Mike McCready’s Fender Stratocaster ’57 Reissue

This guitar was used as a backup/second guitar for a short period from 1991 to 1993. During that time, Mike had a few Stratocasters that he regularly used, including the 1959/1960 sunburst Strat that he acquired shortly after the release of Pearl Jam’s debut album “Ten”.

The most famous appearance of this particular guitar was during a set in 1992 at a dutch festival – Pinkpop, where Mike used it to play “Jeremy”, “Alive”, and “Black”.

According to Mike, he also used this guitar on the original recording of “Yellow Leadbetter”.

(Yellow Leadbetter) was a ’57 reissue with a maple neck that I bought around the time Jeff and Stone bought the ’62 reissue for me. It’s in many pieces somewhere, along with the ’62 reissue I smashed to pieces during a Mad Season concert at the Moore Theater [in Seattle].

Mike McCready – Strat Swap: Fender CS Mark Anniversary of Ten

Specs

What can be concluded from the footage and the photos is that the guitar seems to have been finished in a yellowish color. Since this is a ’57 Reissue model, this was most likely what Fender calls “Olympic White” – which is basically a recreation of how a white finish would like on a guitar that was made in 1957. Not every vintage Strat that was finished in white became this yellow, but many did, and Fender decided to base their vintage white color on those models.

One thing that looks “off” on this guitar is the three-ply pickguard because the guitar originally would have a single-layer pickguard like the one Fender used on an original 50s Strat. Perhaps Mike or someone before him simply changed it, or maybe there’s more to this story.

Unfortunately, this is pretty much all the information there is on this guitar. . If you happen to come across any mention of it by Mike or anyone else, post it in the comments.