So I finally made an account. Hello all!

I was hoping someone on this board - Mathijs or Kleermaker, perhaps, or another member with a likewise extensive knowledge of Mick Taylor's guitars - could tell me a bit about the sunburst Strat that MT played a lot on his first solo album, throughout the 80s and into the early 90s. This one, to be precise:









(He switches to the Strat around the 3.30 mark, also playing it on Hideaway at the same gig, for those familiar with the bootleg.)

So, a few questions. Firstly, I seem to recall reading somewhere that this Strat is a 1958 model, but the very few colour photos I've seen of it (including the above and the Carla Olson album cover) look like two-tone rather than three-tone sunburst, which would suggest a 56 or 57, if not earlier. Can anyone confirm what year it is?

Secondly, does he still have it, and, if so, any ideas why he never uses it anymore?

Thirdly, does anyone know what the pickups on it are or were? If it's the same one that's on the front cover of his solo album, it had the stock single-coils in 1979. He clearly swapped these out for some kind of stack or rail humbuckers in the next few years - by the time of his Dylan tours, anyway - but I haven't been able to find any exact information on what these were. I'm mostly interested because I recently got a MIJ '57 reissue Strat and am planning to get rid of the Texas Specials it came with. I absolutely love the sound Taylor got with that guitar, and figured that if anyone could shed some light on it, it would probably be someone on this forum.

Thanks in advance, and thanks to BV for running such a great website as well. I've enjoyed reading it hugely for years now.

Welcome Stoneburst.............and yes you need an expert for your questions .......as I'm only interested in the music

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Hendrix had a similar Sunburst...till it was stolen. (Not by Mick T!)

This fellow seems to think it was a '62 with a replaced neck.

[www.iorr.org]

The guitar neck in the first picture has modern tuners, modern trussrod (the 50s and 60s Strats had the trussrod adjustment at the heel and no visible hole at the head), and a modern string tree. Plus the heavily flamed pattern was not common on originals.

Quote
LieB
The guitar neck in the first picture has modern tuners, modern trussrod (the 50s and 60s Strats had the trussrod adjustment at the heel and no visible hole at the head), and a modern string tree. Plus the heavily flamed pattern was not common on originals.

The neck in the above photos is certainly aftermarket (from a close look at the Olson album cover, it was made by Kendrick, a British company who mostly make high-end Fender amplifier clones but also occasionally guitars and replacement parts).

As for this guitar being Taylor's '62, I'm not sure. This is the '62 we know about, stock rosewood neck, used on Dance Little Sister and possibly Time Waits For No One:



Talking to Jas Obrecht in 1979, Taylor says:

'What kinds of Stratocasters do you own?

The sunburst one that I have is a ’58. That’s on the cover of the new album [...]

Did you have the ’58 while you were with the Stones?

I didn’t actually have that one, no. I had another one like it, which was stolen, also a sunburst with a maple neck.'

[jasobrecht.com]

The latter reference to his Stones-era Strat having a maple neck confuses the issue somewhat, but he does make clear that the one on the cover of his solo album is a) a 1958 Strat and b) acquired after he left the Stones. From the album sleeve - front and back - it's clear that this guitar, in 1979, had a stock Fender neck with the maple fingerboard, as well as the stock pickups:





Even if the '62 pictured above isn't the Stones-era Strat he's referring to in that interview, it still seems pretty unlikely that Taylor would dump one stock Fender neck in order to replace it with another one, with a different fingerboard, within the space of a few years when - by all accounts - he wasn't playing that much.

So: is this '58 the one I initially posted about, and what's the deal with it today?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-14 15:58 by Stoneburst.