by Eric Clapton
from The Stratocaster Chronicles
I never did meet Leo Fender, but I wish I had. If I could go back and somehow talk to him about the Stratocaster, I'd say, "You've created something that can't be bettered, really. How did you do that?" I know there were prototypes with the Telecaster and the Esquire, and some early experimental stages, but nevertheless, the fact that he got to this conclusion so quickly is remarkable, isn't it? Leo Fender was so far in advance of anybody else, developing the Strat to the point where it just canít be bettered, even now. My hat's off to him.
One reason why I hadn't played Strats earlier was that the necks always looked so narrow I thought, I won't be able to bend any strings, no room, but in fact I was wrong. And any Strat that I'd seen up until that time had a rosewood fingerboard, and I had an aversion to rosewood fingerboards — don't ask me why — even though some of my earlier guitars had them. I'd always preferred ebony. I liked that silky finish. Of course, when I got my hands on a maple-neck Strat with the white fingerboard, I was surprised at how easy it was to play.
I had a lot of influences when I took up the Strat. First there was Buddy Holly, and Buddy Guy. Hank Marvin was the first well known person over here in England who was using one, but that wasn't really my kind of music. Steve Winwood had so much credibility, and when he started playing one, I thought, oh, if he can do it, I can do it.
Picking up a Stratocaster makes me play a bit differently. I find that over the last few years I play more with my fingers because of the way my hand sits on the guitar. I don't feel the need to use a pick quite so much as I would with any other guitar, where the bridge sits higher off the body. With the Strat the bridge is almost flush with the guitar, so my hand rests on the body, part of my heel rests on the bridge, and then my fingers rest on the scratchplate. It's really easy to play either way, but I've found more and more that I'm using just my fingers.
It's got those famous lead tones, but it's so versatile you can use it in any kind of rhythmic sense as well — great big power chords, or that really light kind of Tamla/ Motown chord sound with very little volume. Unlike most other electric guitars, it sounds almost better when the guitar's volume knob is on 2 or 3, really under-amplified and quiet.
My first Strat was Brownie, and I played it for years and years, a wonderful guitar. Then I was in Nashville at a store called Sho-Bud, as I recall, and they had a whole rack of old '50s Strats in the back, going second-hand. They were so out of fashion you could pick up a perfectly genuine Strat for two hundred or three hundred dollars — even less! So I bought all of them. I gave one to Steve Winwood, one to George Harrison, and one to Pete Townshend, and kept a few for myself. I liked the idea of a black body, but the black one I had was in bad condition, so I took apart the ones I kept and assembled different pieces to make Blackie, which is a hybrid, a mongrel.
I played those old ones so much they wore out. Blackie's neck was actually narrower because of all the playing I'd done on it, and the frets were quite low. I hadn't done much restoration on my old ones, so I gave Blackie's neck to Fender as a template, and they built the Eric Clapton Signature guitars I'm playing now, which are more robust, with more power in the pickups.
I keep coming back to the Stratocaster because it's so practical. It doesn't move very much, it's stable, it stays in tune, and has a great sound. It's fairly invincible, quite difficult to damage. I really like the old coil pickups, especially that middle and bridge combination. I used that for the solo in "Bell Bottom Blues," which would be a classic example of that sound. But I've got those new Noiseless pickups now, and active circuitry, and I get so many different sounds coming out of the Stratocaster that it's hard to compare it to any other guitar. My other guitars, I only visit them from time to time. I very rarely use anything else but the Strat.
My feelings about a perfect design is that it has to be functional, and with the Strat, its functionality really steers it. That's what makes the design so beautiful. It's superbly thought out. At first I thought it was odd to have only one volume control, but that's only because I was used to a different set-up. All the things I love about it aesthetically are there for a real purpose, like the contoured back. If those things were based just on the way they looked, that would be fine, but everything on that guitar is there for a reason. Like the pegboard, with all the tuning pegs on the top. That's such a logical thing to do when you think about how accessible it is.
I come back to the fact that I don't think there's anything on that guitar that doesnít come from pure logic. I would challenge anybody to come up with a better design for a guitar. The Stratocaster is as good as it gets, isn't it?
Eric Clapton
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Brownie
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