George Gruhn is an institution when the subject is vintage guitars. He knows every little detail there is to know about Fender and Gibson guitars from the 50’s and onwards.
In this video he takes us through the tiny differences between 3 Fender Stratocasters from 1955, 1958 and 1963. As he mentions, only very little tweaks were made during those years. And in fact, very little has happened ever since in terms of design. Sure, Fender went from a 2-tone sunburst to a 3-tone sunburst and later on added the option of a rosewood fingerboard. And in 1974 the 3-way pickup switch was upgraded to a 5-way switch so you could pair the neck/mid or bridge/mid pickups. But apart from things like that, the basic design is the same. In other words, Leo Fender nailed it the first time! And we love those instruments 🙂
In all fairness, Gibson also nailed as a 1959 Les Paul is pretty much the same as it is today, says George Gruhn.
So… this is a talking session, no playing, no great tone demoed. In fact, the audio quality is pretty poor, but hey, we can live with that as long as it’s just talk. When we plug in the guitar, though, we want nothing but stellar tone that inspire the creation of great music!