Black Strat back to a Fiesta Red Strat for Hank

[stephen]

This site (especially when members aren't trading insults or being smart arsed with each other.....!) can quite often turn up some interesting info. and characters......
Patrice, I remember coming across your name for the first time, credited as a source in the first guitar reference book I bought, after my teenage interest in guitars was re-kindled in 1990. It was in A.R. Duchossoir's excellent tome on the Fender Stratocaster. My copy of which has been well-thumbed & read over these past 20 odd years. Several guitars pictured within those pages are also credited to you. What an interesting story that you've contibuted & shared with us about that 'other' Fiesta Red guitar!
I also always look forward to reading any of Didier's posts as he is a mine of information in this area, refuses to be drawn into any 'cattiness' and someone that I regard as probably the most knowledgeable contributor to this site. Must be something about the French..........!

Stephen.

[abstamaria]

Wonderful story, Patrice.

Merci.

Andres

[Didier]

BTW, just in case you might not know, Patrice is lead guitarist of his Shadows' tribute band "Guitar Express" (the same name as the one he used for his former vintage guitar import business). They played at the 2000 Shadowmania. Here is an extract of a more recent concert in a Paris theater :



Strangely enough, he plays a fiesta red Strat !

Didier

[abstamaria]

Thanks, Didier. I didn't make the connection. Great band, wonderful showmanship.

Andy

[abstamaria]

Such interesting reading still, seven years on.

[Gatwick1946]

I agree.

I think Hank gets the same enjoyment out of guitars as we do?. It seems to me that, over the years, Hank has tried to give us fans etc., the best show during performances, taking into account the almost infinite sounds one can now obtain from an electic guiitar, (in contrast to say, 60+ years ago), when amplified through the huge variety of mods etc?

I am fortunate that my fumblings on the instrument receive little public scrutinity, whereas Hank has to expect that much of what he does is subject to agreat quantity of discussion.

I enjoy it all.
Long may it continue.
Kindest regards,
Christopher

[Gatwick1946]

What a great band. Are they still going?

PS - another great group are/were the Ryders - are they still active? I thought the lead guitarist had superb tone, which was perfectly supported by the 2 other guitarists and bass and drums.

Kindest regards,
Christopher.

[bor64]

Christopher,

As far as I know both bands are still going strong.
Your right about Hank, the time I spoke him about guitars, he was as keen as most of us about all things guitar!
To be honest when I was in Hanks company, the border between fan and idol was gone completely(it toke 3 meetings to get past my nerves to be honest).
At the first two meetings Hank was po-light and funny but with a curtain "distance" because he didn't know me and treated me as a fan.
From then on it was different, just two guitar nuts with more knowledge between us that was good for us...we kept talking to the point Hank was almost late for soundcheck a few times.
In Amsterdam we could hear Bruce practising his singing to loosen his vocal-cords next door and we keep discussing several Selmer type guitars of different make...

Cheers Rob

[MeBHank]

Hi,

Hank did try the 58 Strat for a track or two on the Reunited CD but didn't actually record any tracks with it. Just like 34346 (and the Oasis reproductions) it had a rather bright/thin sound compared to his Custom Shop Strats, though he went in this direction when he had the CS54 pickups fitted to his Strats for the tour.

Paul.

Great to read this thread again.

Paul, are you saying it's the pickups which resulted in the thinner sound? Or did Hank's guitars still sound 'thicker' after being fitted with CS54s?

[bor64]

I lost count how many pre-cbs strats I handled and played...
The ones with normal 10-46 strings 95% sounded "thin" in the high spectrum at first.
Both of my 60 slabboard strats (just some digits away from each other) sound different .
The red one, bell like tone very transparent with a hint of warmness in the mid and low.
The blue one, more warm and kinda growl with a warmer high.
Funny enough I measured the pu's only a sparsely different 2 digits after the comma, so on the meter readable... but I can't imagine anyone except our dogs can hear the difference.
The blue one is just a little more heavier 150 gr. with a fatter neck.

The guitars I've played, stringed with full nickel 14-62 or 13-52 sounded more warmer with body.
I remember when I bought my aug 58 (026xxx) stringed with 10-46 (about 40 years ago) sounded fairly thin in compare with the later 14-62 full nickel strings.
Setup is so important , a small twist with a screwdriver can do so much with the pickup height and sound...

Cheers Rob