How did a radio repair man make an instrument so sublime that it makes giants of music weep with reverence? As the Fender Stratocaster turns 70, we explore its extraordinary life
‘I found the cheapest Strat in all the shops,” says Nile Rodgers, speaking to me from Miami Beach, the very place he went trawling for what would later be regarded as the world’s greatest electric guitar. “I traded in my Gibson Barney Kessel. The guy behind the counter gave me the Strat – and $300 back. It was the real runt of the litter.”
In a nod to the model played by his hero Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969, Rodgers stripped the guitar and painted it Olympic white. He then locked himself in his bathroom for three days – “woodshedding” he calls it – until he’d mastered “chucking”, a dazzling new technique that blended offbeat strumming with the muting of fretted notes. It’s a style made for the Strat’s rich percussive qualities and slick feel.
