The 1954 Fender Stratocaster Demo With Joe Bonamassa | Guitar World - video Dailymotion

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TALES FROM NERDVILLE by Joe Bonamassa TOOLS OF THE TRADE, PART 4  For the last few columns, Joe Bonamassa has been demoing a variety of his favorite vintage guitars and discussing each instrument’s unique attributes. He began with a 1954 Gibson Les Paul goldtop with P90s, followed by a 1961 Gibson dot-neck ES-335 and a 1952 Fender Esquire. This month, the focus will be the 1954 Fender Stratocaster. #JoeBonamassa #FenderStratocaster

Transcript

00:00I'm still winging at hard hands, smiling at the pouring rain.

00:09Hey guys, Joe Bonamassa here from his apartment in New York City on a blustery afternoon in January.

00:16We're talking about how Leo got it right the first time.

00:19We already did the Telecaster, Esquire, and now we're on to the Stratocaster.

00:24Why the Stratocaster?

00:25Well, you know, these are sonic staples of life, you know.

00:29As far as a guitar player is concerned, it's like a Les Paul, a 335, an SG, a Firebird, Stratocaster, Telecaster.

00:38These are all the benchmarks of which guitar tone is measured from.

00:43And, you know, you can argue which ones you like better.

00:47A Rosewood Strat, which is more kind of like a Stevie Ray thing.

00:51Or, like, I always call these like a Buddy Holly guitar.

00:53You know, Eric Johnson used an early Strat like this.

00:56This is from 1954.

00:57And, you know, there was a lot of great sounds.

01:02Eric Clapton used the Maple Knick Strat.

01:04So, we're going to demonstrate some of the cooler sounds that you can get from a Fender Stratocaster.

01:11Just by plugging in.

01:12Again, all these videos in the last few months have been plugged into the exact same amp with the exact same setting.

01:17So, you really get to hear the tonal nuances of each guitar without any filter.

01:23There's no, you know, like, special device.

01:25It's just a Fender Deluxe Reverb set on Stun.

01:28And it's tempered down a little bit.

01:30Tempered down a little bit for the apartment so I don't get kicked out.

01:35Although, I own this place.

01:36Can they kick me out?

01:36That's that classic front pickup.

02:07These old ones do rattle around a little bit, which is always fun on the gig, watching them move around.

02:14You can wedge the switch.

02:16Three-way switch.

02:18But you can also wedge a telly as well.

02:19Check that out.

02:20When they cooperate.

02:25When they cooperate.

02:29That's the front two pickups.

02:56Now we have the middle setting, which is great, you know, for that kind of Ronnie Earle classic Texas blues, you know, Ronnie from Boston.

03:04You know what I mean.

03:05Now you can wedge it again.

03:33You have the middle pickup and the lead pickup.

03:35And that's that kind of.

03:37You know it.

03:38You know it from many Eric Clapton records, you know.

03:41It's fantastic.

03:42And it's a great sound.

03:43And then, finally, the treble pickup.

04:12Which, if you have a so inclined, you can modify this so the tone pop works for the treble pickup.

04:19But this guitar is unmodified.

04:21I call this guitar Little Wayne because I bought it from a small guy who was about 80 years old.

04:26His name is Wayne in El Paso, Texas.

04:28Original owner.

04:29So I call it Little Wayne.

04:30Little Wayne.

05:02So, you know, a lot of people are in one of two camps, rosewood, maple.

05:11I am a maple board fan.

05:14I've always enjoyed maple board strats.

05:16They just, the notes jump off the fingerboard in a different way.

05:20This is a maple neck with an ash body and coupled with the lower output pickups from the mid-50s.

05:27It really does something special.

05:29But you can go buy a squire strap that has a maple board and those sound great too.

05:35They do have certain characteristics to them that the rosewood guitars don't have.

05:42But similarly, the rosewood guitars have certain characteristics the maple boards don't have.

05:48So, you know, there's no right or wrong and it's just one of those things.

05:53It's how you hear it and how you play it and what makes you happy inside.

05:58You want to pursue happiness.

The 1954 Fender Stratocaster Demo With Joe Bonamassa | Guitar World

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