Fender Custom Shop Robert Cray Signature Stratocaster Review

I bought a 95 John Page built custom shop Robert Cray on ebay. The hardtail is the feature unique to the RC as well as a unique neck not found on any other strat. The pick ups are also custom with a mix of twang and chime that is unique. The guitar has evolved since this time but these features seem to remain. The hardtail means your strings are wraped through the body over the saddles. This increases resonance and sustain, and this is not controversial. It does in any guitar. The saddles are set just a little bit further back because of the normal angle of the whammy. When you stress or bend a strat look at your whammy and you will see it moves up. This does not happen in a hardtail. The frets are huge and the effect is to give you the ability to make huge bends without freting out or going out of tune. The neck has a flatter than average curve as well and you feel as if you have a bigger playing surface. Once you have adapted to this the confidence it inspires can make you feel more on than a normal stat. If you are going to do some whammy song simply plug into another strat. Otherwise you will play this one all night long!

Custom shop John Page does not get any better! This is a 15 year old guitar and it plays perfectly. The reason to own a strat is reliability. No issues with neck through breakage or bowing. There is a reason it has been such a rock mainstay. The Robert Cray adds the hardtail feature of staying in tune better and less string stress and breakage.

Well I paid 1300 and I will play this guitar forever! To me this is the definition of value. But if you want to save some cash try to find a MIM Robert Cray. There was one at my local guitar center and it played really well and would have been even better with a little set up.

I own 6 strats and this one has grabed me hard. The neck size fits my big hands, the tone palate is perfect strat with a little more twang on the bridge. Distorts, sustains, and just plays really well. I also like the new double bolt strats and bought one from Reliable on ebay and added a 92 custom shop (John Page) rosewood neck and this is the best combo! I also put Friels in it and it sits waiting now as I play this purple Cray. My Rory Gallagher is number 3 and I do use the Roland VG strat when I need to mix up some acoustic or tele/humbucker sound in the same song. The alt tunings are pretty lame.

So over all this is a strat that you MUST try someday if you love strats. It may be too much neck for some hands but for me it is my new sweetheart! Thanks Robert!