Fender’s 70th Anniversary American Vintage II 1954 Stratocaster has the feel, tone, and look of a genuine heirloom guitar.
As a kid, my aesthetic leanings—particularly where guitars were concerned—were a little anachronistic and specific. In a time when canonical classics and shred machines ruled the collective guitar consciousness, I lovedcustom colors and odd shapes, so a sunburst Stratocaster, particularly one with a maple neck, was, to my eyes, downright uptight and institutional.
And if you had taken my 12-year-old self to some magical used-guitar Wonka factory where I could have my pick of anything, I probably would have passed over a fortune in vintage guitars for a sherwood green Jaguar and a Vox Berkeley amp, or something equally awesome and relatively short on long-term-investment return.
Such contrary views have softened over the years, though. And my new open-mindedness lines up rather conveniently with the70th anniversary of the 1954 Stratocaster. To state the obvious, the 1954 Stratocaster remains, seven decades later, a future-gazing design. In many respects it is electric guitar design perfection—comfortable, balanced, full of varied tones, and fantastically ergonomic. I see that clearly now. And such vision, as it were, made this review of two 70th anniversary Stratocasters, from two ends of Fender’s price spectrum, a real pleasure. It’s a testament to the efficiencies and consistencies in modern guitar manufacturing that the $799, Mexico-madePlayer Series Anniversary 2-Color Sunburst Stratocaster and the $2,599 U.S.-made70th Anniversary American Vintage II 1954 Stratocaster share so much in terms of feel, playability, and tonality. Such similarities also speak to the visionary simplicity and elegance of the Stratocaster design. Much more than price distinguishes these instruments. Though expensive at $2,599, the 70th Anniversary American Vintage II 1954 Stratocaster has the feel of an heirloom—the kind of instrument that will hang behind the counter of the local guitar shop with a “do-not-play-without-asking” sign for eternity. And while the relatively inexpensive Player Series lacks the vintage precision and glamor of the American Vintage II, it is unquestionably a professional instrument that can hang in any gigging or recording situation and perform with aplomb.
70th Anniversary American Vintage II 1954 Stratocaster
If you obsess over vintage-guitar minutiae in the way a monocled entomologist studies variations in dragonfly wings, you could spend many seasons poring over differences among original 1954 Stratocasters as well as the reissues that honor them. In its first year of manufacture, the Stratocaster underwent several tweaks, changes, and refinements, some of which lasted mere months. In fact, though they number in the hundreds, Fender considered Stratocasters made before October 1954 “pre-production” models.
Most distinguishing design details on the Anniversary American Vintage II 1954 Stratocastersuggest an instrument made sometime around the middle or later part of 1954. Mini-skirt knobs, a “football” pickup switch, and rounded edges on the pickup covers are copied to the letter. Eight screws affix the single-ply pickguard to the body rather than the 11 used on later Stratocasters. The saddles are stamped with “Fender Pat Pend.” And the tuning machines are shaped like Kluson’s “no-line” tuners, used up to 1956. (By branding the machines with “FENDER” down the centerline, Fender effectively created a mashup of the ’56 “single-line” Kluson and the no-line configuration used in 1954, but I think we can be charitable and give Fender a pass here). The most arresting period-correct detail for casual Strat spotters is the headstock. With its gentler curves just below the “F” in the Fender decal and under the “R” in Stratocaster, it’s a reminder, perhaps, that the Telecaster remained fresh in the minds of Leo Fender and Freddie Tavares.
Befitting a guitar that costs north of $2,500, the AV II 1954 Strat is immaculately built. Our review specimen, at 8.6 pounds, is a little heavy for an ash-bodied Strat, but like most Strats, feels perfectly balanced. If our review guitar is heftier than the average ash Strat, it might be down to the extra mass in the chunky 1-piece maple neck. Fender calls the neck profile a “1954 C.” It feels more D-like to me, but regardless of profile its relative heft is a lovely thing and a welcome alternative to the love-it-or-you-don’t V profile on the similar American Vintage II 1957 Stratocaster or the slimmer, more generic C shapes that make up so many contemporary necks. Finding a guitar that feels just right can be harder than finding one that sounds good. And for some players this neck alone could justify the splurge-y price. If you have small hands or shreddy tendencies, it might not be your thing. And even for players with average or larger-sized mitts, the extra substance could lead to hand fatigue if your playing style or technique are at odds with the larger dimensions. Certainly, it’s different enough from the contemporary norm that you’ll want to spend a while at a shop with one before you commit to purchase. But I love the way the neck, and the 7.25" radius facilitate languid, lyrical string-bending and vibrato. And personally, I find the thicker neck less conducive to hand strain than slimmer necks that compel me to squeeze a bit more.
Ring and Zing
Stratocasters can sound pretty bright, and this 70th Anniversary AV II edition could probably shatter glass at its trebliest. But it also reminded me how much air and breath lives in a nice Stratocaster, how balanced and un-bossy they are in most contexts, and how responsive and sensitive to dynamics they can be. The pickups, which are built around alnico 3 magnets, are pretty quiet. But the output is discernibly more dimensional, open, and alive in the high-midrange than the alnico 5-equipped Player Series Stratocaster or the ’80s E-Series Stratocaster I also used for reference.
The bridge pickup can be a firecracker, but you hear a lot of detail, too. Hot transient notes give way to chiming overtones that blossom even more for the guitar’s perceptible resonance and sometimes surprising sustain. By picking hard and close to the bridge, you can coax a lot of raunch. But use a gentle fingerpicking touch with just flesh and nails up closer to the neck and the bridge pickup turns warm and quite civilized. As with any vintage-correct 1950s-style Stratocaster, there’s no tone control for the bridge pickup, but the dynamic range you can achieve with variation in picking intensity, technique, and position won’t leave you longing for one, either. I don’t gravitate toward the middle pickup on my own Stratocaster, but I lived there a lot in my evaluation of the AV II 1954. The spectrum of available tone shades sounds and feels especially wide and makes a beautiful platform for exploring quasi Richard Thompson-isms (particularly with a detuned 6th string—yum!) or tender, bubbling Velvet Underground tones. Like the bridge pickup, the middle showcases the AV II 1954’s sustain and resonance, and is particularly bloomy. The neck pickup, too, is honey sweet. As with the middle pickup, a detuned 6th string highlights expansive dynamic range and a rich overtone palette. With the tone control wide open, you can create major tone contrasts from this pickup alone, but a little tone attenuation goes a long way toward making the neck unit very, very mellow. Predictably, Curtis Mayfield or Hendrix-style soul-ballad phrasings sound magical at either setting. And if you’re wondering if you can sneak the 3-way switch into the out-of-phase 2 and 4 positions you’d get from a 5-way switch, the answer is an affirmative—as long as you use a tender touch. It doesn’t take much to knock the switch back into one of its three natural positions. But if I didn’t get too enthused, I could keep the switch in out-of-phase positions, and it sounded wonderful.
The Verdict
Sure, $2,599 is a lot of money to pay for a Stratocaster, and apart from the Jimmy Page Mirror Telecaster, it’s as expensive as any vintage-spec Fender that doesn’t come from the Custom Shop. For some customers and collectors that love limited edition runs, the 70th Anniversary distinction and accessories that come with the guitar will justify the price. But if you know you want a Stratocaster and long for something a little special, it might be worth saving up or selling some deadweight instruments to make room for this one. In terms of tone and playability, you are unlikely to regret the investment, and it’s fantastically versatile.
Fender Player Stratocaster Anniversary 2-Color Sunburst
The Player Series version of the 70th anniversary Strat.
I think Mexico-made Fenders are awesome. A lot of my friends do, too. Some have made MIM Fenders their No. 1 instrument. And though a few may have switched in new pickups or made modifications here and there, I’ve heard some of the same people express regret for spending money on improvements that didn’t improve the guitars in any measurable sense. If you get a good one, Mexico-made Fenders are still among the best deals in the business, and our review Player Stratocaster Anniversary plays beautifully, sounds exciting and pretty, is built rock-solid, and exudes plenty of mid-century Stratocaster essence.
Milestone Mishmash
If the AV II 1954 Stratocaster is an exercise in vintage exactitude, our Player Series Anniversary model (which makes no claim to year-specific accuracy) is a more hodge-podge homage to the Stratocaster’s early years. While it can be had with a maple neck, our review version came with a pau ferro fretboard and a 3-way pickup that makes it a sort of mid-’50s/early-’60s mashup. Design cues like the 2-color burst and spaghetti logo nod at 1954, but the tuning pegs, 9.5" fretboard radius, 5-position switch, 22 medium jumbo frets, headstock truss-rod access point, and bridge-pickup tone control are all trappings of a contemporary Strat. And though the neck fills the hand in a comfortable, vintage-y sort of way, it’s listed as a modern C profile, just like non-anniversary guitars elsewhere in the Player Series. The most distinctly 1954-like feature, really, is the finish, which is handsome, understated, lends a more classic air, and actually looks great against the pau ferro fretboard, which would usually accompany a redder, 3-color, ’60s-style burst.
Vibes for Less
You could play a guitar like the Player Stratocaster alongside a Strat as nice as the AV II 1954 anniversary model and end up feeling flat and disappointed—or you could be pleasantly surprised. My experience was distinctly in the latter category. While the alnico V Strat pickups (which are also the same as those found elsewhere in Player Series Stratocasters) lack the oxygenated, widescreen dimensionality of those in the AV II 1954 Strat (this goes for the middle pickup in particular), they communicate the unmistakable sonic signature of a Stratocaster with a bit more punch and authority. The bridge pickup, which in this case can be modified via the same tone control that governs the middle pickup, sounds snappy, surfy, garage-y, or can drive a fuzz to banshee-scream feedback extremes. The neck pickup, too, sounds delectable in all the ways that you want from the mellower side of a Strat. It’s a perfect mate for lyrical, melodic phrases and spare bluesy picking which benefits from the guitar’s excellent sustain properties. For a relatively inexpensive Strat, the Player Series is pretty quiet, too. Sixty-cycle hum goes with the territory here, but it is subdued and never distracting.
The Verdict
The Player Series Stratocaster is perennially among the best-selling electric guitars in the universe, and this 70th Anniversary edition makes the appeal easy to understand. Though it’s not a detail-for-detail 1954 Strat replica, the substantial neck (save for the glossy finish) exudes vintageness. And it definitely sounds classically, unmistakably Strat-like when you track it. For a guitar put together with so much care, $799 is a very attractive and fair price. And while its American Vintage II Anniversary counterpart may exude the essence of an heirloom, the Player Series sounds sweet and feels solid, stable, and familiar enough that, to paraphrase an old Fender ad campaign chestnut, you won’t want to part with this one, either.
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“I’m a fan of the riff,” says Jerry Cantrell. “I’m always collecting ideas, and you never know when they’re going to come, or what they’re going to turn into
Over the better part of an hour, only a couple of points of discussion seem to stoke his ire. One would be ’90s-era culture writers who felt compelled to brand a wide range of interesting bands from the same city (Seattle) with the same hollow tag (grunge). “It’s just a fucking label,” he says. “But I get it. You gotta have a fucking descriptor.” (When he gets miffed, or especially enthusiastic, Cantrell’s F-bombs can progress from steady punctuation to military fusillade.)
Another pet peeve: Those who seem bewildered by the fact that his solo work often evokes Alice in Chains. “It always trips me out,” he says, “when I hear comments or get questions all the time, like, ‘Well, this sounds like Alice.’ Well, what do you think it was going to sound like? I’m the guitar player and the songwriter of Alice. That’s what I do. Do you want me to not be myself? It’s just a bizarre, bizarre thing.” A big laugh follows.
“I’m always collecting ideas, and you never know when they’re going to come, or what they’re going to turn into. I look at it like depositing money in a bank.”
Cantrell, 58, has a right to feel irked by such exchanges. After all, he and the classic Alice lineup of vocalist Layne Staley, bassist Mike Starr, and drummer Sean Kinney invented a mesmeric, instantly identifiable sound that continues to stand alone in heavy music. On paper, the Alice formula doesn’t indicate multi-platinum success outright: off-kilter vocal harmonies shared between Staley and Cantrell, which can call to mind arcane American folk music or the classical avant-garde; parts written in odd time; lyrics about the most wrenching depths of drug addiction, a black cloud that followed the band throughout its ascent and tragically claimed Staley’s life in 2002 and Starr’s in 2011.
But Cantrell and Alice were also dedicated students of hard-rock history, who, along with their Seattle peers Soundgarden, helped to reinvent chart-topping metal for the alternative-rock era. To be sure, the guitarist ranks among the great riff maestros, and his solos, whether all-out wailing or comprised of a few bluesy bends, always had weight and meaning within the context of the song. And with all due respect to Extreme, no other hard-rock act explored acoustic music with more brilliant results.
Boasting nine tracks and coproduced by Cantrell and Joe Barresi, I Want Blood keeps the guitarist’s expert riffs and lyrical solos front and center.
On their masterpiece, the 1992 album Dirt, Alice in Chains managed to take Black Sabbath’s template for molten riffs into stranger, more artful, and more desperate territory, yet they also crafted tracks chock-full of hooks. A seamless meld of pop moves and bone-crushing heaviness is something of a holy grail for hard-rock songwriters and producers, and Dirt nabs it. Think of tracks like “Them Bones,” with its 7/8 intro riff and aslant vocal-harmony verses that resolve into a punchy, satisfying chorus—among the pithiest assessments of mortality in rock ’n’ roll. Or “Rooster,” an homage to Cantrell’s Vietnam-veteran father, with its left-field R&B harmonies and molasses-drip tempo. Somehow, these are songs that can rattle around in your brain throughout entire road trips or workdays; as of this writing, Dirt has sold five-million copies in the U.S.
“Let the players find their songs, and the songs find their players.”
Cantrell’s new album, I Want Blood, is his fourth solo release, and it’s a strong argument that he should continue to sound like himself and his legacy. Coproduced by Cantrell and hard-rock studio wizard Joe Barresi, its nine tracks tap into the Alice in Chains aesthetic in a way that will hit a sweet spot for longtime fans. As on the albums that Alice has released since Staley’s passing, with vocalist William DuVall, that indefinable sense of unease, that smoky ambiance of dread, isn’t so enveloping. But Cantrell’s most crucial gifts—the riff science, the knack for hooks, the belief that solos should be lyrical, musical, singable—are front and center, and razor-sharp.
What’s more, he’s recruited fellow hard-rock royalty to fulfill this vision. In addition to Barresi, whose credits comprise Kyuss, Melvins, Tool, QotSA and many, many others, the album’s personnel includes bassists Robert Trujillo and Duff McKagan, and drummers Mike Bordin (Faith No More) and Gil Sharone (Marilyn Manson, the Dillinger Escape Plan).
Through Alice in Chains’ rise in the early ’90s to recent years, Cantrell’s hard-rock presence has remained unshakeable. Here, he strikes a timeless rock 'n' roll pose.
Photo by Jordi Vidal/PhotoFuss
I Want Blood is a ripper. “Vilified” couples a chunky metal riff with wah and talk-box accents and a wandering, Eastern-tinged melody; “Off the Rails” matches a line à la John Carpenter’s Halloween score with a groove-metal thrust, before a radio-ready chorus kicks in. Ditto the chorus of “Let It Lie,” whose verse riff is pure Sabbath bliss. The earworm title track is the stuff music-sync-licensing dreams are made of. When he dials the tempo back toward ballad territory, as on “Echoes of Laughter,” “Afterglow,” or “It Comes,” Cantrell’s instinct for songcraft seems to get even stronger. As with Alice’s best LPs, I Want Blood stays with you and grows on you until it’s in steady rotation.
So what of that songcraft? It’s been over three decades since Cantrell debuted on record, and he’s still mining heavy gold. What’s the strategy, and what’s the secret? Does Cantrell’s work get harder or easier as he edges toward 60? “There’s a duality to it,” he says. “So in one way, I can answer that it’s pretty easy for me to make music. And then also, it’s fucking incredibly difficult to make something good. It can be both.”
He details the three-part work cycle that has defined his adult life: “There’s the demo process of writing. There’s the preproduction and actual recording of a record. And then there’s the period where you go out and tour it, along with all your other material, in a set. During that last third of the process, I’m really not writing, but through all the phases I’m always collecting riffs.” He’s also continually listening to great music, and allowing it to seep in. In the previous week, Cantrell says, he’d “rocked a bunch of Bad Company, UFO, AC/DC, some Maiden, some Hank Williams, some Ernest Tubb, some ‘Jungle Boogie.’”
Jerry Cantrell's Gear
This photo, taken from underneath the stage, shows Cantrell in his element, performing with Alice in Chains at Lollapalooza in the early ’90s.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- G&L “Blue Dress” Rampage
- G&L “No War” Rampage
- Gibson “D Trip” Les Paul Custom
- Gibson Les Paul Junior
- Gibson Flying V
- G&L ASAT
Amps
- Bogner Fish preamp
- Friedman JJ-100 signature head
- Snorkeler (Bogner-modded Marshall JCM800)
Effects
- Dunlop Jerry Cantrell Firefly Cry Baby Wah
- MXR Jerry Cantrell Firefly Talk Box
- MXR EQ
- MXR EVH Flanger
- MXR Smart Gate
- MXR Timmy
- MXR Poly Blue Octave
- MXR Reverb
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- Boss CE-5
- Boss DD-500
- Strymon Ola dBucket Chorus & Vibrato
Strings & Picks
- Dunlop strings
- Dunlop picks
“I’m a fan of the riff,” he adds. “I’m always collecting ideas, and you never know when they’re going to come, or what they’re going to turn into. I look at it like depositing money in a bank. Like if I’m in a dressing room somewhere and I’m just warming up, and I see [one of my bandmates] react to something that I’m playing—put it in the bank. If I have a superpower, it is being able to hear something that might be a cool thing to work up and develop into a full-on song.
“When I’m slugging out riffs and just jamming out, if it feels good to rock out and your head starts moving and your foot starts tapping and you got something good—you know. It’s got to hit on a primal level first, and satisfy in that way.”
Writing, then, is often the more cerebral duty of assembling the best of what Cantrell has accrued and documented. “Like Lego pieces,” he says. “That used to be one of my favorite toys when I was a kid—Legos. Building stuff, block by block.” But, Cantrell points out, the process can also be more straightforward; he’ll start with a single riff and attempt to build the song’s infrastructure out from there, “throwing options at it, and ideas,” he says.
Cantrell, pictured here at 27, has carried on his hard-rock legacy with confidence, defying those who question his support and continuation of Alice in Chains’ influential sound.
Photo by Ebet Roberts
“I don’t necessarily know where I’m going a lot of the time. I just know that I have an intention to get there, and I’ve been able to take that journey to completion and make some pretty decent albums and songs over the years. And so I have the confidence to know that I probably can do this again—if I just put my mind to it and go through the process and work my ass off in concert with a group of people who have the same thought process.”
“There should always be the threat that the train is going to come off the rails.”
Cantrell is most certainly a “band” guy. For I Want Blood, he decided to play through a bunch of the material with his famous friends in preproduction, rather than simply assigning them one or two songs to guest on: “Let the players find their songs, and the songs find their players,” as he puts it. “It might’ve been with a little bit of frustration, because they got day jobs in some pretty impressive bands.” Time wasn’t exactly plentiful, but he did get in some living-room jams and other sessions with Trujillo, Bordin, and McKagan that ensured each track had its best possible lineup. Fortunately, Cantrell’s coproducer, Barresi, is similarly averse to cutting corners. Cantrell describes him as “a long-haul trucker” who “doesn’t suffer fools.”
“I’m an architect who is also a builder. You know what I mean?” says the guitarist, alluding to the relentless, often tedious work of record-making.“There should always be the threat that the train is going to come off the rails,” he says. For both men, Cantrell explains, “When you’re done with the record is when you think you couldn’t have done it any better.” Or, as Barresi likes to say, “How do you know you’ve gone too far unless you’ve already been there?”
Barresi also has a kind of encyclopedic recall of rock sonics. “He’s a guy who knows where all the bodies are buried,” Cantrell says, “and any combo of stuff you want to achieve: ‘Like, you know that song in The Departed, the Stones tune where it sounds like the guitar is going through a Leslie?’ [“Let It Loose,” off Exile on Main Street.] ‘Yeah, I know that pedal, man. Let’s grab it.’ You give him a reference and he knows how to replicate it.”
“I love working with a lot of different colors,” Cantrell says. “So I’ll use any guitar or any amp or any pedal to get a certain sound, and that all comes with experimentation. But it always starts with the basics.”
“When you’re done with the record is when you think you couldn’t have done it any better.”
If you’re a faithful reader of Premier Guitar, you may already know what that means: two mid-’80s G&L Rampages and the Les Paul Custom that Cantrell relied on to write his 2002 solo album Degradation Trip (the instrument with the custom blowtorch finish job). In amps, his go-to was the Bogner Fish preamp that he immortalized in Alice in Chains, in addition to his Friedman JJ-100 signature head. Cantrell also mentions the Bogner-modded Marshall sound he’s known for—aka the fabled Snorkeler—alongside tones from Orange and Laney. Among the guitars that made the cut: a butterscotch Les Paul Junior that was a gift from Billie Joe Armstrong a couple years back. When asked about effects, picks, and strings, Cantrell responds that he’s “a Dunlop guy”—which includes his MXR Jerry Cantrell Firefly Talk Box and Dunlop signature Cry Baby wah pedals.
YouTube It
Live at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2021, Jerry Cantrell testifies to his status as one of the most iconic guitarists in hard-rock history.
Cantrell is a fount of anecdotes, and talking guitar is a great way to hear some of them. He first saw the Rampage onstage in a club, after moving from Washington to Dallas, Texas, in the mid-’80s. Later, he began jamming with some guys who played Rampages, and picked up a job at a music shop that their father managed. The shop was a G&L dealer, so Cantrell paid for his instruments in part by working there. The Rampage, he adds, “just felt right.”
“The guy who built the necks and bodies that Eddie used to build his guitars was right in my backyard.”
“You gotta give a lot of credit to Eddie Van Halen,” he adds. “[The Rampage] was basically Leo Fender’s answer to Frankenstein, to the Charvel/Jackson model. One tremolo, one knob, one humbucker; that’s it. No-nonsense, just a meat-and-potatoes rock ’n’ roll guitar.”
A few years before the Rampage—Cantrell pinpoints 1979, because Van Halen II was out—he obtained a neck that was originally intended for EVH, and used it on a Strat he built himself in woodshop. The neck was payment from Boogie Bodies, the legendary guitar-parts manufacturer where Lynn Ellsworth and Jim Warmoth laid the foundation for the Superstrat era. “That shop was in Puyallup, Washington,” Cantrell says, “and I lived in Spanaway, which was right next door.The guy who built the necks and bodies that Eddie used to build his guitars was right in my backyard.”
Cantrell was barely in his teens when he got a gig helping out around the shop, and earned a “beautiful bird’s-eye maple neck” that didn’t make it to Eddie because it had a small divot in the 3rd fret. Cantrell recalls today that his duties included sweeping up sawdust. Then, as now, it was all about the work.
My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.
We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.
But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.
