Eldon Shamblin & His Gold 1954  Stratocaster - podcast episode cover

Eldon Shamblin & His Gold 1954 Stratocaster

Dec 26, 202339 minEp. 184
--:--
--:--
Download Metacast podcast app
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episode description

To Support the Channel:
Patreon  https://www.patreon.com/AskZac
Tip jar:  https://paypal.me/AskZac
Venmo @AskZac  
Or check out my store for merch  - https://my-store-be0243.creator-spring.com/

Eldon Shamblin was Leo Fender's favorite guitarist, playing in his favorite band, Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys. Fender supplied the Playboys with amps and steel guitars but he wanted badly to get his new Spanish guitar, the Broadcaster, in their guitarist's hands. Unfortunately, Eldon had no interest in the plank with strings and politely passed on the offer. A few short years later, Leo was still bent on converting Shamblin, so he had his crew build a one-of-a-kind gold Stratocaster in the summer of 1954, and gifted it to the Playboy guitarist during one of their regular visits to the Fender factory. Eldon at first refused the golden solid body, but Leo convinced him to take it with him and try it on the bandstand. Shamblin soon dropped his hollow-body Gibson and became a lifelong Stratocaster player, using them until his passing on August 4th, 1998. Today we take a look at Eldon Shamblin's importance as a guitarist and arranger for Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys, and the fantastically rare and beautiful golden 1954 Stratocaster that Leo Fender gave him. 

Photos and video on my site
www.askzac.com/post/eldon-shamblins-1954-gold-stratocaster

Playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1efYMv1CjoK8jpJp7sqS55?si=77fd65af7a7b4568

Gear used:

2023 Headstrong Lil' King with 12" Eminence GA-SC64 speaker
https://headstrongamps.com/lil-king-amp

1955 Stratocaster built by my old college buddy, B. Paisley, using a mix of old and new parts. Ron Ellis 50/60 middle and neck, Duncan Twang banger in the bridge.

https://www.ronellispickups.com/

Strings: 
D'Addario NYXL 10-46
Affiliate link
https://amzn.to/494qQ1y

Pick:
Pick Boy Small Jazz, Tortoise Shell, 1.00mm

Effects: Amp reverb

#askzac #eldonshamblin #stratocaster

Texas Toast
The #1 Country Music Podcast in Texas!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

Transcript

well hello friends and welcome to ask Zack today we're going to talk about Elden shamblin and his


0:45

1954 gold Stratocaster that was given to him by Leo Fender so you might be saying


0:52

I don't care about Elden chamblin well you should if Leo Fender counted him


0:57

high enough to give him a firste Stratocaster in a custom color uh and


1:03

there's no other gold strats uh from the especially from the early 50s so uh


1:11

Elden was a very significant guitar player and so we're going to talk about the why of that we're going to talk


1:18

about some of the gear he used through years and of course we're going to talk a lot about his gold 54 Strat


1:25

and I was able to get access to that guitar before uh it's now owned by Joe bamasa


1:34

but I had the chance to uh to look at it and actually JD Simo and I uh kind of


1:41

you know took the neck off looked underneath the pit guard and such and took photos and so I'm going to share


1:46

those photos with you and so we're going to kind of go in depth on this crazy


1:52

cool 1954 gold Stratocaster made by you


1:58

know Fender and given to Elden shamblin who was one of Leo's favorite guitar


2:04

players playing in his uh favorite band Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys all


2:09

right so before we dive in I need to thank my patreon supporters because they


2:15

are what keeps the show going and if you'd like to join them there's a link in the


2:20

description all right let's dive in so first we're going to talk about Elden so


2:27

Elden was born Estelle shamblin which I'm guessing that was didn't really have


2:33

a female connotation back then and I certainly understand why he started going under the name Elden uh he was


2:40

born in Weatherford Oklahoma which is west of Oklahoma City and he was born on


2:48

April 24th in 1916 and so this is the first guitar


2:54

player that uh that I've talked about that's ever shared a birthday with me I'm born in born on April 24th but not


3:01

in 1916 but uh so I'm I'm you know that's kind of a A plus cuz it's finally it's


3:08

nice to have a guitarist with that shares a birthday with me that I uh enjoy their playing so let's let's get


3:16

back to Elden so Elden uh was a self-taught guitarist he picked up the


3:21

guitar at the age of 17 and he also taught himself to read music he moved to


3:28

Oklahoma City to to make more money playing and he played for tips and such


3:34

and then in uh in 1937 he moved to Tulsa to go to work on


3:40

staff at a radio station so he was you know playing on air and singing and this


3:46

radio station was ktl and I I wonder if that's still around later that same year


3:51

in 1937 he uh caught the ear of the great Bob Wills and Bob Wills hired him


3:59

to play in his band and at this point Bob was kind of making the


4:05

transition from a kind of fiddle band as it were to more of a swing band and


4:12

following the swing music that was popular of the day and he wanted a more sophisticated


4:20

guitar player than his original guitarist and he wanted someone that could play in the swing style and Elden


4:28

could so Elden was brought on and he uh you know


4:35

was responsible for arranging the tunes because of course he knew how to read music and he knew how to do some


4:42

arranging he uh also was working with the steel guitarist Leon mlli on these


4:49

twin guitar parts and even was working with Leon on how to tune his steel


4:55

so uh yeah Elden was responsible for some of of the uh you know what we think


5:01

of as you know Western swing tunings on these you know kind of non-pedal Steels


5:07

these uh you know kind of console Steels and such so Elden was extremely


5:13

important in this band now when his style you know what what the style of


5:19

guitar playing that he was kind of known for really takes shape is in


5:25

1940 uh during this time a little bit before that uh Elden was really having to carry kind


5:32

of the baselines on the guitar and the reason was is that Bob Wills did not put


5:38

a lot of importance on bass players and so many times he would hire guys that were singers and then have them play


5:45

upright base now you have to remember at this time uh there was very little


5:51

amplification and certainly nothing that could really carry bass and so the bass


5:58

really wasn't heard very well well at this point and so elden's job was to


6:04

kind of help out with the baselines uh on the guitar but he would also play you know AR arpeggios or


6:12

Rhythm or you know Rhythm stabs underneath it kind of like Freddy Green


6:18

in the yeah in the count basy Orchestra so uh where we first get a


6:24

recorded example of that is in 1940 they cut the tune take me back to Tulsa and


6:29

Bob Wills told Elden specifically I want you to play a lot of runs and that meant


6:36

playing base runs and really covering for the bass cuz also you have to remember this is early Recording


6:42

Technology and uh bass frequencies really couldn't be Amplified or reproduced well and so it was really


6:50

important for Elden to carry that and drive the tune now it's at this point I


6:57

feel the need to kind of demonstrate this style so that you can kind of understand


7:05

why it would be so important and why Elden would be so important in this band


7:11

so I'm going to take uh a gut bucket simple tune that just has two chords in


7:16

it it's called I to Red so uh it's we're going to take it in the key


7:22

a and it just has two chords it has an e it has an A and an e so it has a one and


7:28

a five and so uh I'm going to play it and so I'm just going to play a static a chord


7:35

and then a quick E chord you know quick five just so you can get an idea of the


7:41

tune and just how you know kind of simple it starts off


7:48

um I red I read I'm plumful about I red


7:55

red red I'm pump about I red


8:00

okay you know and I I didn't sing a verse or anything like that it was just you know kind of uh giving you an idea


8:06

so what Elden did was that would be kind of what the the the level one guitar


8:14

part would be and that's probably what most people would have done well the


8:20

Baseline for that would have been you know if it was a good bass player which


8:25

of course they didn't have a good Bas player the Basse player probably would have walked it and probably


8:35

gone done something like that so what Elden did was Elden combined the


8:40

Baseline and moving chords to produce a much more interesting part so think


8:46

about you know doing this ID red red I'm plumful about ID red versus this I red I


8:55

red I'm PP about I red I red red I'm about


9:03

red okay that is so much more interesting


9:08

one you've got this great moving Baseline and you've got this harmonization underneath it that


9:16

includes you know like a diminished chord and uh you know minor chord and


9:21

you know some different you know different inversions and you have this wonderful moving Baseline and it is so


9:26

much more fun for the singer like even just singing something you know over and over again like eye to Red ey to Red um


9:34

for the rest of the band I mean it grooves Elden shamlin grooved he grooved


9:39

he did that kind of thing and then that that's just like a gut bucket simple two Chord song he's doing that on even much


9:45

more sophisticated songs that have you know 1625 changes or modulate to


9:50

different keys and stuff like that like if you think about you know San Antonio Rose where it kind of it modulates you


9:55

know on the chorus and such and then modulates back so I think from that you kind of get an


10:02

idea of how important Elden is and Elden was known for his rhythm


10:08

playing however and and he's known for his rhythm playing because it was kind of groundbreaking and was such an


10:14

important part of the band and such an important part of the groove groove is really important I don't care what kind


10:20

of music you're talking about whether it's Western swing or Soul or heavy metal or whatever if it doesn't have


10:26

groove it doesn't have anything and Elden brought the groove to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys he also brought


10:34

great leads and he was a great soloist and so I made a Spotify playlist uh that showcases a lot of his


10:42

soloing with the band A lot of it comes from the majority of it comes from the Tiffany transcriptions which are these


10:48

amazing recordings that they did that were not Unearthed until um you know in


10:53

the 70s or 80s and they started being released on albums and I have a couple of them back here


11:00

and so if you listen to the Spotify playlist or just you know and and those


11:05

things tend to either have Elden or Junior Bernard and so I purposefully of course looked really hard and did my


11:12

research to make sure that I was always giving you Elden shamblin soloing not


11:17

Junior Bernard who's another one of my favorites but you can kind of tell it's Junior because he plays more


11:23

aggressively and he has a dirtier tone uh but uh Elden had a little bit of a


11:28

sweeter tone so uh I mean we're going to talk about the Strat in the uh uh in the gear


11:36

section you know that's going to come up in a bit but uh you know toward the uh


11:42

you know the end of the in the' 40s you of course you have the Tiffany transcriptions you have some other things where they're working with


11:48

MGM and by mid 1954 Elden is actually at the tail end of his time with Bob Wills


11:56

there was a break in there where he didn't play with Bob and that was during the second world war when Elden was


12:02

drafted and was an artillery captain and he uh he he served our country so uh but


12:10

he he was with uh Bob Wills for quite a long period of time and he quit in uh in


12:16

mid to late 1954 to work with a guy named Hy Nicks who had had a hit with a big balls in


12:23

cow toown which of course youit tune that all the kids love and uh


12:29

yeah and then after that Elden kind of disappears from the music scene part of it is that his style of playing is not


12:37

really wanted anymore you know Bob Wills is not very popular at this point uh


12:43

Western swing and that style of playing is not popular it's not until uh and


12:50

just you know kind of staying on on course uh Elden actually starts tuning


12:55

pianos and teaching music in Tulsa and and that kind of becomes his gig until


13:01

the late 1960s when Merl Haggard starts putting together a a group of former Texas


13:09

Playboys so that he can do a Bob Wills tribute album called best damn fiddle player in the


13:14

world that album is a huge Touchstone and it starts a spark of a western swing


13:22

Revival and that album is wonderful if you haven't heard it you need to hear it um and it brings about a reunion of the


13:31

surviving Texas Playboys and even Bob is there even though he's had a a stroke and is not able to perform and it's


13:38

called Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys for the last time and those are really great recordings after that you know of


13:45

course uh or during that period of time you get you know things like Commander Cody and you get a sleep at the wheel


13:51

and all these other bands that are heavily influenced by Bob Wills and you get a uh you know a Revival you know of


13:58

Western swing uh you get Elden and Tiny Moore tiny Moore of course was the great five string mandolinist uh with the Bob


14:06

Wills you know the two of them you know start uh playing with Merl Haggard off


14:12

and on throughout the 70s and into the 1980s and you get uh you know a lot of


14:17

the Bob Wills veterans performing together again


14:23

sometimes as the Playboys to or under different names and uh and you get some


14:29

tribute records from asleep at the wheel and others that uh that utilize as many of the old players as they can as are


14:36

still alive and still able to play and uh Elden you know keeps playing into the


14:41

'90s and uh what a uh what a great player and a uh and a great story


14:50

um let's uh let's talk about his gear so I'm going to change Pages for this so uh


14:58

one thing I I I should add is that uh of course elden's playing was uh was very


15:05

influenced by Eddie Lang who played arpeggios and such and of course it had


15:11

a lot of similarities his rhythm style had a lot of similarities with Freddy green all right let's talk gear so early


15:20

on Elden played a Gibson LC flattop and then after that briefly played a


15:27

rickenbacher frying pan guitar so this was the earliest solid body guitar it


15:32

was you know of course called The Electro a22 and uh he briefly played it but of


15:38

course it uh Bob Wills did not like the appearance of it and uh and so he said I


15:45

want I want people to know that you're playing guitar and of course cuz it looked like that little frying pan with a neck on it uh as we can see in this


15:53

picture um yeah it didn't it didn't cut the mustard even though it probably uh


15:58

Amplified well and and you know certainly could be heard uh it didn't it didn't pass the the visual


16:05

test so he began playing a uh Gibson super 400 that was owned by Bob Wills


16:13

and so he uh he got it or you know wheeled and dealed with Bob and so here's a photo of uh you know of Elden


16:20

and Bob early on with the uh super 400 and it's uh you have to remember those


16:27

guitars were called a super 400 because when they were released they were $400 and so if you take the mid-30s and you


16:34

paid $400 if you take inflation into account that's like $8,500 in today's


16:40

money so that was an extremely expensive pro guitar that was made by Gibson in


16:47

the 1930s so he played this 30s super 400 he tried using a crystal


16:53

pickup and he said that that didn't work very well because it was very uneven with you know certain strings would be


16:59

louder than others and then uh you know de arand releases their uh you know what


17:05

we call the monkey on a stick which is that Chrome pickup that was on the the slider that mounts on the you know the


17:12

end of the neck and the the tail in the uh the bridge and uh you know you're able to slide it around and it has a


17:19

volume and tone control and so he uh used that so I think we have a picture here of him with the super 400 now with


17:26

the monkey on a stick um then in uh in


17:31

1940 he started playing a Gibson es-150 you know like a Charlie Christian guitar


17:36

so here's a photo of that um yeah and apparently he didn't


17:42

use it for a a real long time because he didn't really apparently he didn't really love the guitar I'm sure he had


17:48

the matching amp to go with it and such um part of that rig was a volume pedal


17:55

and so again this is like 1940 he you know El is using a volume pedal and the reason for that is that Bob Wills was


18:02

Notorious for just taking his bow to his fiddle and he would just point at you and there wasn't enough time to hit the


18:08

volume control especially on like some big archtop guitar and the volume control is you know way over here or something like that so uh they you know


18:15

dearm made a volume pedal uh that they started you know selling in the in the 19 late 1930s and so uh yeah so he had


18:24

his dearm pickup and his dearm volume pedal and he was ready to gas it up


18:30

whenever it was his turn to solo uh he continued playing the Super


18:36

400 and the of course the the es150 with the Charlie Christian pickup and you


18:42

know those those two guitars kind of throughout that time period uh but more so the the super 400 with the dearman


18:49

pickup than the uh the Charlie Christian es150 and uh then we get we get this


18:56

picture which has to be at least 1949 because you have a TV TV front amp from


19:03

Fender and you have a Gibson es5 you know triple pickup guitar so that's the


19:09

first year for both of those so it's it's got to be uh you know the earliest


19:14

it could be is 49 it could be a little bit you know later than that this is


19:20

probably any you know at some point the super 400 kind of fell apart which is is


19:26

awful but uh he said that the uh the bracing and it you know bracings came unglued and I guess there wasn't really


19:32

repairman super available and he says he briefly played a uh another blonde Gibson for a bit but


19:39

didn't like it and that gets us up to the 1954 Stratocaster so let's talk


19:47

about Leo and Bob Wills in the Texas Playboys so Leo was a big fan of Bob


19:53

Wills and his band and started supplying them with amplifiers uh we don't know if


19:59

they were gifts or whether they were discounted but besides uh you know he


20:04

would also service them and so whenever the uh the Playboys were in town they would go to the fender Factory and they


20:12

would get their amplifiers fixed up you know New tubes whatever needed to be done and he was also working on their


20:19

guitars to a degree even if they weren't fenders so Junior Bernard had a epone


20:24

emperor that uh Leo added a pick up to and uh and some wiring and such and Leo


20:33

was trying to get Elden to play the nocaster broadcaster Telecaster you know


20:40

Esquire thing uh but Elden was not interested at


20:45

all and uh Leo tried to give him one and Elden wouldn't take it so Elden was not


20:52

interested at all so in 54 Leo had a special Strat built and he


21:01

had it painted gold and it's the only gold 54 Strat and uh and he gifted it to Elden


21:09

and Elden at first was taken back because he still didn't you know he


21:15

still didn't know whether this was something he wanted to play or not cuz he had been an a Gibson or epone I guess


21:21

archtop guy and uh wasn't really interested in becoming a solid body


21:26

player but Leo and insisted and he finally just said look take it with you


21:31

and if you don't like it just bring it back the next time yall are in town the next time you stop by the factory to


21:36

have stuff serviced so Elden took the guitar and he ended up loving it and he


21:41

kept it uh unfortunately it wasn't long after this after getting the guitar that


21:47

he left Bob Wills and of course started playing with Hoy Nicks of big balls in cow toown Fame so we don't have any


21:55

pictures that I've been able to unearth of Elden playing with the Playboys in


22:00

the 50s with that guitar and I'm not sure you know about you know recording


22:06

so I uh you know we don't have any for sure recordings from the 50s that that I


22:13

I would you know stake my life on that that feature the Strat however there are


22:20

there's tons of recordings of him using the Strat with you know of course Merl


22:27

Haggard and with uh you know all sorts of characters and so there are later recordings also on the uh Spotify


22:34

playlist but yeah you can listen to the best damn fiddle player Merl Haggard record or Playboys for the last time or


22:41

you know all you know the tribute things that have been done Through The Years also there's there's some great footage on YouTube of uh where Elden was filmed


22:50

in the 1980s playing uh like mcow blues and some other Tunes you know where


22:55

there's the video guy is just right on him and you get to see him the whole song and you get to see him work the


23:02

neck of that old Strat so let's talk about that Strat finally for all of you


23:10

that have been waiting so the guitar uh elden's 1954 Strat


23:19

castra Elden sold it to um to Strings West to Larry Briggs the owner of


23:24

strings West in Tulsa Oklahoma and and uh and he started


23:30

playing like a a strat plus you know with like lace sensors and and such and so that's kind of what he played at the


23:35

very end of his life and Larry owned the guitar for a long period of time and


23:42

then you know probably a let's see about 2015 or so it started


23:49

floating around and started changing hands so there were a number of highlevel collectors that would get the


23:56

guitar and then pass it on on and uh it was during this period of time that my


24:02

good friend JD Simo had access to the guitar and had it at his home for uh for


24:08

a day or two and while he had it he called me up and said hey you've got to


24:14

come down here and so JD will periodically do that and uh whenever he calls it's like you know it's going to


24:19

be something cool like I mean it's been like a real flying V or a burst or different things like JD will come upon


24:26

you know and get access to these things and and uh he's been kind enough to include me so I was very glad that he uh


24:34

that he did that and so he called me up and he said you got to come over now and so when I got over there you know here's


24:40

the guitar so here's a shot of me in JD's uh on his like back porch uh


24:46

holding the Strat you know giddy you can tell it's around 2015 cuz I have uh you


24:53

know darker hair so uh yeah but uh and a nice uh flowery


24:59

shirt uh then we uh we basically took all the strings off and we took it apart


25:06

and so here we get to photo number two where you can see the piece of masking


25:12

tape that's in the control cavity and it says Gloria was a common name uh that


25:19

she was one of the the workers she was Hispanic and she uh you know wired up a


25:24

lot of guitars and so there's her name and it has a dat of


25:29

6554 so uh we know that that's the earliest the guitar you know could have


25:36

been uh you know finished out so uh you know June 4th of


25:42

1954 the next shot is the back of the pots and some of the electronics and uh


25:49

you know here of course you get to see the old you know the old original uh cap


25:55

it's one microfarad uh looks like you you a little phone book thing is what they call them uh I don't know whether the


26:02

pots are all original uh the pot that we can see a a date code on it looks like


26:08

it's the 42nd week of 1953 which would make sense cuz that's late 53 that they could still have some of those pots


26:14

around but it looks like it's 100K of course that's the bottom tone control I don't know uh the other thing


26:22

that's really curious about it is it has those chicken head knobs which I mean we'll talk more about that later but of


26:28

course chicken head knobs would have a set screw and while the or original style you know Stratocaster knobs would


26:35

just be press on and you'd have a knurled pot so one of the things I wish that I had done was look closely at the


26:40

pots while I had access to them to see if they were knurled you know split Shaft or whe they were smooth you know


26:47

which would make sense with those chicken head knobs also there's a lot of


26:53

um we believe you as far as we know that those


26:58

chicken head knobs are original to the guitar you know which of course would have been used on Fender amps at that


27:04

point in 1954 and onward so uh who knows are they split shaft are they solid


27:11

shaft you know smooth ones regardless they have cool chicken head knobs which are uh I must admit they're a lot cooler


27:18

than just the regular you know Stratocaster knobs even if they are the short skirt you know from


27:24

54 uh but yeah uh let's see next shot you you get uh you get another shot of


27:31

the electronics and you can see the uh the masking tape that's on there that uh


27:36

that's kind of wrapping some of the wires and kind of keeping them clean and together uh let's see our next photo or


27:45

photo number five as it were we get a shot of the back of the pickups and you can see those those big magnet alo3


27:54

pickups and of course you see more masking tape uh you know around the the wiring on the pickups uh which makes it


28:01

seem like it hasn't been you know messed with a whole lot even though there is a video out there where a guy says he


28:06

changed out the neck pickup uh I don't know if this is after that or or not but


28:12

uh it doesn't look like it's been monkeyed with a whole lot because all that masking tape is still on there on the


28:18

wiring uh here shot number six you get to see uh you know the Gloria uh masking


28:25

tape again uh shot number seven we get to see


28:30

the uh the neck pocket shim and uh in there was you know of course I didn't


28:37

take a a photo of the whole piece of paper kind of un unfurled as it were but


28:44

it had a woman's name and it said call me so I guess Elden had a uh a


28:51

girlfriend or something at some point or or someone that wanted to be his girlfriend and they gave him a piece


28:57

piece of paper and he decided you know with her name and number on it and he decided to turn it into a neck shim so


29:04

uh so there he have it I think that's hilarious uh of course the next shot we


29:09

get one of the neck heel and uh yeah it's a pretty big shim on there so uh


29:16

you know really lifting the neck up out of the pocket uh next we get a shot of the neck


29:22

heel you know where you can see you know the uh the date and so you can see a you


29:30

know TG for too Gomez and you can see you know March of 54 so which would make sense it would


29:36

make sense the neck would probably be done before the uh the wiring and electronics would have been


29:42

done uh next shot we get the back of the headstock and you can see just how dark


29:48

the Finish has gotten and you can see little peaking of tan lines you know where the uh the tuners meet and that's


29:55

that's really nice uh uh next we get a uh a nice shot of the fretboard and you


30:02

can see just how much Elden played and how much he play he covered the whole


30:09

neck because the whole neck was worn down like crazy I mean just worn down uh


30:17

I couldn't believe it I mean there wasn't a clean spot on the fretboard the he played the entire neck of course next


30:24

shot we get a little bit more of the neck going all the way up to the


30:29

nut uh then up next we get a shot of the nut and you can see that it has been


30:36

changed out and maybe someone had some difficulty because you know on some of those early 50s guitars uh you know


30:43

early strats and and such some of them have a really weak little ledge right


30:49

here you know only the tiniest bit of wood here on the headstock end you know


30:55

where uh where the nut is so this area is really really thin and you can see


31:00

that on on that guitar it had that problem and so you've you know lost some wood as probably people replaced the nut


31:08

Through The Years uh certainly seems to you know when I played it it seemed like it had the original Frets on it which


31:14

were worn down to to nearly nothing and you had to use really light strings on it because uh yeah it you that was kind


31:22

of the only way to play it with with No Frets really all right


31:27

uh next we get uh we get a shot of the upper horn where you can see it kind of


31:33

the the uh very anod or you know kind of faded oxidized you know gold going into


31:40

green which is just really gorgeous and so it's kind of similar to the uh early gold top L Paws that you would see that


31:47

do kind of the same kind of thing where that it turns from gold into green uh and then you know just a you


31:56

know also I guess on this photo we'll stay on that and say you know of course the early 54 55 strats had uh pickup


32:04

covers that were made out of a really uh fragile material and so it was very common for them to crack and to come


32:12

apart and so here of course you can see some cracking and that kind of ivory looking pickup cover that's really cool


32:20

uh and the final shot is you know nice shot of the whole guitar and you can see


32:26

again and those wonderful uh pickup covers that are kind of coming apart down at the uh the bottom edge here and


32:35

uh and just those cool amp knobs and I would love to know if those you know


32:40

knobs were you know original to the guitar I mean it's it probably Leo or someone at the factory did put those on


32:48

but it's just was that done you know when Leo gave it to Elden or was it done


32:54

you know after the fact so was it done later on on cuz there's also photos of Elden at the factory with his Strat


33:02

where they're just restringing it for him um and which brings up an interesting uh you know just as far as


33:10

his uh his gear is concerned you of course he played that Strat for a very long time


33:16

and he used later on you know throughout the uh 70s and 80s he used Ernie Ball


33:23

strings and they were gauged 12 through 53 with a wound third we believe and I


33:29

know it's 12 through 53 and uh which makes total sense


33:36

because that's the kind of set that would have been on the guitar originally and I'm just going to State it right


33:41

here I think Fender guitars always came with round wound strings I don't think flat wounds were ever on Fender guitars


33:48

maybe on the base six or something like that but I think uh round wounds and Elden used round wound strings that was


33:55

he never used flat wounds as far as we know so uh yeah and he always uh as much


34:02

as he could he used an old Fender amp because he felt like that was really the sound to have that 54 Strat with an old


34:09

Fender amp and that was the uh the way it was supposed to sound and what a beautiful sound it was and what a


34:15

beautiful uh player and style and I hope you will check out the links down below


34:22

that have some uh you know some clips of him playing on YouTube uh the Spotify


34:27

playlist if you want to look at all these photos you know up close uh or or


34:33

just longer than than pausing a video or something you can go to my website ask zack.com there's a link in the


34:40

description also to there and you can the the photos are all going to be up on ask.com


34:46

so all right guys well I hope you enjoyed today's episode we did a a a


34:52

deep dive talking about Elden and his Strat and his significance uh I need to


34:58

give credit where credit is due and and a big hunk of credit needs to go to Rich


35:06

Kinsley who wrote a beautiful article on Elden in the March 1988 issue of Guitar


35:15

Player magazine has Chuck Barry on the cover this issue has also an article on


35:21

Ry cter and emry Gordy Jr my favorite country based player and uh I learned a


35:27

lot and used a lot of the material so I needed to give credit to Rich Kinsley for uh doing this interview he


35:33

interviewed you know of course Elden while he was still alive and uh and and playing so uh thank you Rich uh for that


35:42

beautiful article that you wrote for a Guitar Player magazine also I need to thank mint Morris so he is a educator


35:51

and guitarist down in Austin Texas that does a lot of lessons and he did a whole


35:57

series on Elden and he is who I stole the uh the cording that I did on Ider


36:05

red I stole that verbatim from mint so if you are wanting to learn more of that


36:11

style you know he you know shows how to how to do that on a lot of the different


36:16

Bob Wills tunes and uh yeah what a what a great player so I'll put a link to uh


36:23

to Mint and his uh his lessons and such you ought to ought to support him all


36:29

right guys thanks and we'll see you next time


36:52

bye-bye

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android