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Lot Essay
JEFF BECK’S E FLAT SPARE STRATOCASTER, 2011
Custom built by Todd Krause for Jeff Beck in 2001, the neck TK 063 was originally delivered with an alder body and, according to then guitar technician Steve Prior, was located in storage from 2001-2002. According to surviving tour carnets, that guitar was carried on tour as the D# spare in 2003. When Jeff was back on the road in 2010 in support of his tenth studio album Emotion & Commotion, Jeff used that guitar – with this neck TK 063 – as his dressing room guitar. Photographs by Peter Mackay show him relaxing on the tour bus, with the guitar never far from his hands. Around this time, Jeff requested that the bodies of his spare and E flat guitars be upgraded to match the lighter weight of his #1 Strat, which was a basswood prototype made by J.W. Black in 2003. I had Todd Krause at the Custom Shop make up three new basswood bodies in Olympic White without the top coat that causes them to turn yellow, because Jeff absolutely hates that, Jeff’s then guitar tech Steve Prior told The ToneQuest Report in 2010, ‘and I swapped over the bodies on the main spare and E flat guitars, which both have Todd Krause necks’. This 2009 body is one of those three Olympic White basswood bodies made up by Todd Krause in 2009. This guitar was neither the main spare, nor the main E flat guitar, so the body would not be switched and the guitar assembled as per its current form until later in 2010.
Steve had inscribed the details on the reverse of the original pickguard to record that he made this swap – fitting neck TK 063 to the third 2009 basswood body – towards the end of the tour on 20 November 2010. By this time, Steve had swapped the pickups in Jeff’s E flat Strat from Lindy Fralin noiseless blade pickups to Alnico N3’s. ‘All of Jeff’s Signature Strats are slightly modified from the ones you’d find in a guitar shop,’ Steve Prior explained to Vintage Guitar in 2012. ‘I’m now using Fender Custom Shop Alnico N3 pickups made by Michael Frank-Braun in all the [back-up] Strats. They’re much more true to the Strat-like tone, in that they’re Alnico II, III, and V – that’s neck, middle, bridge – although they’re Noiseless, which we obviously rely very heavily upon. [Jeff] hates that 50- to 60-hertz buzz with single-coils. They’re probably a bit brighter, because the Surf gets a quite dark midrange sound. He quite likes that brilliance and shimmer he gets from the N3s.’ Finally, we know that Steve replaced the ‘old Fender noiseless’ pickups and pickguard on this guitar with a new pickguard fitted with Alnico N3 pickups on 12 April 2011, bringing this Strat in line with Jeff’s E flat Strat and making this the E flat spare, for performances of Dirty Mind and Jimi Hendrix’ Little Wing, which would be added to Beck’s set for the first time that April. This guitar was seen on stage only a couple of weeks later, when Jeff used it for a performance of Little Wing, with drummer Narada Michael Walden on vocals, on day one of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans on 29 April 2011. ‘I’ve never loved Hendrix more than I do now…’ Jeff told Rolling Stone in 2016. ‘Ever since I learned the chords to “Little Wing,” nobody can shut me up.’
Custom built by Todd Krause for Jeff Beck in 2001, the neck TK 063 was originally delivered with an alder body and, according to then guitar technician Steve Prior, was located in storage from 2001-2002. According to surviving tour carnets, that guitar was carried on tour as the D# spare in 2003. When Jeff was back on the road in 2010 in support of his tenth studio album Emotion & Commotion, Jeff used that guitar – with this neck TK 063 – as his dressing room guitar. Photographs by Peter Mackay show him relaxing on the tour bus, with the guitar never far from his hands. Around this time, Jeff requested that the bodies of his spare and E flat guitars be upgraded to match the lighter weight of his #1 Strat, which was a basswood prototype made by J.W. Black in 2003. I had Todd Krause at the Custom Shop make up three new basswood bodies in Olympic White without the top coat that causes them to turn yellow, because Jeff absolutely hates that, Jeff’s then guitar tech Steve Prior told The ToneQuest Report in 2010, ‘and I swapped over the bodies on the main spare and E flat guitars, which both have Todd Krause necks’. This 2009 body is one of those three Olympic White basswood bodies made up by Todd Krause in 2009. This guitar was neither the main spare, nor the main E flat guitar, so the body would not be switched and the guitar assembled as per its current form until later in 2010.
Steve had inscribed the details on the reverse of the original pickguard to record that he made this swap – fitting neck TK 063 to the third 2009 basswood body – towards the end of the tour on 20 November 2010. By this time, Steve had swapped the pickups in Jeff’s E flat Strat from Lindy Fralin noiseless blade pickups to Alnico N3’s. ‘All of Jeff’s Signature Strats are slightly modified from the ones you’d find in a guitar shop,’ Steve Prior explained to Vintage Guitar in 2012. ‘I’m now using Fender Custom Shop Alnico N3 pickups made by Michael Frank-Braun in all the [back-up] Strats. They’re much more true to the Strat-like tone, in that they’re Alnico II, III, and V – that’s neck, middle, bridge – although they’re Noiseless, which we obviously rely very heavily upon. [Jeff] hates that 50- to 60-hertz buzz with single-coils. They’re probably a bit brighter, because the Surf gets a quite dark midrange sound. He quite likes that brilliance and shimmer he gets from the N3s.’ Finally, we know that Steve replaced the ‘old Fender noiseless’ pickups and pickguard on this guitar with a new pickguard fitted with Alnico N3 pickups on 12 April 2011, bringing this Strat in line with Jeff’s E flat Strat and making this the E flat spare, for performances of Dirty Mind and Jimi Hendrix’ Little Wing, which would be added to Beck’s set for the first time that April. This guitar was seen on stage only a couple of weeks later, when Jeff used it for a performance of Little Wing, with drummer Narada Michael Walden on vocals, on day one of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans on 29 April 2011. ‘I’ve never loved Hendrix more than I do now…’ Jeff told Rolling Stone in 2016. ‘Ever since I learned the chords to “Little Wing,” nobody can shut me up.’