The Cult Of The Fender Stratocaster Guitar
Throughout the history of guitars, since it’s birth as an instrument, there have been several models and types that have made an impact. Not only just because of the way that the guitar has been built or that they feature the recent and most innovative designs and materials, but that they have been strummed by the best guitarists of all time.
Most likely, the most widely known guitar would be the Fender Stratocaster. First made by its creator, Leo Fender, founder of the famous Fender Guitar company back in the fifties, the Stratocaster or Fender Strat as it is also called, has taken it’s place amongst the legends of rock. Now having a enthusiastic following from new players and guitar collectors alike, the Strat still empowers the best of the current slew of musical groups.
The 1957 model of the Strat is definitely considered to be the best and most collectable of the near 60 year run guitar classic. The 57′ model features the tell tale 2 tone sun-burst design, usually red fading to orange or yellow and black and can be seen being played by famous guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin during more recent times. After it’s inception all those years ago, the Strat was usually used for playing blues music until the likes of Jimi blasted it into another dimension and started breaking the limitations of the guitar and rock music to it’s limits and smashing into a new era. Jimi was one of many guitarists who was able to combine their talents with the Fender technicians and the team behind the Fender Custom Factory to make his own white signature model of Stratocaster. Leo Fender was famous for encouraging the worlds most famous guitar players to work with them to not only manufacture their own personally designed signature models, but also evolve their existing designs through experimentation and customization.
The Fender Stratocaster has been used on a wide variety of different musical sounds over the years from jazz to blues. It’s clean, clear sound allows the guitar player have the freedom to make any sound and type of music accessible and the perfect build quality of each Fender Strat is second to none. The body of the strat is constructed from alder wood and the neck is made from all maple with a rosewood fretboard. The guitar includes a set of three single coil pickups which helps give it the clean, classic and pure sound. There is a 5 way selector switch that allows you to switch through any combination of the three pickups to generate different tones and a set of knobs for tone and volume.
The Strat is certainly one of the guitars that will go down in the annuls of time as being an almost perfect and extremely versatile instrument that had a hand in helping change the face of rock and roll and music made by guitars as we know it today. I am sure that Leo Fender was unaware that that when he first made the Strat in 1950, he would also be creating a cult and a legacy that will span well over 100 years.
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