An offshoot of Fender's forays into replicating the look of heavily worn instruments was the introduction of the Fender Relic series in the late 1990s. Urban legend states that idea came as guitarist Keith Richards of the British rock group The Rolling Stones told the Custom Shop that some replicas he commissioned for a Stones tour 'looked too new', stating: "Bash 'em up a bit and I'll play 'em," but this has been denied by multiple Fender employees and Richards himself. The true story stemmed from Stones' producer Don Was. In 1994 Jay W. Black, one of the Senior Master Builders at the time, attended a Stones recording session in Los Angeles. Was wanted Black to beat up his new Sadowsky bass that he was due to play with Bonnie Raitt at a Grammy Awards ceremony because he felt "it looked too squeaky clean".