MUSIC Me and Mv Guitar

I REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I saw one. It was around 1963, and 1 was at a Thomas Jefferson High School sock hop in the boys’ gym, trying to compose an Academy Award-winning speech that was going to convince the little girl in the mohair sweater that she really needed to dance with me. The band was playing surfer tunes like “Wipeout” and “Pipeline.” and the band leader had this sunburst-red, sparkling wonder of a guitar that sounded just as bright and clear as it looked. I wanted to learn how to play, just so I’d have a reason to buy one of those dramatic guitars. It was called a Fender Stratocaster.

It didn’t take me long to discover that almost everyone was playing Stratocasters. Buddy Holly had been one of the first in 1957, and then the Ventures in 1960, and then the Beach Boys and all the other surfer groups came along, toting Stratocasters over their shoulders. Later on, after a lapse in popularity during the late Sixties, the demand for Stratocasters caught fire again because of Jimi Hendrix. Since then. Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, and Stevie Ray Vaughan have helped maintain the guitar’s prominence all the way into 1991. During most of the past 30 years. Fender Stratocasters have dominated American guitar sales. In fact, most of the guitars that are made by other companies are designed to look like Stratocasters. Vintage “Strats” that originally cost $300 in the Sixties are now worth as much as $10,000.

So who can afford them? Very few musicians, according to Dallas guitarist Bugs Henderson. “The vintage Strats are owned mostly by collectors, not musicians. Anybody who owns a good vintage Strat should keep it under the bed. not up on stage.”

One Dallas guitarist who has managed to be both a collector and musician is Jimmy Wallace, lead guitarist for The Stratoblasters and owner of Sound Southwest, one of Texas’s leading Fender dealers. Wallace plays an original vintage ’56 Strat on stage, and owns at least one model of every year from ’54 to ’65. “1 don’t worry too much about getting it scratched up there on stage.” he says. However, he has a guitar technician who keeps an eye on it during breaks.

Today, Fender sells 30 different Strat models, most of which look similar to the originals. However, due to changes in specifications and materials to accommodate changes in musicians’ tastes, and due to the evolution of more efficient manufacturing methods, today’s models don’t feel or sound quite the same. In other words, they just don’t make them the way they. . .Wait a minute! I promised myself I would never say that. I hate it when people say that.

Here’s the problem. When you start saying “they just don’t make things the way they used to,” your aging process speeds up and you begin to lose your hearing and your hair starts to turn gray. The truth is, if things aren’t made the way they used to be made, it’s usually for the better. It’s because we know more now than we did back then. It’s because of inventions and better technology and automation, and it’s because we’re so much smarter. But still.. .there was something about those older Strats.

Look at it this way. Take an old piano and a new piano. They’re not going to sound the same. So who is to say which one sounds better? What if you just happen to prefer the sound of the old one. but since it’s a collector’s item, it costs about 10 zillion bucks?

As it turns out, the Fender people had sympathy. They also had a clear focus on their bank account. So, in 1981. they did something that few manufacturers had ever tried. After studying the soaring prices of the used vintage Strats. they breathed a deep sigh, pulled out the old dyes, spec sheets, and rusty hand saws, hunted down the original materials, and set up shop to begin all over again. They reintroduced two models from 1957 and 1962, crafting them almost exactly the way they had been made back in those years, including the old tweed case that was phased out in the early Sixties. Calling these special models “vintage reissue Strato-casters,” Fender approached the duplication effort with unprecedented intensity.

This means almost no automation. It means drilling tooling holes in the body of the guitar that have to be patched, due to the inadequacies of the old tools. It means using a type of lacquer that was phased out years ago because it cracks upon quick temperature changes. In fact, a red label dangles from the case of these vintage reissues, warning the buyer to wait 24 hours before opening the case if it has been exposed to a temperature change. During winter months. Fender limits shipments out from California toward the East due to the cracking problem. Even without temperature changes, the lacquer has a short life span which, according to the authentic looking black and white owner’s manual, “will make your vintage reissue Strat a classic in its own right.” New owners of the reissues can hardly wait for their Struts to crack.

And then there’s the environmental issue. Because the spraying of mis old lacquer is considered an environmental sin in California, state law allows Fender to spray for only a limited number of hours each year. If Fender wants to spray more reissue Strats, it must search for California furniture manufacturers that use the same lacquer in order to purchase their surplus hours. One look at a two-color, sunburst finish on a *57 vintage reissue Stratocaster will convince you that the result is worth all the trouble.

Today, 30 years after that Thomas Jefferson High sock hop, I would be lying if I said I didn’t remember the girl in the mohair sweater. But I’m sure the Stratocaster has held up a lot better than she has. Inspired by that evening, I did teach myself to play guitar, and three years later. I had my own band. Then I retired from the music business for 20 years, before starting all over again a few years ago. Incredibly, 1 never owned a Stratocaster.

Then one evening this past November we were listening to a blues group down on 6th Street in Austin, and my wife commented that it was touching to sec such a great guitarist using an old. beat-up guitar. I explained that he was playing an old Strato-caster, worth probably $5,000, and if he updated it at all. like replacing one of the rusty screws with a shiny, new one, the instrument would immediately depreciate by about a thousand bucks. I also told her that I had thought off and on about getting a Stratocaster over the past 30 years, and that 1 often had nightmares about being on my death bed 50 years from now, consumed with regret that I’d lived my entire life without ever owning a Strat. Then 1 told her about the vintage reissues, with a list price of only about a thousand dollars, and we decided right then that a ’57 model was going to be my Christmas present.

And it is luscious. It is breathtaking. Avintage reissue Stratocaster is so gorgeousand embodies so much history that it shouldhave a place on the wall of anyone who caresabout popular music. And one more thing.The Strat is a symbol, a monument and adose of reality for anyone who has everstumbled into the old cliche that we all loveto hate: “They just don’t make things the waythey used to.” In this case, they do. And Ilove it.