Fenderīs iconic Strat guitar turns 50
Bryan Adams and his Fender Stratocaster. "My pride and joy is a 1960 cherry sunburst that I bought 20 years ago. It is my finest guitar and sounds better than all of them. I canīt explain why, it just does."
The Fender Stratocaster, now 50 years old, looms large in rock history. Clarence Leo Fender, known as Leo, was the primary force behind the iconīs conception and refinement. The Strat, as it is commonly known, evolved from the Fender Broadcaster, introduced in 1950 and later renamed the Telecaster. The Telecaster is an icon among guitarists, is thicker and heavier than the Strat.
 Buddy Holly's appearance playing a Stratocaster on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in 1957 was momentous in the history of rock and the Strat. Holly was even bigger in Britain - The Crickets' 1958 tour, along with their first album, "The 'Chirping' Crickets", on which the Strat was pictured, were enormously influential. Bluesman Buddy Guy acquired a Strat after moving to Chicago in 1957. For Jimi Hendrix, the Stratocaster was the primary vehicle with which he forever altered perceptions of the guitar.
Fender Stratocaster was the guitar of choice at Bob Dylanīs electric debut at the Newport Folk Festival, the Beatlesī performance of "All You Need Is Love" on the first live global TV event and Jimi Hendrixīs Monterey Pop and Woodstock festivals.
 Another revealing testament to the Stratocaster's eminence took place June 24, 2004 at Christie's in New York, where "Blackie" circa 1956, Clapton's 1950s-era Strat pictured on the cover of his "Slowhand" album, was auctioned for $959,500
Despite an army of competitors and imitators, the Stratocaster remains one of the most revered and best-known instruments in the world. Like rock īnī roll itself - marking its 50th anniversary with Elvis Presleyīs recording of "Thatīs All Right" - its popularity remains, well, stratospheric. 
the LOG
 In 1941 Les Paul build the first solid electric guitar, the LOG. It was a a 20 pound guitar made from a 4"X 4" length of solid pine wood as the body and a sophisticated pickup from Gibson. Traditionally electric guitar in those days were made hollow body, just like acoustic ones.
To make it look more like a guitar, Paul have two halves of a Spanish hollow-body guitar glued to a wooden four-by-four post as decoration. "I had to make it look like a conventional guitar, because if people saw just the 4x4", they'd think I was really crazy!" said Les Paul in an interview.
He built the log on weekends in 1941 at the Epiphone factory in New York by attaching an Epiphone neck, fingerboard and body parts to a 4x4" board, and sandwiching a couple of guitar-body halves, or "wings", on it.
Diagram from Gibson's original pickup Gibson EH-150 Pickup or commonly called The Charlie Christian Pickup. Guy Hart was the general manager of Gibson at that time, patent 2,087,106 was filed on Feb. 8, 1936 and was granted July 13, 1937. It utilized a more direct pickup system, in which the electromagnet registered string vibration from the strings themselves.
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Rogue Guitar Tool Kit
Guess who else plays the Guitar? Yes, non other than Tony Blair. Born Anthony Charles Lynton Blair on 6 May 1953 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Leo Charles Lynton Blair and Hazel Blair. He lived in Australia for three years in the mid-1950s. Rumor had it that he started picking the G-String whilst he is in Australia. Educated at Durham Choristers School then Fettes College, Edinburgh and St John's College, Oxford. At University he became lead singer of Ugly Rumours band. He married Cherie Booth in 1980. In June 1983 he was elected MP for Sedgefield, County Durham, elected British prime Minister in 1997. One of Tony's favourite ways of relaxing is to play his guitar.