The Best Stratocaster In the World

foreign [Music] [Laughter] the following video contains an instrument that's been intentionally Relic which some viewers may find confusing discretion is advised there's an old rock and roll story unconfirmed of course that a man walks into a bar sees Jimi Hendrix and asks him what it's like being the greatest guitarist in the world I don't know replies Hendrix you'd have to ask Rory Gallagher if you've not heard of him Rory Gallagher was a blues and rock guitarist singer songwriter and producer one of the most influential Irish musicians of all time Gallagher was ranked number 42 on gibson.com's list of their top 50 guitarists of all time and number 57 on Rolling Stone magazines 100 greatest guitarists of all time born in 1948 Gallagher was originally from Bally Shannon County Donegal in Northern Ireland but brought up in Cork he came from a musical family and began learning guitar age nine unable to afford a big record collection he would listen voraciously to the radio to hear new music and poured over blues song books he was heavily inspired by Lonnie Donegan and skiffle music American musicians were also very influential in his developing tastes with singers like Woody Guthrie Muddy Waters and Lead Belly leading to the young Rory becoming obsessed with folk blues and rock music he learned his craft playing in local clubs as part of Irish show bands local bands of six or seven members who'd entertained the crowds all evening with Popular cover versions of contemporary songs and old classics it's this day in Day Out playing where he picked up his legendary work ethic I can't believe how much happened to Rory because of course he was touring almost constantly through his life I mean to the point where you know you'd go from a tour in America straight to a tour to Japan straight on a tour around the UK you know Rory never stopped pretty much you know he was one of the hardest working guys in music and that's why he was known and renowned as a live performer because he was match fit from about the age of 15. he'd already bought his first electric guitar a Rosetti solid seven but it was a chance encounter with a 1960 C1 Fender Stratocaster Sunburst serial number 64351 in a small music store in 1963 that would define his career and become his iconic instrument [Music] foreign [Music] um how we think about him how we see him in our Mind's Eye you know it's a huge instrument now I know I'm no Rory Gallagher but if you're enjoying my playing technique and the little Snippets of original music accompanying this video check out my guitar playing course fingerstyle guitar Mary's method the first 1000 people to sign up using the link below get a 50 discount so check it out reportedly the first Stratton Island the guitar had been purchased by local show band guitarist Jim conlon who hadn't liked the color preferring a red one second hand and on sale in Crowley's music shop for 100 pounds It Was Out Of Reach for most adults let alone a 15 year old boy if it wasn't the first Strat in Ireland it must have been very close to being because these were rare birds indeed I mean it's like a spaceship Landing in your town to see Australia in 1963 in Cork it's just not something you saw and for Rory this was obviously like a slightly Shard of Heaven kind of Landing in his lap basically Rory's brother Donald recalled his dream ambition was to have a guitar like Buddy Holly this Stratocaster was in the store as a used instrument it was 100 pounds in today's money you couldn't even compare you might as well say it was a million pounds my mother was saying we'll be in debt for the rest of our lives and Rory said well actually with the guitar like this I can play both parts Rhythm and Lead we won't need a rhythm player so I can earn more money and pay it off so the Stratocaster became his partner for life if you like foreign [Music] the guitar store owner took a shine to this talented young player and let him take the guitar home trusting him to make payments on it as money came in from gigs Gallagher formed the band taste in the late 1960s with two other local musicians touring the UK and even supporting cream at the Royal Albert Hall after taste broke up he started touring under his own name hiring Jerry McAvoy as his bass player who he played with for 20 years who recorded 14 solo albums and three live albums throughout the 1970s and 80s becoming globally famous and selling over 30 million records worldwide the Rolling Stones even offered him a job but he declined they settled for Ronnie Wood instead Rory played this guitar for most of his career and made many many modifications to it over the years the pickups were changed the clay 12th fret position marker was replaced with a white plastic one he upgraded the original three-way pickup selector switch to a five-way switch and also replaced the tuning pegs with five spurtzels and one goto the tone controls were rewired with the bottom part as the one master tone a disconnected middle pot and the master volume left as is Rory was a was not afraid to kind of just dive in and mod his own guitars I don't think he was like looking to make things work uh as a sort of luthier Might he was just he was looking for like instant fix I need that to happen so I can use it on stage and I think if it worked then he went with it you know he's modded modded like Melody makers and he loved guitars but I think you get this the definite sense there you love them in order to use them to make music you know not as as Museum pieces for sure due to the amount of moisture it absorbed during gigs on a number of occasions he would swap out the neck leaving the original to dry out for a couple of years the fact that I've never had to do that just shows that I am not working hard enough I've played the Rory's um guitar the original I picked up and played it and it's um I just I remember I think it was just a nice quite not not super slender neck but just a nice furry one of those nice sort of tapering necks from the 60s so it comes down a little bit towards the nut um it just felt super comfy and you know this is obviously the original he's played and played to death almost um how closely they were able to match that on the custom shop once um I don't know I'd have to have them right side by side but yeah I mean it's uh I don't remember it being super super chunky I remember it being just very comfortable and and quite fast many other modifications were made over the years his heavy right hand and denim jacket frequently chipped the wood and split the scratch board the other thing I remember from actually playing it was that the body reminded me of a piece of Driftwood and that had been so abraded by a kind of forearm wear that you could almost see the sort of steps in the in the grain of the wood as it as it sort of worn away a rare blood type resulted in him having particularly acidic sweat which stripped pretty much all the finish off the body he never had it restored saying the less paint or varnish on a guitar acoustic or electric the better the wood breathes more but it's all psychological I just like the sound of it laughs foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] was stolen in 1966 after a gig by an opportunistic Thief Rory appeared on Irish TV pleading for its return the thief panicked and left it in a ditch where it stayed for a few days in the Wind and Rain Rory swore to never apart from it again Gala had died tragically young at the age of 47 heavy drinking led to liver failure exacerbated by taking paracetamol to combat increasing stomach pains he received a transplant in 1995 but died of complications from MRSA later that year in London in 1997 Fender Custom Shop designers met Donald Gallagher in Los Angeles where he handed over Rory's beloved Strat 40 replicas were initially produced but demand was so high they started to ramp up production producing the Rory Gallagher signature Stratocaster it's a real labor of love it's the same worn three-color Sunburst older body Maple neck and Rosewood fingerboard it even has the five spursal tuners and one goto tuner and the 12th fret dot marker is a white plastic one rather than the original clay it also features three custom wound 60s single coil pickups aged Chrome Hardware 21 medium jumbo Frets and a synthetic bone nut they describe it as their homage to a true and truly missed master [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] now why do I have this guitar well I bought this for myself for my 31st birthday it's basically a carbon copy of a 1961 Stratocaster but for a small percentage of the original vintage instruments value it's my favorite era of Fender it feels great in my hands and I first got to play one back in 2018 and one of my first videos to go viral and I couldn't stop thinking about the guitar this guitar also honors a legendary musician then recently along with my producer Pao Romero who also coincidentally owns his own Rory Gallagher from 2008 which when we discovered this made us Fast Friends well we went to a show in Barcelona and got all of the members of Band of friends including Jerry McAvoy and Brendan O'Neill to sign the back play on the inside as an Ode to Rory they were a huge amount of fun laughs [Music] foreign [Music] 's true heroes there's a statue of Rory in his birthplace of Bally Shannon and a sculpture of his Strat at Rory Gallagher Corner in the temple bar District in Dublin if you've not heard Rory and want to get started you could do a lot worse than listen to Deuce his second studio album or live in Europe cheers Rory thank you for the music and of course thank you for watching to the end of this video I truly truly appreciate it be sure to check out the information in the description about the discount on my fingerstyle guitar course but otherwise as always I'll be seeing you here very very soon I'm gonna go listen to Bad Penny now because I need that in my life

Channel: Mary Spender

Views: 497,994

Keywords: Mary Spender, Fender, Stratocaster, Relic, Guitar, Electric Guitar, Family Friendly, Story, Jimi Hendrix, Greatest Guitarist, Rory, Gallagher, Rory Gallagher, Rolling Stone, The Rolling Stones, Ireland, Irish Music, 1961 Stratocaster, Strat, 1961, Fender Strat, Woody Guthie, Muddy Waters, Folk, Blues, Rock, Music, fender stratocaster, buddy holly, david gilmour, eric clapton, jimi hendrix, hank marvin, mark knopfler, eric johnson, richie Blackmore, rory gallagher, 61 strat

Id: 29W0AE_hfVw

Length: 12min 29sec (749 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 05 2023