You might be cool, but you will never be Buddy Guy cool.
If you are a student of the blues, you know that Buddy Guy is one of its elder statesmen. Part of his appeal is his signature guitar, a polka-dot Fender Stratocaster, a unique instrument. No one else has a guitar that looks anything like it. But why polka dots?
As a Black person born in Lettsworth, Louisiana, in 1936, Buddy learned the blues the hard way.
His parents were sharecroppers, so his childhood consisted primarily of picking cotton. He first began playing the guitar on a Diddley bow that he made himself.
When he was in his early teens, he graduated to playing an actual guitar that a friendly man in his neighborhood bought for him. The man saw him sitting on his porch each day, trying to figure out how to play the dilapidated or homemade instruments that he had available to him, and he took pity on the young Buddy, buying him a Harmony acoustic guitar.
Buddy used this gift to full effect. As he became older, he began to play with bands in and around Baton Rouge, but he eventually decided to move to the city with, at the time, the biggest blues music scene — Chicago.
This was a tough decision for Buddy, since his father had recently died and his mother, Isabell, had fallen ill. In fact, in the late 1950s, as Buddy was preparing to move to Illinois to pursue music as a career, he had a discussion about it with his mother.
Her health was failing by this point, so to make the blow of leaving softer, he promised her that he was going to go to Chicago, make a lot of money, and come back to buy her a polka-dot Cadillac.
Buddy moved to Chicago and soon fell in with blues legend Muddy Waters, who hired him and helped jump-start his career. Unfortunately, his career didn’t take off in time. Isabell passed away in 1968, just a few years before Buddy made it big.
As a way of honoring his promise to his mother, many years later he contacted Fender and started ordering polka-dot guitars. He can also be seen wearing polka-dot shirts in many live shows.
Buddy Guy eventually made it big. He worked with such greats as Muddy, Howlin’ Wolf, and Koko Taylor. He influenced an entire generation of bluesmen such as Eric Clapton, SRV, and Jimi Hendrix. He continues to have a successful career even in his mid-80s. He even owns a popular blues club in Chicago, Buddy Guy’s Legends.
Buddy Guy is a true blues legend, but the coolest thing about him? He never forgot his mamma.
If it were, I would have already traveled back to July 20, 1983. Why that date? So I could go to the El Mocambo club in Toronto, Ontario.
And then you would have seen me in the crowd at this show:
The best rock/blues show of all time captured on film
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s stop at the El Mocambo that night became the best rock/blues show ever caught on camera. (I will die on this hill.)
And much of the night, he played his main guitar, Number One.
His relationship with Number One was almost romantic in nature; he even called the guitar his “first wife.”
But where did Number One come from? What is its backstory? And where is it now, some three-and-a-half decades after Stevie’s untimely demise?
Let’s find out.
The Most Iconic Guitar in the Blues
SRV’s Number One is quite possibly the most iconic guitar in the blues, perhaps only rivaled by the likes of B.B. King’s Lucille and Buddy Guy’s polka-dot Stratocasters.
It wasn’t the only guitar Stevie owned, but it was the most special. Special enough that he played it at every show and on every album from the moment he acquired it until his death in 1990. His relationship with Number One was almost romantic in nature; he even called the guitar his “first wife.”
Deep in the Heart of Texas
He received the guitar in 1973—long before he was a household name—from Ray Henning, owner of the Heart of Texas music shop in Austin.
The story goes that Stevie saw the sunburst Fender in Ray’s shop and immediately knew it was special, without even playing it. He arranged a trade with the owner, swapping it for a 1963 Stratocaster. Henning happily traded guitars since the ’63 was in much better condition than the one hanging on his wall.
Stevie saw the sunburst Fender in Ray’s shop and immediately knew it was special, without even playing it.
In an interesting twist of fate, the previous owner of what would soon become Number One was a big name in music at the time, Christopher Cross. He supposedly traded in the guitar for a Les Paul because he was looking for the thicker sound of humbuckers. (Stevie, by contrast, would have no problem dialing in a thick sound!)
Stratocaster or partscaster?
The guitar itself was a mix-and-match affair. It comprised a 1962 body, a 1963 neck, and pickups from 1959.
The instrument was also well used by the time Stevie put his hands on it in ’73. Of course, he would go on to subject it to nightly abuse over the next 27 years.
“Rebuilt more times than a custom Chevy!”
Stevie and his guitar tech, Rene Martinez, modified the guitar quite a bit over the years. This was usually because of necessary repairs. SRV was once quoted as saying, “[Number One] was rebuilt more times than a custom Chevy.”
The neck took the brunt of the abuse. SRV was not a tall man, standing only 5’5”, but he had large, strong hands. The chunky, D-shaped neck was a perfect fit for him, but his heavy playing and finger strength, combined with the ridiculously heavy-gauge strings he used (generally 13s or even thicker!), were no match for the fretboard.
Eventually, the neck was damaged beyond repair. (Stevie once threw it against a wall, breaking the headstock, which did not help.) Martinez replaced the neck with one from another of Stevie’s Strats. However, that neck broke a month before Stevie’s death when a piece of stage rigging fell on it!
The neck was refretted so many times that the fretboard itself had to be re-profiled.
Another mass casualty of Stevie’s guitar playing were tremolo arms, which he would break constantly. From the heavy strings and extra springs in the tremolo, it took so much force to use the bars that they would just break.
SRV playing Number One.
Stevie also replaced the stock tremolo unit with a left-handed model at some point early on, with the result that the arm’s pivot point was above the strings and not below them. He did this to emulate Jimi Hendrix and Otis Rush, both of whom were lefties who played right-handed guitars upside down.
Other distinctive features of Number One
Perhaps the most distinctive feature on Number One, and many of his other guitars, were the “SRV” decals he stuck to the pickguard. These, too, had to be replaced often due to wear and tear, and they also changed in appearance over the years. Rene stated that he often had to scour truck stops to find just the right kind of stickers.
Where Number One Is Today
After Stevie’s death, Rene reinstalled the original 1963 neck. He then gave the guitar to SRV’s brother, Jimmie Vaughan, who still has the iconic instrument to this day.
“Every time I go back to that stuff, it kicks my ass, because I have to go through it all again.”
According to Jimmie, it’s locked away in a bank vault with Stevie Ray’s other equipment. “Every time I go back to that stuff, it kicks my ass, because I have to go through it all again.” I feel for you, Jimmie.
While SRV’s Number One is securely locked away for the foreseeable future, Fender did work with Jimmie to authorize 100 replicas. Built in the early 2000s, they originally sold for $10,000. Their selling price now reaches upward of $50,000.
SRV’s Number One and Its Place in Music History
Stevie used and abused Number One until his death in 1990. The guitar was responsible for many of the most memorable blues songs of all time. And for many of us, it still only takes hearing one note to recognize both the player and the instrument.
Number One truly is an iconic piece of music history, and thankfully, much of its life has been documented through albums, videos, and interviews.
Yep, the Columbia Broadcasting System. The same people who brought us such hits as Survivor and NCIS bought a guitar company because…well, why would a TV company want to make musical instruments, anyway?
Leo Fender thought he was dying
Leo Fender was a sick man. At least that’s what he told himself. In the 1950s, he went to the doctor due to ongoing health concerns and was diagnosed with a streptococcal sinus infection. The effects of his illness lingered on for years and were so bad, it seems, that by 1964 Leo thought the end was near.* He decided to get his affairs in order, which meant selling Fender.
He first went to his business partner, Donald Randall, and offered him a deal to buy the company for a cool $1.5 million. Randall didn’t have that kind of money, but he told Leo that he would attempt to find a buyer.
Randall eventually found CBS and they became interested in buying the company. Leo agreed to sell Fender for $13 million (that’s $118 million in 2022 dollars), and the contract was signed just after the turn of the new year in 1965.
A more diverse CBS, but not in a good way
In the 1960s, CBS was on a mission. That mission could be described in one word: diversification.
CBS’s goal was to treat their business like the stock market by purchasing holdings in a number of different industries, which is exactly what they did. During this time they acquired such varied holdings as Woman’s Day magazine, Steinway pianos, Fender, and —yes, really — the New York Yankees baseball team.
Diversification is a good idea in a financial portfolio, but it’s not always the best business strategy, something CBS found out the hard way.
Prioritizing cost over quality
Once they purchased Fender, it was clear that they did not understand the guitar market or what players actually wanted. CBS’s main goal was to cut costs and maximize profits, which resulted in changes over the next 20 years that led to a significant decrease in the quality of Fender guitars.
The material used to fabricate pick guards was changed. They changed the finish on guitars from nitrocellulose to polyester, resulting in a less natural feel. Name-brand tuning machines and quality nickel hardware were replaced with cheaper alternatives. The traditional four-bolt neck pocket was redesigned with just three bolts.
Buying back the brand
The result of changes like this and additional cost-cutting measures caused a series of quality issues with Fender guitars. By the mid 1980s, the brand was hurting. In 1985, Fender employees took the matter into their own hands by buying the company back from CBS, and the present-day Fender Musical Instruments Corporation was born.
Fender started over again. They literally closed down the factory and retrained every employee, and in the ensuing years they began to see an increase in quality. Today, of course, they have a very good reputation among players and are back to being one of the top guitar brands in the world.
As for CBS, they also divested themselves of Steinway and several other musical instrument companies when they sold Fender. (And they sold the Yankees to George Steinbrenner in 1973.)
Leo Fender and others believed that the CBS acquisition would help the guitar company by bringing in more money and personnel. Instead, the “CBS years” became a dark stain on the Fender company because of their shift to focus on mass production over quality.
*Leo Fender ended up going on to start Music Man and G&L guitars. He passed away in 1991.
It’s a Fender Stratocaster, of course. The axe used by countless rock-and-roll gods, from Jimi Henrix to Eric Clapton. It’s iconic. It defined a brand and even a way of life.
Yet have you ever noticed how many companies make a “Stratocaster” guitar? Any company — heck, any luthier — worth their salt has a Strat option that, for the most part, has an identical body to a real Fender. But what about trademark laws? Why doesn’t Fender step in to stop these other guitar makers from using their design?
Designing the Stratocaster
The Stratocaster was unquestionably designed by Leo Fender in 1954. At the time, it was revolutionary, not resembling any other guitar on the market. It had a double cutaway and an instantly iconic look. The look was good enough — nay, perfect enough — that it has virtually remained unchanged for almost 70 years.
So why didn’t Fender step in and stop the copycats?
Well, they tried — and failed.
Trademarks and Fender’s Day in Court
Fender did in fact bring the matter to court in 2008. The company sued a number of their competitors for using several of their guitar and bass body shapes, including the Strat body. And they were clearly correct in stating that these other guitar makers 100 percent copied Fender’s designs.
So why did they lose their court case? To understand, you have to know a little bit about trademark law.
According to the USPTO, trademarks are “any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things that identifies your goods or services. It’s how customers recognize you in the marketplace and distinguish you from your competitors.”
It’s the second sentence that is important here — it’s something (like a guitar body shape) that distinguishes you from the other guy.
Late to the Party
But here’s the rub: Fender waited 54 years before attempting to trademark the Stratocaster body. By that time, copycat Strats had been around for decades. Literally everybody had a Strat version of their own. By 2008, when the general public heard the phrase electric guitar they almost undoubtedly envisioned a Stratocaster. (The judge in the case even noted that the illustration of the term electric guitar in the dictionary looked like a Strat!)
Simply put, by the time Fender got around to trying to enforce their trademark, it was too late. Their revolutionary, iconic guitar body that had emerged standing head and shoulders above the competition had become…generic.
Had they sought trademark protection in 1958 instead of 2008, the results might have been very different. But as they say in France, c’est la vie.
