Many a fine and fiery guitarist has hailed from Boston, and the Custom Shop is Proud to honor one of the City on the Hill’s finest guitarist/songwriters with the Johnny A. Signature Stratocaster.

The Johnny A. Signature Stratocaster is an amalgamation of his four favorite model years—1963 through 1966—and features a select two-piece alder body with off-center seam, paired with a 3A birdseye maple neck featuring a ’65-style “oval C” profile and contoured heel. The round-lam rosewood fingerboard has a comfortable 7.25” radius and 21 medium jumbo (6150) frets. The neck and middle pickups are hand-wound 11/56 models, while a steel bottom plate on the custom 11/56 bridge pickups delivers livelier tone with more wide-ranging response; all are fixed to a three-ply mint green pickguard, along with a five-way switch and Strat Blender wiring with Tone-Saver bleed circuitry.

Simply put? This is one of the nicest vintage-leaning Custom Shop Strats we've played. Johnny was kind enough to stop by the shop and walk us through the inspiration for the build, and there was a lot of thoughtful touches incorporated - for example, the color is based off the car Johnny's dad drove when Johnny was a kid. This is a guitar that has a lot of heart and soul in it and you feel - and hear - it the second you sit down with it. And to be sure, this is an amazing sounding Stratocaster - we can't stress that enough!

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About Johnny A

Born John Antonopoulos in Malden, Mass., he first got the guitar bug when he saw the Beatles in Boston at age 13. He saw Jimi Hendrix a couple years after that and avidly soaked up the era’s finest fretwork, especially that of the Yardbirds holy trinity of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Taking the stage name “Johnny A.”, he steadily acquired a sterling reputation as a rock, blues and jazz ace with artists including Delaney & Bonnie, Derek and the Dominos keyboardist Bobby Whitlock and Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford. The 1990s saw a seven-year stint as guitarist and musical director for J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf, and to really bring his career full circle, Johnny A. joined the Yardbirds in 2015 for a three-year stint. Today, he continues to wow listeners with his impeccable playing in a variety of studio and onstage projects.