Fender

 

Leo Fender in his factory

Working on a Stratocaster

Assembling the electrics for a Telecaster

Sonny Landreth . . . guitar [plus totally gratuitous John Hiatt!) and the Goners

 

Sonny Landreth - Zydeco Shuffle

John Hiatt - Tennessee Plates (debut) feat. Sonny Landreth

my favourite incarnation of Sonny with a band!

and for course ever a man of my word I said I would never NOT (double negative!? Really? - ED)

play this one a favourite John Hiatt song

John Hiatt and The Goners - Memphis In The Meantime [Germany

From a TV concert in Hamburg, Germany on Oct 9th 1987

Guitars . . . . Burns plus

Burns guitars were undoubtedly British and as featured by bands like The Shadows (see Hank Marvin) but we thought they were uncool. Fat thick and clunky looking we favoured Fender and Gibson’s that were from the ‘exotic' shores of Merikay! Even Martin’s the acoustic Holy Grail of boxes!

If they were British they must be hokey and naff! Right? Actually they were really good and sounded fine but you know what the pro bands wanted we wanted too!

The Martin Guitar Orchestra

Mind you it was only in the seventies when I found my first Martin that I discovered they were actually not British and American after all - nowadays the woods are getting thinner and thinner so it’s touch and go if you get a good one. Buy vintage ( if you can!?) 

Jimi’s Gibson Flying V (looking especially groovy here today - even Gibson made clangers and Jimi never really enjoyed his V. 

Johnny Winter used one but they didn’t really match the artistry of the Holy Grail of the Strat, the Tele and even the Jaguars and such. The tail pieces always felt clumsy to me! Awkward despite the electronics that must have been good enough surely?

I have said before I never really understood the sound of the Resonator guitars (they all resonate dudes!) and especially the National Steels. What is THAT about ?

I just don’t get it. If its wood it will ring loud and lets face it the Americas had so much raw natural resource that they could afford to make endless budget Harmonys even sold through Sears and Roebuck catalogues as I have said before (I started to collect them and my £90 Harmony H162 is worth about £400 now. ) Ronnie ‘Plonk’ Lane here adored his resonator mind you!

Stevie Ray Vaughan and ‘Number One’

Photo by Brian Rasic

 

Number One is quite possibly the most iconic guitar in the blues, belonging to the great Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Stevie played many guitars over the years, but there was just something special about the Fender Stratocaster that he played in every show and on every album from the moment he acquired it. His relationship with Number One was almost romantic in nature — he even called the guitar his “first wife.”

He received the guitar in 1973 from Ray Henning, the owner of the Heart of Texas music shop in Austin. The story goes that SRV saw the sunburst Fender in Ray’s shop and immediately knew it was special, without even playing it. He arranged a trade with the owner, switching it out for a 1963 Stratocaster. Henning happily traded guitars, since the ’63 was in much better condition than the soon-to-be Number One.

In an interesting twist, the previous owner of SRV’s new Strat was a big name in music at the time, Christopher Cross. He supposedly traded the instrument for a Les Paul because he was looking for a thicker sound. (Stevie, by contrast, had no problem finding a thick sound with it!)

The guitar itself was a mix-and-match affair. It comprised a 1962 body, a 1963 neck, and pickups from 1959. The instrument was also well used by the time Stevie put his hands on it in ’73, notwithstanding the nightly abuse he put it through over the next 17 years.

Stevie Ray and his guitar tech, Rene Martinez, modified the guitar quite a bit over the years, usually because of necessary repairs. SRV was quoted as saying, “[Number One] was rebuilt more times than a custom Chevy.”

After his death, Rene reinstalled the original 1963 neck and gave the guitar to SRV’s brother, Jimmie Vaughan, who still has the iconic instrument.

Source: Guitarophile com

 

Buddy Guy and his Fender Stratocaster! “If It Don’t Run, I Don’t Want It!"

Buddy Guy, Ann Arbor Blues Festival 1969

 

Buddy Guy: 

"Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page didn’t think a Strat could play the blues. But then they all went to buy Strats after they saw me because, as a matter of fact, one of ’em told me I threw the guitar, and I caught it back in the right key."

“And I don’t even remember that, man, because I think somebody flashed a light, and I missed the damn guitar. But they surprised me because they thought back then that the Strat was for Texas, Tennessee and country/western; they were always playing those kinds of guitars."

“But I just liked the Strat. Even if it was busted up and had a few scratches on it, it played like somebody stole it.”

"It’s like an Edsel car from 1959. You get in there to drive, and it just feels a certain way. It’s like my old friend Junior Wells would say, ‘Man, you can pull your woman so close to you in the car that you could kill her headache,’ and with the guitar, it’s the same way."

“It’s still got that tone, but a lot of people forgot about the tone. And a lot of people ask me about that tone, and it’s still got it. But they start looking at the looks, and just like a car, the looks sell it more than the ride; it’s about how pretty it looks. But I don’t care how pretty it is; if it don’t run, I don’t want it.”

Andrew Daly / Guitar World  Interview 

Photograph

By the legendary Jim Marshall

so what in the hecken freck did everyone play before the strat! the comments section reckon Telecasters but they were associated with Country music too and limited in range before the Stratocaster!  I’m confused!

Ry Cooder - I left school and just had a car and a Martin guitar!

 Ry Cooder on his custom guitars

with thanks to John French for the heads up on this one

The Drumbo Club

Mo’ Birthdays’ | Happy 75th birthday to the great Mark Knopfler!

Dire Straits - Down To The Waterline 22 June 1978

Mark photographed by Chris Cuffaro in LA for Musician Magazine, 1987.

I was into playing American music, especially the blues. First, I learned how to fingerpick - just the basic stuff - and then I began developing a clawhammer style. And all during this time I was playing my solidbody without an amp of my own. While I was into many different types of music, and played with many different local groups, I really didn't have a band to call my own until Dire Straits was formed in 1977.

As I was saying, since there were no charts, I just listened to tapes and then played over them. I could have been given the chords. but some of those fancier ones I don't know the names of and probably couldn't play. What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I’ve always rebelled against theory. Guitar playing for me is a compulsive activity. I'm not against learning technique. however, and I'm certainly not against acquiring new knowledge. I don't have any favorite keys that I play in. To me, different keys have different colors, different qualities, so I like playing in lots of them.

Guitar Player, July '79

by Joel A. Siegel

Mark with The Everly Brothers and Chet Atkins ‘Why Worry’

On guitars part one . . . . 

On Guitars part 2

Guitars . . . . . . . . did Jimi Hendrix play a Fender Telecaster?

 Diamond Dave (he's a neighbour you know!?) and I were chatting t’other day about the guitars Jimi used with a piece on his playing his own Les Paul which didn’t exactly loom large in his collections and seems to have lasted less than a few gigs really and I looked around and couldn’t find any of him playing a Telecaster. Yet the rumour mill has it that he used one on Purple Haze in the studio! Now the article here from Guitar Player Magazine puts that one to bed, seems its true and he ‘borrowed’ it from Noel (originally a six string player, lead and rhythm guitar over bass) which it seemed even he had borrowed from a mate (after Jimi had planted his beloved white strat through the ceiling of a particularly low dive and bending a machine head!) and as to what happened to that one we seem to have lost in the mists of time. The answer to all this and more is one Roger Mayer the creator of the Octavia effects pedal which was used for the first time on that recording. This article is however really worth a read!

During the mid-‘60s, Roger Mayer was working as a scientist for the UK government specialising in acoustic analysis. But his listening skills went much further than that. Having already turned his hand to developing revolutionary guitar tones with the likes of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, in 1967 he struck up a close friendship with new kid on the block, Jimi Hendrix. 
Working closely with Hendrix in the studio to achieve some of the most groundbreaking tones in rock ‘n’ roll history Mayer soon became known as the guitarist's “secret studio weapon”.

 

Now I take it this is more than an advert for the new Octavia but hey, lets all go buy one and find out!

It is even now referred to as The Grail Guitar . . . there is even a book about it The Grail Guitar by Chris Adams

Jimi Hendrix and why he ditched his Fender Start for a Tele! - Guitar Player

Purchase the new limited edition signed Roger Mayer Purple Haze Octavia here