Australia's First Stratocaster
05/03/08 10:06 Filed in: Fender Guitars
Back in the summer of 1979, I placed an ad in a local magazine for a guitar player. I got one call, from a guy named Steve Jackson. After some discussion on the phone we realised we had a common passion, Fender Guitars.
At the time I had a 1960 Candy Apple Red Stratocaster, and Steve had a 1959 Sunburst Stratocaster. We regularly got together with friends to compare our collections and discuss vintage guitars. Amongst us we had a variety of sixties Stratocasters and Telecasters, but no one had a maple neck fifties Stratocaster.
He was glad to hear from me and agreed to have me come down to look at his guitar, which amazingly he still had. I arranged a time and then called Steve Jackson and told him what I had possibly found.
We ventured down to Ashfield in Sydney's inner west, met Johnny Wade and upon entering his unit, we were struck by the collection of vintage guitars and amplifiers all over the apartment, from a Gibson L-5, to a Gretsch guitar amp with speaker grilles on all sides and bulls horns painted on the grille, stuff we had never seen before basically.
However, there was no Stratocaster any where, so we asked cautiously, "Where is the Fender?". "Down the back in the garage" he said. We were amazed, it was the most valuable of all of his guitars and it was unused in the garage.
We went down to his garage, opened the door and walked to the far wall where a work bench was stacked to the ceiling with box after box of old sheet music. "It's under there somewhere" he said. Yes, it was crushed under the weight of boxes of sheet music...
After ten minutes, we had cleared the workbench to reveal a 'tweed' case, the first we had seen at that point. We knew we were onto an old Stratocaster! We carefully laid it on the floor of the garage and slowly opened the case.
Right there in front of us, was the first ever maple neck fifties Stratocaster we had ever seen, and likely, the very first in Australia. It was all there, totally original and in pretty good shape.
It was well played of course as Johnny used it for many years after selling his Gibson Les Paul Goldtop because he did not like the way it dug into his ribs, and the appeal of the contour body was just too tempting. It features bakelite pickup covers, tone and volume knobs.
(At the time, Johnny had a friend who played on a cruise ship which sailed between Sydney and the U.S.A. He asked him to pick up a Stratocaster for him on his next trip, and he brought this guitar back to Australia for him.)
One peculiar thing about the guitar, was the lack of paint on the top horn of the body which was out of place considering the condition of the rest of the guitar. When asked, Johnny replied: "I had a residency at the Brighton Hotel and left the guitar leaning against the wall in the Manager's office next to the Hotel's safe. Every time the manager opened the safe, the door would bang against the guitar, and over time it removed the paint."
"I am going to get a friend to French Polish it" he says. "No!" I said, for obvious reasons, and thankfully he did not. I asked if he would sell me the guitar, but he refused and offered to leave it to me in his will. Sometime later I asked to bring another friend to see the guitar, and on that second visit he asked me if I still wanted to buy the guitar. After a short negotiation, I bought the guitar for $1500
I played the guitar regularly around the Sydney circuit for a couple of years, until that day when Steve Jackson rang me to say he had a collector interested in obtaining a fifties Stratocaster. Needing money at the time, I sold the guitar for $6500. It's new owner kept it for a couple of years, and then sold it on to Midnight Oil.
This guitar is now known as the 'Johnny Wade' Stratocaster, and in retrospect it is amazing to think of the Australian music history this guitar has been a part of. Recorded many times with both Johnny Wade (Pictured at left, who recorded over 70 records!) and Midnight Oil, it has appeared all over Australia at various gigs, and it must surely be the only Stratocaster with it's entire history known, right down to how it's paint was scratched off!
When Midnight Oil eventually off loaded the guitar it was back at Jacksons Rare Guitars, and offered to me by Steve. So I bought it back again for a considerably larger sum than I sold it for! Again I kept it for a few years but as I was not playing and thought that guitars had reached their peak in terms of investment value, I sold it again....yes I regret that decision for more than the obvious reason. This is a very special guitar, and those who play it fall in love with the sound as it is one of the best sounding Stratocaster's you're ever likely to hear, and then, there is all that history....
At the time I had a 1960 Candy Apple Red Stratocaster, and Steve had a 1959 Sunburst Stratocaster. We regularly got together with friends to compare our collections and discuss vintage guitars. Amongst us we had a variety of sixties Stratocasters and Telecasters, but no one had a maple neck fifties Stratocaster.
In late 1980 I had a discussion with my father about my 1960 Stratocaster, and he recalled the very first Stratocaster he had ever seen. "My cousin Johnny Wade used to have a brown one" he said, which confused me at first, but he continued, "It sorted faded from black to brown". I asked, "Like a sunburst you mean?", "Yeah like a sunburst", he said. "Any red in there Dad?", "no" he said.
It occurred to me that this had to be a 50's Stratocaster, so I went through every 'Wade' in the phone book until I found 'the' Johnny Wade. (who incidentally was really Charlie Wade, 'Johnny' was his stage name and he was very well known in the 50's as a 'Hawaiian' style Jazz guitarist/singer)
We ventured down to Ashfield in Sydney's inner west, met Johnny Wade and upon entering his unit, we were struck by the collection of vintage guitars and amplifiers all over the apartment, from a Gibson L-5, to a Gretsch guitar amp with speaker grilles on all sides and bulls horns painted on the grille, stuff we had never seen before basically.
However, there was no Stratocaster any where, so we asked cautiously, "Where is the Fender?". "Down the back in the garage" he said. We were amazed, it was the most valuable of all of his guitars and it was unused in the garage.
We went down to his garage, opened the door and walked to the far wall where a work bench was stacked to the ceiling with box after box of old sheet music. "It's under there somewhere" he said. Yes, it was crushed under the weight of boxes of sheet music...
After ten minutes, we had cleared the workbench to reveal a 'tweed' case, the first we had seen at that point. We knew we were onto an old Stratocaster! We carefully laid it on the floor of the garage and slowly opened the case.
Right there in front of us, was the first ever maple neck fifties Stratocaster we had ever seen, and likely, the very first in Australia. It was all there, totally original and in pretty good shape.
It was well played of course as Johnny used it for many years after selling his Gibson Les Paul Goldtop because he did not like the way it dug into his ribs, and the appeal of the contour body was just too tempting. It features bakelite pickup covers, tone and volume knobs.
(At the time, Johnny had a friend who played on a cruise ship which sailed between Sydney and the U.S.A. He asked him to pick up a Stratocaster for him on his next trip, and he brought this guitar back to Australia for him.)
One peculiar thing about the guitar, was the lack of paint on the top horn of the body which was out of place considering the condition of the rest of the guitar. When asked, Johnny replied: "I had a residency at the Brighton Hotel and left the guitar leaning against the wall in the Manager's office next to the Hotel's safe. Every time the manager opened the safe, the door would bang against the guitar, and over time it removed the paint."
"I am going to get a friend to French Polish it" he says. "No!" I said, for obvious reasons, and thankfully he did not. I asked if he would sell me the guitar, but he refused and offered to leave it to me in his will. Sometime later I asked to bring another friend to see the guitar, and on that second visit he asked me if I still wanted to buy the guitar. After a short negotiation, I bought the guitar for $1500
I played the guitar regularly around the Sydney circuit for a couple of years, until that day when Steve Jackson rang me to say he had a collector interested in obtaining a fifties Stratocaster. Needing money at the time, I sold the guitar for $6500. It's new owner kept it for a couple of years, and then sold it on to Midnight Oil.
This guitar is now known as the 'Johnny Wade' Stratocaster, and in retrospect it is amazing to think of the Australian music history this guitar has been a part of. Recorded many times with both Johnny Wade (Pictured at left, who recorded over 70 records!) and Midnight Oil, it has appeared all over Australia at various gigs, and it must surely be the only Stratocaster with it's entire history known, right down to how it's paint was scratched off!
When Midnight Oil eventually off loaded the guitar it was back at Jacksons Rare Guitars, and offered to me by Steve. So I bought it back again for a considerably larger sum than I sold it for! Again I kept it for a few years but as I was not playing and thought that guitars had reached their peak in terms of investment value, I sold it again....yes I regret that decision for more than the obvious reason. This is a very special guitar, and those who play it fall in love with the sound as it is one of the best sounding Stratocaster's you're ever likely to hear, and then, there is all that history....