I saw this picutre of Keith playing a stratocaster. But I wonder. When does he play it? I rarely see him with a strat.

[www.rollingstones.com]

Is that the same Strat that he used in "Hail, Hail Rock 'n Roll"? An old Mary Kay?

He plays some mean chords on a rooftop on the Stratocaster-Anniversary-TV-Show in the 90s.

Miss You

C

The mary Kaye strat was bought by Wood from George Gruhn in the lat 70's, and used extensively by Wood on the 81/82 tour. He gave it as a present to keith in 84, who used it on the rehearsels for Hail Hail R&R, and ever since for Miss You and Thru&Thru.

Mathijs

Mathijs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The mary Kaye strat was bought by Wood from George
> Gruhn in the lat 70's, and used extensively by
> Wood on the 81/82 tour. He gave it as a present to
> keith in 84, who used it on the rehearsels for
> Hail Hail R&R, and ever since for Miss You and
> Thru&Thru.
>
> Mathijs


Thanks for the info Mathijis. I think he also uses that guitar on Paint It Black.

Keith says it ain't worth much because it's a refin !

Maybe not much to him...but I'd still need a mortgage to buy one like it.
[very nice sounding Strat, that one]

he plays it on YOU DON'T HAVE TO MEAN IT

Borna Wrote:
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> he plays it on YOU DON'T HAVE TO MEAN IT


ALL CAPS aren't necessary. we know that you "mean it" . . .

>> The Mary Kaye Strat was bought by Wood from George Gruhn in the lat 70's, and used extensively by Wood on the 81/82 tour. He gave it as a present to Keith in 84 <<

thanks, Mathijs!

Keith used a sunburst Strat at the CNIB shows in 79 - was it for Miss You?


- CNIB, apr 22nd 1979, by Neal Preston

Keith's also got that Strat in a bunch of backstage shots from the New Barbarian tour,
but i don't think he ever used in on stage with the Barbarians.


- 1979, by Henry Diltz



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-04-04 13:37 by with sssoul.

No, the blond strat is not the same as the one from the Barbarians. The Mary Kaye model is named after Country singer Mary Kaye, who used a blond stratocaster with gold hardware in a promotional foto (she never actually played one!). In 1956 the wood used for Strat's changed from ash to alder, except for the blond models (ash has a nice grain that shows through the blond finish). Therefore, since 1956, blond Tele's and Strats sound a bit different than other colours due to the wood -ash sound brighter and snappier than the drier alder. To keep track of all the Strat's inhe Stones camp is literally impossible, as they bought them by the dozen. Wood starting using strats with the faces in '73, and the two guitars he bought with them to the Stones are easily identified, but they were stolen in '76. Ever since, all the sunburst Strats from Wo, Richards and also Jagger are too many to identify.

The blonde Strat Richards uses now is NOT a refin (it is imposible to refinish a guitar to blond due to the sealer used on the wood. You can refinish a guitar in any colour except into a see-though colour like blonde or butterscotch), but a dead mint 1956 Mary Kaye Strat, worth $60.000 nowadays. There's many pictures of the 81/82 tour of Wood playing it.

I personally like ash better for Strat's, and I own a 1999 Fender Custom Shop Mary Kaye relic Strat. It's a superb guitar!

Mathijs

I'd love a Mary Kay Closet Classic. Actually, I wish fender would do a NOS that's been in the sun ! . No wear or racked lacquer...just nice warm "vintage" colours.
Yopu can refinish a white blonde or "butterscotch"...but not not easily unless it was that finish to start with.

thank you Mathijs - sorry, i didn't look at the link Schwonek gave
and i don't know why i started thinking about sunburst Strats ...
anyway thanks for the education, as always!
and a couple of photos to make up for the error of my ways:


- Toronto, august 10th 2005, by Frank Micelotta

and the Strat the Keith hand-painted (in more ways than one!) for the Stratocaster anniversary celebration a few years ago:




"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-06-10 19:05 by with sssoul.

Spud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd love a Mary Kay Closet Classic. Actually, I
> wish fender would do a NOS that's been in the sun
> ! . No wear or racked lacquer...just nice warm
> "vintage" colours.

As far as I know Fender stopped making Mary Kaye Strats, except for a limited run of NOS Master Builts. But check on ebay, and you'll find NOS, Closet Classic and Relic Kaye's.

> Yopu can refinish a white blonde or
> "butterscotch"...but not not easily unless it was
> that finish to start with.

You can refinish a blond guitar to any colour you want, including blond. But a guitar in any other colour than blond can NOT be refinished into blond, as the dark sealer underneath the colour lacquer can not be removed, not even by sanding it down.

Mathijs

We'll agree to differ on that one. I've seen a couple done with good results...by somebody much better at it than me. And I did say it wasn't easy ;^).

CS guitars are out of my personal budget anyway.
You're mostly paying for cosmetically nice wood and a higher level of finishing. The best Strats happen by chance anywhere from the Mexican Classic range upwards. You just need to spend some time finding them. It can save a lot of money.

can someone post pics of ronnie with this strat?

Spud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We'll agree to differ on that one. I've seen a
> couple done with good results...by somebody much
> better at it than me. And I did say it wasn't easy
> ;^).

Actually, I have never seen it done - You hardly ever see any other colour than blonde on ash (all other colours are on alder), and I actually have never seen an alder body being refinished to blonde. I have seen blonde on ash refinishes, but the original colour was already blonde. You see it being done on chery Gibson LP Juniors, as "blonde" (TV Yellow on Gibson terms) is much more expensive. Due to th re coloured filler used on mahogany, refinishing into TV Yellow is always ugly.

>
> CS guitars are out of my personal budget anyway.
> You're mostly paying for cosmetically nice wood
> and a higher level of finishing. The best Strats
> happen by chance anywhere from the Mexican Classic
> range upwards. You just need to spend some time
> finding them. It can save a lot of money.

Well, here I wholeheartedly disagree. In my very humble opinion, guitars from both the Fender and Custom shop are better by miles, and by any other standard. Both Custom Shops are able to produce guitars that rival the best vintage guitars. It's not only "cosmetically nice" wood they use, but the wood really is much better tonewood, making up for a much better sounding guitar. The handwork is much better, the (thin nitro) finishing is much better, the hardware is beter. Really, I find everything much better. I own a '59 Les Paul from the Custom Shop, and this guitar can rival a genuine '59 LP, and it certainly is better than any LP that left the factory after 1960. I also own a Custom Shop Mary Kaye Strat, and this guitar is better than many vintage strats from the 50's and 60's I have played over the years. Both guitar have that dry, hollow phase-like tone quality that you normally only find in vintage guitars. Of course, if you have $25.000 to spend, you can find a better original Strat. but $3500 buys you a close-as-possible to the real deal 50's guitar.

Yes you're right about that cheaper guitars can be great too (one of my main guitars is a Japanese Custom Tele with an original NOS Wide Range Humbucker and Seymour Duncan Antiquity in the bridge), but nothing can beat guitars from the custom shop. They are expensive (and in the case of the '59 LP way too expensive), but they are worth every cent. All in my humble opinion of course.

Mathijs

Don't agree.
Buying CS Strat guarantees you a good one [well, almost. You do get the odd CS plank ;^)]. They select the wood for both it's cosmetic and tonal qualities...but they don't eat up all the most toneful lumps of wood. Wood is not that predictable and plenty of killer sounding spreads find their way into lower cost guitars. In the lower ranges, of course, you have to find the nice guitars because the materials standards aren't as high and most guitars are ultimately of a lower quality.
But the whole point of Fender's classic designs is that you DON'T need expensive tonewoods and top notch luthiers to build them. If you'd told Leo Fender that you needed folks like Tod Kraus or Chris Flemming to build a Fender guitar he'd have had a fit !
Find a particularly nice MIM Classic '50s, stick some good pickups and a quality bridge in it, give it a good set up... and it'll rival anything.
The best Fender guitars happen by chance...buying CS increases the odds.
[The only major off the shelf weakness in Mexican and Japanese Fenders is the lack of a proper steel trem block. It's a very big factor in determining the quality of tone in a Strat. The pickups obviously leave a little room for improvement too, but they're not bad]
I've only ever owned one CS Fender, a team built '60. It was a very nice guitar...but certainly no better than a well chosen MIA '62 RI and was given a run for it's money by an upgraded Japanese RI too. Which is why I sold it ;^)
Many of those Early '80s Tokais and JV Squiers are potentially top notch guitars too.
Now I'm not saying that the cost of CS guitars unjustified. The work that goes into them and the attention to every detail is expensive. There's no quarrel with that. The question is whether it's necessary .

I certainly agree about the trans blonde finishes. They look very iffy on anything but ash.

Which Strat is Keith playing together with U2 here:





Big T

On this tour, Keith always used this guitar for "Miss You"

JustinCaseBandDK Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Which Strat is Keith playing together with U2
> here:
>
>


> lated&search=


It looks like an Eric Clapton signature, with Lace Sensor pickups. I bet he just took one of the 65 guitars of The Edge.

Mathijs

with sssoul Wrote:

>
> Keith used a sunburst Strat at the CNIB shows in
> 79 - was it for Miss You?

Keith used a sunburst Strat for Let It Rock in 1978

Big T

since someone's asking on another thread about the Strat Keith was using in 72 ...


- San Francisco, apparently - june 6th or 8th, 1972
(don't know who took it, sorry!)

Keith's sunburst strat he used on the '72 tour is the same as the one he used on the '78 tour, and the same as the one he posed with in press pictures from 1988 to 1991.

Mathijs

Anyone knows what model the sunburst strat is? Could it be a '57? The reason why I ask is because I'm thinking of buying a similar ( at least a Japan made).
I've tracked down a Japan made '54 model reissue, that looks just the same...

S.T.P. -

I got a great deal a couple of years ago on a U.S. '57 reissue. It's a beautiful, beautiful guitar but one thing to keep in mind with the vintage reissues is that they're built to the original specs. We're talking 50 year technology! So just keep in mind that you'll be dealing with tuners out of the Stone Age (no pun intended), a 3-way pickup switch, and - most importantly - noisy pickups.

I think it's cool to have everything as it was back in the day, but it does take some getting used to.

Thanks, didn't know that.

JuanTCB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> S.T.P. -
>
> I got a great deal a couple of years ago on a U.S.
> '57 reissue. It's a beautiful, beautiful guitar
> but one thing to keep in mind with the vintage
> reissues is that they're built to the original
> specs.

Original specs, except for the lacquer! All Vintage Reissues have a fairly thick urethane finish, with a very thin nitro finish on top. Fender didn't dare using just nitro, they were and are afraid they see too many guitars returned.

If you want original specs for a non-CS price, check out the new 'thin skin' models: vintage specs, with a vintage thin nitro finish.

Mathijs

<The mary Kaye strat was bought by Wood from George Gruhn in the lat 70's, and used extensively by Wood on the 81/82 tour. He gave it as a present to keith in 84, who used it on the rehearsels for Hail Hail R&R, and ever since for Miss You and Thru&Thru.

Mathijs>

Also on the soul numbers (Love Train, That's How Strong My Love Is, Going To A Go-Go)?

On That's how strong my Love is on the Licks Tour he used the sunburst Strat he also used for Paint it, Black in 2003. And for Going to a Go-Go on the Licks Tour he used the Double Cutaway Junior Les Paul in TV Yellow he also uses on Midnight Rambler and Out of Control.

But where did he use the Mary Kaye Strat in the Phoenix Club Toronto 2005