7 Heretics Of The Telecaster

Anyone who doubts the Telecaster is the best guitar ever made needs only to hear Albert Lee’s blackguard go to work on Emmylou Harris’ 1976 album, Luxury Liner. Still unconvinced? Throw a Tele, Strat, and Les Paul down a flight of stairs. Guess which will stay in tune? Introduced in January of 1951, the Telecaster altered the fabric of popular music. Perfection is in the ear of the beholder, but there are those who desire to push the envelope. And every superpicker knows there’s always room for improvement. Here are seven examples of players who dared to push the world’s best solidbody beyond the limits of imagination. Clarence White Born June 7, 1944, Clarence White was an innovative guitarist who combined his passion for bluegrass, country, and rock and roll. He’s best known for his work with The Byrds, The Kentucky Colonels, and sessions for The Monkees, Ricky Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, The Everly Brothers, and Jackson Browne. That’s just the short list. A revered guitarist, White was a teenaged flatpicking monster in the Kentucky Colonels. A hybrid picker who broke from bluegrass tradition (using only open first-position chords) to explore the fretboard. With the Nashville West band in ’67, he began looking for a way to play pedal-steel licks on his ’54 Tele. Working with the mechanically inclined multi-instrumentalist Gene Parsons, he soon after devised what would become the Parsons/White Pull-String. Parsons built the first version in ’68. With The Byrds beginning in ’68, he used a Fender Vibrolux in the studio while preferring bigger amps onstage, including a Dual Showman, a hot-rodded Twin Reverb, a Super Reverb, and a Leslie cabinet miked in stereo. On July 15, 1973, as he was loading his gear into his car after a gig in California, White’s car was struck head-on by another driven by a drunk driver. He died at the scene. An innovator, a virtuoso, and a significant influence on guitarists to this day, White not only helped change the role of the acoustic guitar in bluegrass, he redefined the sound of the electric guitar in country music. Inducted to the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame in 2016, he was inducted a second time in ’19 as a member of the Kentucky Colonels. Terry Kath Born January 31, 1946, Terry Kath was one of the most talented and intense players of his generation. A member of the original lineup of The Chicago Transit Authority (later, Chicago), his use of amps and effects was innovative in the late ’60s, and his hot-rodded Tele is one of the most recognizable instruments in the history of rock and roll. Kath started on a Kay and later purchased a Stratocaster, then added a Gibson SG and a ’69 Les Paul Professional to his arsenal. In 1974, he began using his famous ’66 Tele, which was heavily modified and dressed in Pignose amp decals and a Chicago Blackhawks logo. Its neck pickup was replaced with a Gibson humbucker, while the Tele bridge pickup remained stock. The bridge was replaced with a six-saddle hybrid from a Strat vibrato. Its body was routed, its control plate flipped, tuners were replaced, and two additional string trees were added. Kath’s most prized instrument, after 1974 it was essentially the only guitar he played, usually through a Dual Showman. Kath was a force of nature onstage and hugely important to the band’s success thanks to his knack for sophisticated composing and his visceral vocal delivery. As a player, he was a beast on the wah pedal and a mad scientist setting up amps. Check out his guitar work on “25 or 6 to 4,” “Free Form Guitar,” “Make Me Smile,” “Introduction,” and “Song of the Evergreens.” On January 23, 1978, Kath died of an accidental gunshot to the head eight days before his 32nd birthday. In 2015, his daughter, Michelle Kath Sinclair, wrote and produced the documentary The Terry Kath Experience, for which she tracked down the iconic Telecaster after it had been lost for decades. Kath was a forward-thinking guitarist, inventor, composer, and a key figure in promoting and developing Pignose amps. In 2016, he was inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Cornell Dupree Born on December 19, 1942, Cornell Dupree began his professional career in Fort Worth. Falling under the spell of Johnny “Guitar” Watson, he became a fine blues player and came in close proximity to artists like T-Bone Walker, Lowell Fulson, Lightning Hopkins, and Albert Collins. Being from Texas, Dupree was exposed to country music, as well. The ultimate soul-guitar package, he blended the sounds of southern R&B, blues, jazz, and country. His sultry lines can be heard in a variety of musical settings, including “Rock Steady” by Aretha Franklin, “Kodachrome” by Paul Simon, “Red China Blues” by Miles Davis, and Brook Benton’s 1969 hit “Rainy Night in Georgia.” Jazz aficionados are familiar with his work, performing with Buddy Rich, Carmen McRae, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. He played on so many sessions that he was given the nickname “Mr. 2,500,” for having played on more than 2,500 albums. He shared the stage with Jimi Hendrix in King Curtis’ Kingpins and opened for The Beatles. That’s Dupree’s guitar on the Wilson Pickett classic “In the Midnight Hour.” Master of tasteful R&B chordal embellishments popularized by Curtis Mayfield and Jimi Hendrix, his guitar parts were famous for their space and feel, always in support of the vocalist. Dupree’s 1989 instructional video, Mastering R&B Guitar, produced by Arlen Roth, is a must-own for R&B guitar aficionados. Before collaborating with Yamaha on a signature guitar, Dupree played a blond ’67 Tele with the pickguard removed and its screw holes covered with rhinestones. He added a DeArmond pickup, flipped its control plate, and added a toggle to control the DeArmond. The Yamaha Cornell Dupree Pacifica 1512 had an ash body, maple neck, Alnico V humbucker in the neck, GS6 single-coil in the middle position, and a blade pickup at the bridge. Dupree never became a household name, but the sounds he made on the guitar were ubiquitous in the heyday of radio and vinyl. His influence was also heavily felt in soul, funk, and country music. In the African-American guitar tradition, he stands shoulder to shoulder with Hendrix, Bobby Womack, Eric Gales, and Mayfield. Check out the band Stuff, where he played alongside Gales and Steve Gadd. Dupree passed away May 8, 2011, of emphysema. Robbie Robertson Born July 5, 1943, Robbie Robertson grew up near Toronto and studied under the tutelage of rock and roller Ronnie Hawkins. Most famous for being a member of The Band, Robertson’s ’65 Telecaster played a pivotal role in the careers of Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Ringo Starr. Heard on 1965’s “Like A Rolling Stone,” the guitar (serial number L97811) was stock with a maple neck and maple-cap fretboard. The body was alder and the guitar weighed just over seven pounds; Robertson felt it was perfect for touring. Dylan played it on studio sessions for Blonde on Blonde and on the 1965-’66 world tour, including the oft-cited performance at Manchester Free Trade Hall, where he was accused of being a “Judas” for going electric. You hear it in the intro to “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.” From Dylan to Robertson, the guitar appeared on Music From Big Pink and was Robertson’s weapon of choice for seven years afterward; he used it for The Band’s debut concerts in April of ’69, with Dylan at the Isle of Wight, and while recording The Band’s Stage Fright album. Robertson stripped the original black finish in 1970 and added a Bigsby in 2000. He also added a white pickguard and a chrome-covered Gibson PAF in the neck position. Other songs it was featured on include “Up On Cripple Creek,” “Tears of Rage,” and “Chest Fever.” During The Band’s Woodstock performance, it cut through a dense mix on “Slippin’ and Slidin’” and “Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever.” “I was always looking for a better guitar, but I couldn’t beat the Tele,” Robertson said on “Talk From the Rock Room” in 2019. “Each incarnation… seemed to give it a new life, along with a different creative surge.” In 2018, the guitar was sold by Julien’s Auctions for $640,000 with one request; “Whoever ends up with this guitar, you have to treat her with love.” Robertson passed away August 9, 2023. In May of ’24, the guitar sold again at auction, this time for $650,000. Brent Mason One of the 10 best session guitarists of all time, Grammy winner Brent Mason was discovered by Chet Atkins and has been voted “Guitarist of the Year” 12 times by the Academy of Country Music. An inductee to the Musicians Hall of Fame, he is also a solo artist and songwriter. Mason’s signature Telecaster was born out of old-fashioned American ingenuity. While breaking into the business, he couldn’t afford a fleet of Strats, Teles, 335s, and Gretsches to accompany him on sessions; he needed one guitar that could do it all. Inspiration struck in 1982, when he came upon a ’67 Tele with a perforated swamp ash body that had been partially painted with car primer. It sounded better than anything else he played at the time. Influenced by the ingenuity of Steve Morse and Peter Green, Mason experimented with various pickups to create an all-purpose guitar. Renowned Nashville tech/builder Joe Glaser added a string bender, middle pickup, three-way pickup selector, and a Volume pot to control the middle pickup’s output independent of the three-way. These mods enabled Mason to get out-of-phase Strat sounds and discover sonic sweet spots when engaging the neck and bridge pickups. His Fender signature model is a replica of that guitar, fitted with three Seymour Duncan pickups including a mini-humbucker in the neck position. It uses a Hot Stack in the middle position and a Vintage Stack Tele at the bridge. The independent Volume control for the Hot Stack offers a variety of tonal colors. Fender offers two versions, one a heavy relic. Both are equipped with Joe Glaser B-benders. Mason has left an indelible stamp on country music and the guitar. And while his reputation looms large as the most-recorded guitarist in history, he’s a down-to-earth guy you’d want to trade licks with while drinking beers. Check out the title track from his solo album Hot Wired, and be humbled. Andy Summers Before he joined The Police, Andy Summers spent years toiling in Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Soft Machine, Eric Burdon & The Animals, and Neil Sedaka’s band. In the early ’70s, he moved to Southern California, where he studied classical guitar and composition at Cal State Northridge. He graduated in ’72, and as he was getting ready to move back to the U.K., one of his guitar students offered to sell him a beat-up sunburst Telecaster Custom with an alder ’63 body, ’61 neck, and a Gibson PAF in the neck position, and highly modified switching (including active boost controlled by a third knob). Summers paid $200 for the guitar and immediately replaced the stock tuners with Schallers. Other mods include a brass nut, brass bridge plate with individual brass saddles, and (later) a Tele pickup in the bridge position. In Summers’ 2006 memoir, One Train Later, he wrote, “It’s a fire-breather. When I start to play it, something stirs within me… I can’t stop playing it.” A jazz guitarist at heart, he became famous for his imaginative use of inverted chord voicings and Lenny Breau harp harmonics that added sophistication and an atmospheric quality to Sting’s lyrics and melodies. Extrapolating rhythms from reggae, world, jazz, and pop, Summers mixed effects to create sheets of time-based sounds. His effects consisted of the Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress, a Mu-Tron III Envelope Filter, a Maestro Echoplex EP-2 Tape Delay, an MXR Phase 90, and the Roland GR-300 Synthesizer. Later, he used a pedalboard made by Pete Cornish. For amps, he switched between a Roland Bolt, a JC-120, Twin Reverbs, and Marshalls depending on his needs. Summers’ Telecaster has been heard on some of the Police’s biggest songs, including “Roxanne,” “Walking On the Moon,” “Message In a Bottle” and “Every Breath You Take.” In 2007, the Fender Custom Shop created a replica called the Andy Summers Tribute Telecaster. Steve Morse Steve Morse’s body of work is astounding on many levels. His playing with The Dixie Dregs, solo albums, and contributions to Deep Purple continue to captivate and inspire. A Grammy winner with a championship left-hand vibrato, he’s the missing link between Yes, Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Allman Brothers, and Flatt and Scruggs. At the drop of a hat, Morse can shift from chicken pickin’ to Baroque classical and jazz-rock to hard rock, Celtic tunes, or Led Zeppelin. Mere mortals find his music demanding to perform, but always edifying, and his now-retired parts Telecaster is the stuff of legend. The origins of Morse’s date to 1969/’70, when he was given a black Tele with a maple neck as payment for a recording session. It came with a humbucker in the neck from a Gibson 335. According to Morse, the guitar was a disaster – it fed back, wouldn’t stay in tune, the neck was slippery, and the three-way toggle made no sense. Morse turned a negative into a positive by thinking of the guitar as a blank canvas, and he went to work replacing the neck with one from a Strat. He then stripped its paint, clipped the capacitor, and purchased one of Fender’s early Wide Range humbuckers, which he installed with a hammer and chisel in the bridge position. After all the cutting, Morse replaced the bridge with a Tune-O-Matic, and later added a 12-string trapeze tailpiece. A lipstick pickup was installed between the two humbuckers, and while it sounded thin, it added something. He later installed an on/off switch to control pickup combinations. The Fender bridge humbucker was removed because it was prone to feeding back, so Morse replaced it with a custom humbucker from Larry DiMarzio. It would later be sold as the Steve Morse pickup. Morse continued to experiment and had a custom pickguard made that allowed him to add a Strat pickup. He added a toggle to control it and installed a miniature three-way between the Volume and Tone controls. To reduce noise, he added a grounding wire on the tailpiece, which ran under the pickguard to the metal plate that stabilized the Volume and Tone controls. He later added jumbo frets and routed the high E string through a string tree. In time, other minor mods were done due to wear and tear, but Morse used the guitar up until his 1989 album, High Tension Wires, when Music Man duplicated the guitar with the intent of creating a Steve Morse signature model. Music Man eventually got it right, and Morse’s Frankenstein Tele was put to pasture. Later, the Ernie Ball Music Man Steve Morse signature model proved more reliable and offered an extra fret. Though Morse has been seen performing with his signature model for decades, he still has a soft spot for the guitar he put his heart and soul into. Those late to the party should check out The Dixie Dregs’ Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival. Wear a seatbelt. Warner Hodges’ Tele-Pathic Thoughts In the November ’08 issue, we profiled Warner Hodges, guitarist in the pioneering ’80s cowpunk band Jason & The Scorchers, who today is still recording and touring in groups and as a solo act. A noted Tele slinger, we asked why Leo’s first-born was his first choice. 1) You can play things behind the nut. You gotta love that! 2) It doesn’t matter what gauge of strings you use, you cannot mess up the neck. 3) You can drop it, kick it, pick it up, and it’ll stay in tune. One night in Norway, I threw one 19 rows deep into the audience, and a girl gave it back. The B string was sharp – that was it! That same guitar, in a case – not a flight case – was run over by a luggage tractor and six carts full of luggage. I went to the Scandinavian Air Service baggage claim to open the case; I told the lady, “I want you to see the damage at the same time I do.” I was so pissed off! But I opened the case and there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with the guitar. The case was destroyed, but the guitar was fine. That’s a Telecaster. 4) James Burton. I’ve got a buddy who met Elvis. He asked, “Hey, Elvis… Where’s James?” 5) You can play any musical style with a Telecaster. It’s the Bayer aspirin of guitars. Crazy, how Leo got it right the very first time! – Ward Meeker This article originally appeared in VG’s November 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.