this new business, introducing his Super Distortion replacement pickup in 1975, with Mighty Mite, Seymour Duncan, and others soon following.
Fender intended with the Strat to re-introduce the old-style narrow headstock of the original Stratocasters. The broader type of the time had been in use since 1965. However, Fender used old worn-out tooling, and the result was not an entirely accurate re-creation. Smaller, certainly; accurate, no. A reversion to the four-bolt neck fixing and body-end truss-rod adjustment and the removal of the neck-tilt for the new Strat model implied that CBS were already aware of criticisms of 70s Stratocasters. A few brighter colours were offered for the Strat, too, reviving Lake Placid Blue, Candy Apple Red, and Olympic White.
The model was significant as the first attempt at a modernised Strat. It retailed at $995, compared to $745 for the regular Stratocaster.
One further attempt in 1980 to provide something different for Strat fans was the Hendrix Stratocaster. It was something like a 25th Anniversary Strat in overall spec, but it had an inverted headstock and additional body contouring, and was only offered in white.
It's another significant guitar, as it was the first Fender marketed to highlight an association with a musician, a sales technique that would become very important to the company from the late 80s. Only 25 or so were produced, and most if not all were marked as prototypes.
Colour schemes were brightened and expanded a little during the 80s, with the shortlived International Colors in 1981 and then the Custom Colors and Stratobursts of '82. Some of the new hues were distinctly lurid - such as Capri Orange, Aztec Gold, or Bronze Stratoburst - and they were not much liked at the time. In 1983, there was a short run of Marble or 'bowling ball' finishes, designed by Darren Johansen, in swirling Red, Blue, or Gold.
With generally trimmed model lines and a massive output from the factories at Fender, it was hard to resist the feeling as the 80s dawned that the newly-important calculations of the balance sheet were firmly established and took precedence over the company's former creativity. At the start of the decade, CBSmanagement decided that they needed some new blood to help reverse a decline in Fender's image and finances. Income had the stratocaster guitar book ...
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