Fret King Country Squire Yardbird

Fret King Green Label Series (Handmade in UK)

As the name suggests these guitars will appeal to country players, but no matter what kind of music you play, the ultra simple, single cutaway, bolt-on neck guitar that first appeared at the turn of the 1950’s lends itself to many diverse musical styles.

The Country Squire range is Fret-King’s nod to the guitar that started it all!

Throughout the history of rock’n’roll, guitars like the Country Squire have been at the heart of so many musical genres; country, soul, blues, rock, jazz and more.
With the Fret-King Country Squire we have taken the liberty of respectfully raising the bar, with a 22-fret neck with medium jumbo frets, in either a maple/rosewood combination, or one-piece maple, both with a deliciously comfortable 60’s shallow ‘C’ profile.

Both styles of neck utilise a 10" fingerboard radius to facilitate easier string bending, with a slinky, fast, playing action.

By utilising an original spec small diameter truss rod, there is a much greater ratio of wood-to-metal, all contributing to keeping the vintage tone you would expect from this style of guitar.

“...I couldn’t resist building this!” says Trev.

“After seeing Jeff Beck and the ‘Yardbirds’ in the 60’s, his Esquire® was the guitar I wanted more than any other.

“The audacity of someone taking a grinder to a slab bodied ‘Holy Grail’ guitar was just so cool!”

“That actual guitar now resides in my friend Seymour Duncan’s collection, but I did have the opportunity to spend some time with it, and the result is The Fret-King Country Squire Yardbird.”

“It’s common knowledge that the front of the guitar was contoured, with a forearm chamfer, but unless you’ve actually held and played the original guitar, you’d never know that the back also had a ribcage chamfer contoured in.”

“The Fret-King Yardbird is loaded with a Seymour Duncan® Broadcaster® repro pickup, voiced by the man himself, and the body is even routed for a front pickup if you would like to fit one later, just like the original.”

“Just like the original Esquire®, the three-way pickup selector on the Yardbird is actually a tone selector. In forward position the tone

control is bypassed and a preset bassy tone-created by running the pickup through two capacitors and a resistor is accessed.”

With the selector in the middle position both tone and volume work as normal; whilst in the last position the tone control is bypassed, allowing the pickup to go direct with all of its power and tone.

“It doesn’t get more real!”

Fret King website: www.fret-king.com