Ah, the Fender Stratocaster! It is truly an American icon, but its impact has had reverberations worldwide since its humble inception in 1954. From surf to rock to country to blues, the Strat’s influence is pervasive. With its distinctive contoured body and sound, it has become the instrument of choice for influential players ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Buddy Holly to Stevie Ray Vaughan—to name a mere few. Within the Crescent City limits and surrounds, there’s a formidable list of six-string players of international renown. So, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster, we rounded up as many as we could track down and had them reflect on how they scored their first Strat.
C.C. Adcock
I was originally a Gibson kid. Santa Claus bought me a Les Paul—back there in those really good years in Lafayette in the early ’80s when the oil was booming. My first Strat is still my main Strat—it’s a ’56. How I got it is a really evil story. It was my first act of music-business manipulation. I convinced my best buddy Ricky Reese—he had a Stratocaster and I had a Les Paul—that I was a slightly better guitar player than him. It wasn’t necessarily true, but I convinced him that he should play bass and sell me his Strat so that he could buy a bass. We were 12 and had a band called Night Flyer, and we used to get together to practice at his mom and dad’s house here in Lafayette. At some point, I convinced him, and I bought that Strat for 150 bucks! We’re still really close and he’s a great bass player to this day. That guitar’s gotten me through a lot of great nights, lots of great sessions, and a lot of great sounds. As far as the karma of me taking that guitar off of Ricky, it’s come back ten-fold against me trying to make a living with that guitar.
Favorite Strat players: There’s the obvious. Everyone knew Hendrix played a Strat, we had seen that image of him burning the Strat… I had a lot of local influences like Sonny Landreth. As a young teenager, you could go to bars and hear him, and he played Gibsons and Firebirds. And so did Gatemouth. So I was a Gibson kid, but then I saw Jimmie Vaughan. Seeing him with his two Twin Reverbs, just stalking the stage with a Stratocaster, and making it sound like twang… just gimme that twang! That’s a sound a guitar is ’sposed to make—unless you’re playing a supper club. And he could make ’em twang and thump! And then, of course, shortly thereafter, getting to see Stevie Vaughan. And that turned all sorts of kids my age on to the Stratocaster. Seeing Earl King play a Strat, getting that good, oogly-boogly underwater, out-of-phase sound—which you can only get on a Strat. He was the inventor of that underwater, funk rhythm sound. And he would solo in that same tone by just sliding chords one step up and one step down… He’d play those nine chords and just like solo out of a chord and it was just so cool. And it always had that kinda underwater sound. My earliest memories of New Orleans were always of pouring down rain and water going down the drain… it was always a wet place to me.
Bert Cotton, Bonerama
The Fender Strat just has a certain sound and feel that I love. Its body is contoured, so it’s comfortable to play, and the sound! With its different pick-up configurations, it’s got many great and different sounds, just plugged direct into an amp. And, it also sounds great with pedals, which I love to mess with and come up with more new and different sounds.
I was, and continue to be, inspired by seeing musicians perform live. There is nothing like it! It’s the real deal, and there is no better way to check out a player. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and I used to go see Glen Butts. He played with great Strat sound over funk and rock, with a jazz and blues sensibility. I went to school in Boston, and I used to go see Ronnie Earl. He is an amazing blues man with an amazing tone and feel.
I scored my Strat in Boston, while in college. It’s an American made ’62 reissue, dark sunburst, and it’s sweet!
My favorite Strat player, and a great inspiration, is Jimi Hendrix. Jimi, Jimi, Jimi!! Of my “Top Five” Strat list, Jimi would have to be the first three! His single note playing, those great chord embellishments, the use of effects and feedback, all with serious blues conviction. His playing stands the test of time, like Bird and Miles. He still sounds great, and inspires me. Quintessential Strat would have to be Jimi—his whole Woodstock performance, or maybe “Little Wing” or “Voodoo Child.” I listened to Jeff Beck a lot when I was learning to play. Other Strat players I dig? Buddy Guy, Hiram Bullock, Mike Stern, Frank Zappa, David Gilmore, Jerry Garcia, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
John Fohl, Dr. John
I’ve played a lot of other guitars, but I keep going back to the Strat because I think it’s versatile. For me, it’s the best guitar to take on a gig and play with on just about anything. I got one ’cause I was listening to Magic Sam and Buddy Guy. It’s very durable, I’ve broken a few Gibson guitars on the road and I’ve never had a Strat break down on me.
Favorite Strat Players: Magic Sam, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, there’s so many. Surf stuff, too, all the Ventures, Dick Dale—all very quintessentially Stratocaster-sounding.
Buddy Guy
I’m a sharecropper’s son; I only knew what an acoustic guitar was. Then all of a sudden, came this great guitar player—the late Guitar Slim. I saw Guitar Slim when he came to Baton Rouge with a Strat all beat up with a fishin’ line for his strap and I couldn’t figure out what that was but it was sounding so good! I learned how to play three or four songs and a guy [Big Poppa] told me he would buy me a Strat. I couldn’t own it; it was his as long as I played in his band. And I fell in love with it then. I must have been 17-years-old. Even B.B. [King], I got a picture of him playing it back then. But when I saw them with that sunburst Strat, I said “Man, if I ever learn how to play well, that’ll be my guitar the rest of my life. I’m still with it. Those first ones, you could almost chop wood with it and it wouldn’t break it.”
Favorite Strat players: Most of us play them now, Eric [Clapton] and Jimi Hendrix… I got to meet Eric in London in 1965. Eric and Jeff Beck slept out in a van—now that we’re friends—and they watched me and said they had heard the Strat but knew it was only for country & western. They didn’t believe you could play blues on it. But when they heard me on that first album that I had a chance to play on with Muddy with that Strat, they said that’s what convinced them that a Strats strings could be bent to play blues like what I was doing.
Johnny J., Johnny J. & the Hitmen, O.L.D.
A friend of mine, who was a Gibson man, went out and bought a Strat and didn’t like it. Next thing you know it was mine. It was a ’73 sunburst hardtail with a maple neck. I think it had a light ash body. I gave him what he paid for it, which I think was like $200. It got stolen. That was my first guitar, so it was kinda like losing my virginity! It aligned me with the realities of the world! I loved that guitar. It was my first love…
The thing that’s good about the Strat is all the controls are there right by your hand, you can work them easy with your right hand. I remember when I discovered the out-of-phase switch, I thought I had gotten the keys to the Universe! And I did it by accident. And I said, “Whoa!” I also used to work the switch back and forth to make sort of a pedal steel or a wah-wah effect. Also, you can work the volume control with your pinkie and can get like a steel player’s volume pedal effect. There’s a lot of tricks you can do with it.
Favorite Strat players: Eldon Shamblin and Buddy Holly. Especially Holly’s “Peggy Sue.”
Sonny Landreth
I fell in love with the sound early on as a kid. And even in high school, I think it was 1967, I got to hear Hendrix play in Baton Rouge at Independence Hall. I would say that was a fairly life-changing experience! On a lot of the sounds and the songs that influenced me growing up and learning to play music, the Strat has always been there. I was also fortunate enough that my bass player Dave Ransom had a ’65 Strat and I started playing that and pretty much kept it from him ever since the ’70s. I had been playing his guitar for years and I was on the road with John Hiatt and the Goners doing the first tour in ’87 supporting his Bring the Family album. And because Ry Cooder had played Strats on the album, that pushed me into emulating at least the vibe of that to a certain degree. So I had to buy another guitar in order to cover all the choral tunings I liked to use.
Favorite Strat players: There’s so many of them. The early albums of Buddy Guy’s. But I would have to say as an early influence, the Ventures. I was totally captivated with the sounds they were making and on the early albums they were using Fender before they moved into the Mosrite territory.
I got to see Hendrix live, and to see how he recreated some of the recordings. To my amazement, he only had a [Gibson] Fuzztone and I think that was it. And he was playing through this big rig but to hear him do “Wind Cries Mary”… He was known for all the ferocious licks but his ballads were so soulful.
Bryan Lee
I started off as a Gibson player. Although Stratocasters were around when I started playing, I considered them some kind of space machine. As the years went on, I found myself gravitating to Fenders out of curiosity. About 18 years ago, a friend was telling me about this great Strat he had. I had never put my hands on a Strat that I liked, but I tried this Strat of his. I really liked the sound. So I bought my first Strat from a pawnshop. It was really uncomfortable to play but I fooled around with it, got a different neck and did this and that. It was like the experimental Frankenstein kind of Strat but finally I conquered the thing and I started buying more Strats. Now I have five Strats that I really like. They all play nice, but I had to monkey with them to get them the way I wanted. The Strat is the woman that I always wanted to conquer but couldn’t. But I finally did.
I think about serious-as-a-heart-attack slow blues—that’s what’s cool about a Strat—you can just destroy people with it. Just cut ’em in two! And you can hammer the hell out of it and it just holds up. And with the tones, the way they’re setup with the three pickups, you can take it to a higher level and even to a higher level. It’s an amazing guitar.
When Leo Fender designed this guitar, I don’t think he ever thought it would grow into what it did. He had this attitude that an everyday, traveling musician needed a guitar that wasn’t going to cost a whole lot for maintenance, and that would be durable. And now it’s the number one selling guitar. Of course, the prices are amazing! Fender took the original Strat and gone crazy with all the different combinations and models. And look at all the companies that try to copy the Strat!
Favorite Strat Players: Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Magic Sam, and Duke Robillard uses Strats as part of his arsenal. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmie Vaughan, too. The song that really knocked me out was Stevie’s “Love Struck.”
Eric Lindell
I used to always buy these crappy guitar and crappy amps ’cause I liked old shit. I had this buddy from New York and I was always amazed at the way he sounded. So I said, “Man, how’d you get that tone?” And he said, “Get yourself a Fender Stratocaster and a ’65 Super Reverb amp.” You can’t beat that sound, that combination! It’s got so much punch, it’s clean and bright but still it has so much meatiness to it. I was working at a guitar store [Guitar Center] and there was this nice Squire Strat with a red finish in the back that was sitting on layaway and it’d been back there forever. It turned out that the guitar had been left from the store it used to be [Sam Ash]. It was just sitting back there and I got it for $100. And I told the guy at the store that I had tried all the guitars out in the store and I must be an idiot but I can’t tell the difference between this guitar and the $1500 Stratocasters… It’s a ’70s-style Strat. I had a credit at another music store so I got these Fender Tex-Mex pickups and put ’em in with a new bridge and new tuners. And this is my main guitar that I play all the time. It’s awesome!
Favorite Strat players: Buddy Guy is probably one of my all-time favorite guitars players especially the record that he did with Junior Wells called Hoodoo Man Blues. I think that’s my favorite Buddy Guy record ever. Every song on there including “Snatch It Back” is unbelievable.
Dave Malone, Radiators
I was not a Strat man, only because my first guitar I ever bought in ’67 or ’68 was a 1956 Telecaster. But I wasn’t one of those guys that said, “It’s gotta be a Tele.” I just loved that guitar. And then of course, seeing Hendrix and all the other guys playing Strats, I always wanted a Strat, but in the country where I lived nobody had one and they were kinda hard to come by. I didn’t actually get a Strat of my own, I borrowed them here and there. My oldest brother (Billy) ended up with a ’57 Strat that was a cool guitar and I played that for a while. The owner before just happened to be named Dave and he had a stencil, à la Stevie Ray, on the upper horn spelling “DAVE” in huge letters.
Then in ’82 when Fender did the reissues of the ’57s and the ’62s—’57 being the maple neck; ’62 being the rosewood ’board—I got one of each, and man, my whole world changed! Both had a five-way switch. Telecasters are very limited and they’re very unforgiving. Playing a Stratocaster is a piece of cake after playing a Telecaster for 12 years, let me tell you. The difference between a Stratocaster and a Telecaster is like having a bicycle and then getting a Porsche!
It’s the perfect guitar. I loved it ’cause of the variations of tone you can get. The out-of-phase sound of a five-way switch on the second and fourth position give you either the neck and the middle or the bridge and the middle—both on, but out-of-phase! When I started playing, nobody had a five-way switch, you had to kind of sit it in between the settings and you got that kind of watery, Hendrix-y, out-of-phase sound, which I just love.
Favorite Strat Players: There’s so many: David Hidalgo, Hendrix, Stevie Ray. I like Stewart Smith, who played with Rosanne Cash. Also Jimmy Wilsey, who played with Chris Isaak. I like guys that really rock out on a Strat but my favorite stuff by far is the real slippery kind of stuff. Richard Thompson does really wacky stuff with a Stratocaster.
Tommy Malone, the subdudes
I think it was probably a combination of Hendrix and Clapton—seeing them on TV. My first one, my dad bought me in a little music store in Hahnville, Louisiana around ’73. I think I was a sophomore in high school. It was a sunburst, brand new off the shelf, and I just thought it was the coolest looking thing I’d ever seen. I’d also, I’m sure, seen Buddy Holly on TV and the Ventures albums with those old pictures on the covers. They were just the hippest looking guitars around, especially for young kids. And I remember, my dad asked me what I wanted, and man, that was it! That’s want I wanted. Currently, I’m playing on another guitar I bought brand new in ’88, a Custom Shop Strat. It’s a Homer Haynes [of Homer & Jethro] limited edition model with a gold finish and anodized ’guard. And its got a maple neck; maple fingerboard. It’s basically like a ’57 reissue, it’s just the finish that’s a little odd. That is my main slide guitar; I play exclusively slide guitar on it.
They look great, for starters. They’re designed perfectly: the cutout, the contours. They’re comfortable. They respond to your touch really well. Every little feature—the way the jack’s angled so it doesn’t get in the way, the access to the volume knob with your little finger, all the keys on one side so it’s easy to grab and put back in tune. It’s a great design, and they sound, of course, fantastic. Those old single coil pickups have a sweet singing, well-defined tone. It became the sound of a generation, that real clean, clear, piercing trebly sound like the old country and surf guys used. It’s a rich, sweet, clear bell-like tone that’s got a lot of depth to it. I love it.
Favorite Strat players: Ry Cooder’s one of my all-time favorites. Lowell George. Hendrix, of course. Even some off-the-wall guys like Eldon Shamblin, love his playing! He’s awesome. Stevie Ray. Clapton. George Harrison and his slide playing on a Strat was so recognizable and beautiful.
John Mooney
I bought a ’63 Strat from the older brother of my best friend. It was this old beat up guitar that he had and it was all taped up but it was something I could afford. I think I paid 35 bucks for it. And I just loved the guitar, and had that for a long, long time. It had a real V-neck and I think the body was mahogany. It was an unusual Strat. But the neck had a real serious “V” to it, so now consequently every guitar I get, I “V” the neck—unless it’s an old vintage guitar. When I was 12, 13, 14, in that age, I learned how to play so much on that guitar that I think that’s really why it means so much to me. I played a lot of Gibsons also, but the sounds that you could get out of a Strat are unbeatable.
Favorite Strat players: It seems to me everyone plays a Strat or a Tele, don’t they? Early Buddy Guy stuff with Junior Wells was something that I really dug and it seems that the Strat was a really big part of that sound. Other than that I don’t think I was particularly drawn to it because of anybody in particular playing it, ya know?
Anders Osborne
It was 1985 I believe and there was this music store that’s no longer here in New Orleans called Rock & Roll Music. They had this hand-painted black guitar with chrome pickups and some kind of Custom Shop neck on it and it looked really beat up and bizarre and different. And I had just sold a ticket—I was going to Ecuador and my girlfriend at the time said, “If you go, I’ll break up,” so I sold the ticket and decided to buy a guitar. I saw this guitar and it just fit my personality perfect, and when I picked it up to play it, it was like meeting a soul mate. It sat perfectly in my body. Everything I had done up to that point had been trying to make something happen. And with this guitar, all of sudden it was very easy to play guitar. Now the guitar itself, I put a different pickup in it, but I later found out that it’s a ’68 body and a probably an early ’80s Fender Custom Shop bird’s eye maple neck with an ebony fretboard. I also bought the same year, a Sea Foam Green reissue ’62 that, believe it or not, now looks like it’s from ’62! It’s pretty beat up.
Favorite Strat Players: I’m more into horn players, but I’d say obviously Jimi Hendrix is really innovative and played music not necessarily guitar. Jimi Hendrix’s “The National Anthem” by all means is basically to me up there with the shooting of JFK as far as historical importance. As political and as musical as that is hand in hand, it’s just absolutely gorgeous and so powerful.
I like Ry Cooder a lot. I mean there’s a lot of people that play Strats wonderfully, but as I said, I’m into horn players more.
Mark Paradis a.k.a. Johnny Sketch, Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes
First thing I remember turning me on to the Strat was a Buddy Holly thing that my dad made me watch when I was really young. And I thought it was cool. I grew up listening to a lot of what my dad liked, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, stuff like that. Buddy Holly played an old Strat and it just looked cool. I’ve played guitar pretty much my whole life but I always had an acoustic in my hand but when I finally did get an electric, I was sort of torn. I guess it was the issue of money, but when you realize that a Strat is a Strat and you’re not going to get anything better than that no matter how much it costs, it makes it a pretty easy decision for a first guitar. I think that’s why a lot of people start out with it because it’s affordable and exceptional at the same time. Right now I play on a Mexican-made Strat. I love it! It’s just a great instrument. I have a 2000 Les Paul and I hardly ever use it.
The Strat is versatile and it’s durable. I’m a real aggressive stage performer. I flop around and run into people a lot and I don’t worry so much about its durability. They just last. You really have to try to break a Strat. When you’re going to spend that kind of money on a Strat, at least for my purposes, I put my guitar to work and it never lets me down. I think that’s one of the reasons I keep it as my main axe. I don’t worry about not being able to do what I want to do with it.
Favorite Strat Players: Buddy Holly really made a name for the Strat. He kind of gave it its character and was one of the first people to get people excited about it and developed his own sound based around it. Hendrix, obviously, which is huge for me because I play in a band that allows me to do my best Jimi Hendrix impersonation from time to time. There’s a lot of local people, too. Dave from the Radiators, June Yamagishi. Because we have kind of a funk sound, the Strat is the guitar to go with. I’ve got a Les Paul but when I try to switch from rock to funk to jazz, it’s a lot easier to make that transition on a Strat I find.
Dick Dale is another example actually of a guy who turned me on to the Strat. He doesn’t just play Strats, he’s got one Strat. For that surf sound, you just can’t do it on any other guitar.
Renard Poche
I was always a Hendrix fan; that was one of my first inspirations when I was a kid. Absolutely, the Strat has its own personality; no other guitar has that. That was one of the initial attractions. My first Strat I got I’m gonna say probably in ’80. I was playing with the Neville Brothers at the time, and it was a natural wood grain and a maple neck. I think I was just looking in the Times-Picayune and found one for sale. That was my first Strat experience. The neck is narrow and I don’t have big hands, so physically, it’s easier to play because of the neck size. And I found out later from people that it’s a sexy guitar. The shape and the look of it. And once I heard that, I started thinking that way. So it actually makes my body language change when I play it, as opposed to the other guitars that I might play on occasion. Then I bought another one in ’83 or ’84. Actually, this guitar was played by Eric Clapton and George Benson. I was in Brazil at a club in São Paulo called Bourbon Street. And I was playing with Tony Hall in a group called Mahogany Blue. George was in the audience and we called him up to play. He played “Breezin’” and “Masquerade” on it… and he said, “good guitar.” And Clapton, when I was playing with Dr. John in either Tokyo or Osaka at one of the Blue Note’s, he came in and he borrowed the guitar and we played some blues.
Favorite Strat players: Eric Johnson. Hendrix in Band of Gypsys. That live album from the Fillmore East is my favorite Hendrix record. I’ve been listening to that record since whenever it came out. I still listen to it. It’s probably the record I’ve listened to the most in my life, over and over. “Machine Gun,” “Who Knows”…
John Michael Rouchell, Ellipsis
The Strat is like iconic guitar, not to mention its signature tone. And the lineage of the players—from Jimi Hendrix to Andy Summers of The Police—there’s so many great players.
I was 11 and had been playing about a year when I got my first guitar, a small, scaled down thing. I decided I needed an actual guitar, not a little child’s toy, and I got my first Stratocaster in ’96. It was a Lonestar Stratocaster, with two single coil pickups in front and middle and a humbucker in the back. It’s black with a ruby tortoise shell pickguard. I had the humbucker in the back coil-taped so it could either be a humbucker or a single coil depending on which type of sound I was looking for.
Shane Theriot
The Strat is just a perfect design and hard to improve on. You can play almost any style on it, too. And get lots of sounds. It’s a very versatile instrument. Leo Fender must have been a genius to get something so right the first time. With a few exceptions, (Les Pauls, etc.) most of today’s electric guitars are just improvements or modifications to the basic design of the Fender Stratocaster. I begged my Mom and Dad to get me one (it was a Strat hybrid, ’60s Tele body with a ’63 Strat neck). I wish I still had that guitar!
Favorite Strat players: In no particular order, Jeff Beck, Ry Cooder, Hendrix.
June Yamagishi
I’ve played a Strat for 30 years. I was 17-years-old and I’d seen it in the store window of an instrument shop in Japan. It was a 1969 Strat. That was my first Strat. I sold it. Day after that, fortunately, I got my number one Strat. It’s a ’63, ivory color, hardtail. That’s my favorite. I’ve been playing it since ’78, ’79. Somebody who I knew sold that guitar because his cat got sick and he didn’t have any money to bring the cat to the hospital. And then I got that guitar for $1500.
My big influence was Buddy Guy. He is my hero. The Vanguard stuff, A Man and the Blues, also First Time I Met the Blues. Of course, Hendrix and Johnny “Guitar” Watson.
