Fender Custom Shop Artist Spec 1955 Stratocaster 2-Tone Sunburst/Relic (USED, 2022)

The Strat you'd build if you loved Eric Johnson's body wood and Landau's bridge pickup, spec'd by Matte Henderson and built by Ron Thorn's Custom Shop.

If you're into Fender guitars, you know the tiers: Non-Custom Shop, Custom Shop, Masterbuilt, Signature Models. There's another one that exists but you won't run into it very often, and that's Artist Spec. These are the guitars a lucky Fender artist gets to spec for themselves.

This one was spec'd by Fender Artist, Matte Henderson, built in 2022 on a 1955 Stratocaster platform. The premise: what happens if an Eric Johnson Strat and a Michael Landau Strat cross paths?

In practice, that means a sassafras body (as favored by Eric), 12" radius, 22 6100 jumbo frets, no string tree with staggered post tuners, an RSD Strat bridge, two Josefina-wound single coils, and a CuNiFe wide range humbucker in the bridge position (a la a Landau Strat).

It's a great concept on paper to be sure, but the guitar goes well beyond a concept in hand. It easily hangs with a Masterbuilt on playability, quality, and attention to detail, which makes sense once you know 2022 is when Ron Thorn was still heading up the Custom Shop, and Thorn pulled the boards for this build himself.

The offset 11/56 V profile flame maple neck is comfortable from the first strum, and every one of us who sat with this guitar for a minute said the same thing (the finish being worn off the back certainly adds to the broken in feel). Pair that with 22 6100 jumbo frets and 12" radius and you have an easy playing guitar with the ability to achieve low action. Matte's style relies on a well set up tremolo, and the RSD bridge definitely delivers. Tuning stability is excellent, even with nearly a minor third of up-pull dialed in, which had us doing our best (unsuccessful) Jeff Beck impressions in short order. It also doesn't shift that easily when you rest your palm on it and bend your chords out of tune, which is the usual cost of a floated setup this aggressive. Very cool.

Tones? Sassafras goes places Ash and Alder don't. It pulls in some mahogany attributes at times (a dry and woody midrange), which dials back a little of the "Stratiness" some players aren't fond of. Think lower midrange punch and a slightly dialed back top end.

The Josefina-wound single coils deliver classic Strat feel, response, and tones in positions 3 through 5, but for our money the star of the show is the CuNiFe wide range humbucker in the bridge position. You don't lose much of that iconic Fender bite or top end, it's just a bit more dispersed, not ice picky at all, and the feel is outrageously good. It's spongy rather than stiff and immediate the way a PAF style humbucker is. It solves a lot of what Strat players fight with thin bridge pickups, without losing the plot.