MCCS1977

I’ve got this idea itching away. It started few months ago when I was short of money and decided–against my better judgment–to sacrifice my Schecter Diamond Series C-SH-1 (pictured, right) to pay some bills. It hurt to see that guitar go. However one of my oldest and bestest friends, Dave, who plays rhythm guitar in our little yet as unnamed band, came up with another guitar for me through his Dad. It was a Squire Fender Tele Custom.

Now I don’t know what you know about the Fender Telecaster, but it’s always struck me as strictly a country guitar. As with the majority of stereotypes, I was soon proven wrong. Well, mostly wrong. First a brief bit of the history via wikipedia:

During the 1950s and early 1960s Fender’s twangy single-coil sound enjoyed considerable popularity. This began to wane by the mid-1960’s as new stars like Eric Clapton and Mike Bloomfield plugged their humbucker-equipped Gibsons into over-driven Marshall amps. Many players began to look for a thicker, creamier sound that the standard Telecaster didn’t deliver them. To achieve this many players removed their Telecaster neck pick-ups and installed aftermarket humbuckers (a good example of this is Andy Summers’ modified Telecaster). Another reason for replacing the tele neck pickup was that many players felt it lacked “Rock and Roll vibe”. The original pickup excels in jazz tones, but players felt replacing it with a more powerful humbucker would give the Telecaster a ’second’ rock voice to match the popular bridge pickup.

The Telecaster Custom (along with the Thinline and Deluxe models) was an attempt to enter the humbucker market largely dominated by Gibson. Fender’s first humbucking design was the wide range humbucker created by Seth Lover, who had overseen the development of the original Gibson humbucker. Lover’s Fender humbucker is felt by many to be brighter with more bottom end than his Gibson versions, and a better match for the classic Fender bridge pickup.

There’s another historical aspect to consider. To some extent I’ve always dogged on Dave about his preferred axe, the Fender Stratocaster (pictured, left), because of the volume nob. Every time I’d pick up his guitar and start playing I’d soon be looking around in confusion as to where the sound had gone. Because of where my hand is positioned with my playing style I always seemed to graze the volume controls on an upstroke. One thing I couldn’t complain about though was the neck. Any Strat he ever had was always set up perfect and the necks always played fast and sweet. That brings me back to that stereotype I had about Tele’s being country only.

The Tele Custom I have comes with two humbuckers so it immediately is a step away from the classic 72′ Custom with it’s single coil pickup at the bridge and humbucker at the neck. You can still wring some twang out of it by selecting the bridge pickup and dialing the tone all the way to the bright end. I prefer the neck pickup selection with the tone controls down a peg or two in order to get a muddier bluesy sound. Where the country comes in is the damn neck. The crown on the frets are so high that instead of sliding back and forth with an Angus Young swagger you find your self hopping from note to note like Danny Gatton or Albert Lee (mild exaggeration there).

Enter the ‘72 Telecaster Deluxe. Strat neck, Tele body. So long story short I did a mock up of what I’m thinking of cobbling together, the neck of a Black and Chrome Fat Strat and the body of my Tele Custom. I don’t know if I’ve conveyed it well enough, but that’s a revolution in thought for a guy who has always dreamed of a Gibson SG, and swore there was none higher. I hope it sounds and plays as good as it would look: