Indispensable & Epic: The Complete History of the Telecaster
The first people to truly appreciate how amazing the Telecaster was were the western swing guitarists who helped Leo improve his new instrument outside the factory. Early players like Jimmy Wyble, Charlie Aldrich, Jimmy Bryant, Roy Watkins, and Bill Carson embraced the instrument with missionary zeal, and Don Randall, head of Fender Sales, ensured that the Telecaster’s appeal gradually but steadily spread from Southern California all the way to the East Coast through his carefully crafted sales network.
It’s important to keep in mind that when the Telecaster was first released in 1951, rock ‘n’ roll was still a few years off. Instead, Leo Fender and his team were primarily building guitars and amplifiers for western swing guitarists, whose tour schedule frequently brought them close to the company’s headquarters in sunny Southern California. However, the development of small, noisy bands—which by the middle of the 1950s had largely replaced the huge bands of the 1930s and 1940s—was aided by Fender’s novel new instruments. This development in turn drove the concurrent growth of American youth culture.
Because Fender wasn’t a part of the staid old world of high-end guitar craftsmanship, it was perfectly positioned to benefit from everything and capitalize on the release of its new Telecaster guitar. Fender was bold, fresh, and inventive, not old, stuffy, and East Coast. Instead of being delicate and pricey, Fender instruments and amps were entertaining, robust, and affordable. In the mid-1950s following the war, all those young people who had discovered a strong new cultural movement of their own could easily obtain great-sounding, well-made Fender guitars.
Due to this, by the middle of the decade, guitarists in the genres of rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, and country were using the Telecaster creatively and recording with it. Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio recorded “The Train Kept-A-Rollin” in July 1956 in Nashville; lead guitarist Paul Burlison used his Telecaster to perform one of the earliest recorded examples, if not the first recorded example, of a modern fuzz guitar sound. The song “Suzie Q,” written by Dale Hawkins and his band in July 1957, was perhaps the first Telecaster-fueled U.S. Top 40 hit and was based on a memorable guitar lick by James Burton, the band’s young guitarist.
Thousands of Americans cheered when Burton subsequently (at age 18) joined Ricky Nelson’s band. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he played a Telecaster on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and sang songs like “Just a Little Too Much,” “It’s Late,” and “Believe What You Say” to TV audiences.
And the Telecaster (in its single-pickup Esquire variant) makes two appearances in The Girl Can’t Help It (1956), widely regarded as the best rock ‘n’ roll movie ever filmed. During the hard rocking “Ready Teddy” and “She’s Got It,” Little Richard’s guitarist (possibly Ray Montrell or Ed Blanchard) is first shown playing one; later in the movie, Russell Willaford plays one during Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps' smoldering “Be Bop a Lula.”
In the R&B scene, performers like B.B. King and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown adapted to the Telecaster without any trouble. And when the legendary Muddy Waters, the guy who popularized the Delta blues, made his first trip to England in 1958, he surprised the crowds by playing loud, piercing blues on his Telecaster to people who were expecting folksy acoustic music. Waters' tour in October 1958 was the first opportunity many young British musicians had to see a Telecaster in person. In the decade that followed, the dramatic ramifications of this would be palpably clear.
From 1954 on, Luther Perkins played bright, snappy lines on a Telecaster and an Esquire to accompany Johnny Cash in the country genre. In Bakersfield, California, further to the west, Buck Owens was learning how to use the Telecaster in a loud, raw country sound that was in sharp contrast to the polished, string-heavy country sound that was then popular in Nashville. The Telecaster would go on to serve as the cornerstone of the “Bakersfield Sound,” which was developed in the late 1950s and made popular in the 1960s by groups like Merle Haggard and the Strangers, the Buckaroos, Owens and his band, and the Buckaroos.
The Telecaster gained significant ground as a necessary studio session instrument in the 1950s. It didn’t take long for Telecasters to become a crucial component in the studio veterans' arsenals across the country, and A-list session veterans Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts, and Tommy Tedesco all acquired them.
The Telecaster saw a few minor modifications in its first decade, although remaining substantially unaltered during the 1950s. In 1954, the pickguard’s color was altered from black to white, and in 1955, the pickup selector switch tip’s original round shape was replaced with a “top hat” shape. In 1958, the once-exclusive Telecaster in blonde finish underwent perhaps the biggest shift of the decade when eye-catching custom color finishes became available for an additional 5% cost. The Custom Telecaster, which had a bound body and a rosewood fingerboard, was the first important new variation of the design, debuting in 1959.
Overall, the Telecaster was a huge success in the decade following its creation. As rock ‘n’ roll proved to be more than a passing craze and youth culture blossomed in the United States like it had never done before, it rose from regional obscurity to national indispensableness (with international acclaim coming). The Telecaster was designed to last forever as both a priceless tool and a potent symbol because it combined style and substance, shape and function. It was a brilliant invention whose time had come, and it revolutionized American music in the 1950s.
Many of these English teenagers were avidly soaking up every Telecaster-fueled note they could get their hands on in late 1959, as the decade was quickly coming to an end. Among them were Andy Summers, 17, 16-year-olds Keith Richards and George Harrison, 15-year-olds Jeff Beck and James Page, 14-year-olds Eric Clapton and Peter Townshend, 13-year-old classmates Roger “Syd” Barrett and David Gilmour, and many others. They all became engrossed in the Telecaster’s tones in the 1950s, and they all eventually acquired Telecaster guitars.
through the 1960s
The Telecaster had established and validated itself in its first ten years. Early in 1951, it made its debut as a novel new type of instrument from a small, upstart manufacturer in Southern California, catering to the region’s Western swing and dance band guitarists. However, quite unrelated to the intentions of its creators, the Telecaster fueled the development of rock ‘n’ roll and the explosion of American youth culture that followed it only a few years later. By the end of the 1950s, it had achieved unquestionable success as a crucial workhorse instrument for guitarists across the country who played in a variety of musical styles and genres.
The fact that authentic rock ‘n’ roll had all but disappeared in the United States by 1960 may explain why things got off to a poor start. Elvis Presley was enlisted in the military; Little Richard had switched from the piano to the pulpit; Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Alan Freed had all but disappeared due to controversies and legal issues; Buddy Holly had died in a plane crash in 1959; and Eddie Cochran had died in a car accident in 1960. Schmaltzy ballads, reverb-drenched teen idols, and girl groups that, while charming in their own right, weren’t particularly guitar centered filled the void that resulted. Midway through the 1960s, the electric guitar appeared to be in somewhat of a lull in American pop music, with the exception of a few shining examples like Motown and surf/instrumental music.
It turned out that improbable heroes from across the Atlantic were the ones who actually brought about deliverance. It turned out that rock ‘n’ roll was still very much alive and well in the United Kingdom thanks to some slim English teenagers who were addicted to real American blues and rock ‘n’ roll and avidly devoured every James Burton solo, Chuck Berry riff, Eddy Cochran song, and Scotty Moore chord voicing. On any subpar instrument they could get their hands on, they mastered rock ‘n’ roll and made it their own, never realizing that in a very short time they would be the ones to reintroduce the form—explosively so—to the country of its origin.
These English children included 13-year-old schoolmates Roger “Syd” Barrett and David Gilmour, 16-year-old Keith Richards and George Harrison, 15-year-old Jeff Beck and James Page, 14-year-old Eric Clapton and Peter Townshend, 17-year-old Andy Summers, and a large number of others in late 1959. They continued absorbing American rock ‘n’ roll throughout 1960–1962 and advanced their largely self-taught musical educations; some were already playing in front of crowds with their first bands.
Back home, the Telecaster waited patiently in the United States from 1960 to 1962 as its brothers, the by then well-known Stratocaster (1954) and the Jazzmaster (1958), managed to maintain a shaky hold on the charts by promoting instrumental and vocal surf music by artists and acts like Dick Dale, the Beach Boys, and the Ventures. However, there were some intriguing Telecaster noises in the works. In the west, singer/guitarist Buck Owens of Bakersfield, California, pioneered a loud, no-frills anti-Nashville country style that was dominated by the sound of his Telecaster. Motown house guitarist Joe Messina also frequently utilized a Telecaster.
When the instrumental Memphis R&B quartet Booker T released Green Onions in October 1962, it may have been the first truly iconic Telecaster record of the 1960s. The album’s title tune, which featured the flawless phrasing of Missouri-born guitarist, producer, and songwriter Steve Cropper, was a huge smash. The rest of the decade saw him perform with Booker T. and the MGs. Cropper’s beautiful Telecaster work can be heard on several important hits, such as “(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay” (Otis Redding, 1965), “In the Midnight Hour” (Wilson Pickett, 1965), and “Soul Man.” Cropper also served as the house guitarist for the Stax label (Sam and Dave, 1967).
Meanwhile, Buck Owens' career had blossomed in California. With his tenth and eleventh singles, “Second Fiddle” and “Under Your Spell Again,” he made his debut on the Billboard country chart in 1959. In 1960, “Above and Beyond” peaked at number three. By supporting a loud, raw, and stripped-down sound propelled by the brazen twang of his Telecaster—what became known as the “Bakersfield Style,” Owens revolted against the glossy, string-heavy Nashville “countrypolitan” sound that was so prevalent at the time.
In February 1963, Owens and his band, the Buckaroos, recorded the Johnny Russell song “Act Naturally” in Los Angeles, which was notable for Don Rich’s debut on lead guitar (Owens’s Telecaster). “Act Naturally,” a song with a contagious Telecaster riff that was published in March of that year, reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart in June, and made Owens a household name. As its other hit-making musicians rose to the top of the charts, the Telecaster-driven Bakersfield Sound would battle Nashville throughout the decade.
There is little need to introduce the British Invasion of 1964. Following the Beatles' incredible success initially in the U.K. and after that, mainstream rock music grew more heavily (and occasionally outrageously) dependent on the guitar than it had ever been. In ever-increasing numbers, Fender guitars arrived in England and started showing up in the hands of those kids—now young men—who so voraciously consumed the American sounds of the 1950s.
The Yardbirds, a London five-piece, performed “Louise” and “I Wish You Would” on the Granada Television program Go Tell it on the Mountain in July 1964. What was notable about the performance was that the Yardbirds' 19-year-old guitarist, Eric Clapton, tore through both songs on a red Telecaster, unlike so many British bands at the time who used guitars from manufacturers other than Fender.
In 1965, Who guitarist Pete Townshend encountered a challenging situation somewhere in London. The Who were known for their visceral sound as well as their violent stage show, which by late 1965 routinely culminated in Townshend smashing his guitar at the end of the set-closing anthem “My Generation.” However, it had become prohibitively expensive for Townshend to smash up the delicate Rickenbacker guitars he was known for playing, so in an effort to save money, he started switching to Telecasters for “My Generation,” as they were less expensive and undoubtedly easier
Clapton’s departure from the Yardbirds in March of 1965 is also significant.
Jimmy Page was the replacement suggested by Clapton, but Page was hesitant to give up his lucrative session work and suggested Jeff Beck instead, who later joined the group. The Yardbirds' most popular period was typified by Beck’s avant-garde and experimental guitar playing; during his 18-month tenure, the band achieved success with songs like “Heart Full of Soul,” “I’m a Man,” “Shapes of Things,” and “Over Under Sideways Down,” most of which were performed on a battered 1954 Esquire. The Bakersfield sound, which was born of the Telecaster, grew in popularity back in the United States in the middle of the 1960s. From late 1963 through early 1968, almost all of Buck Owens' albums and singles reached the top spot on the Billboard country chart. Merle Haggard and the Strangers' sixth record, “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive,” which reached number one in late 1966, was performed by a fellow Californian and early admirer of the Bakersfield Sound.
The musically frenetic year of 1967 was perhaps the best example of the Telecaster’s extraordinary workhorse flexibility during the 1960s. On the Super Blues album, Bo Diddley and Little Walter were joined by Muddy Waters, the king of Delta blues, who performed on his ever-present Telecaster. Paul McCartney used an Esquire to record the guitar parts for “Good Morning Good Morning” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” for the Beatles' monumental eighth album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, on March 28 at London’s Abbey Road Studios. Syd Barrett recorded Pink Floyd’s debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn using his Telecaster and Esquire models in the same building at the same time.
1967 also saw two significant Telecaster technical advancements. First, Fender (a company now owned by CBS and sold by Leo Fender in 1965) changed the guitar’s controls such that the three-way switch operated the neck pickup, both pickups, and bridge pickup. This meant that the Telecaster once again had a switch position that operated both pickups simultaneously, which hadn’t happened since 1952. The Parsons/White String Pull, often known as the B-Bender, was created by musicians Gene Parsons and Clarence White (of the Byrds) and installed on White’s 1956 Telecaster (Fender would release its own B-Bender-equipped Telecaster 33 years later).
The Telecaster was in store for equally significant creative and technological advancements in 1968. In fact, the Thinline Telecaster, a lightweight variation of the instrument, represented the first truly significant design shift. Famous German luthier Roger Rossmeisl, who successfully engineered Fender’s entry into the world of acoustic guitars and joined the company in early 1962 after a hugely influential career at Rickenbacker, basically hollowed out a Telecaster body by routing sections on both sides from the back and gluing a thin panel over the back. In 1968, the Telecaster Thinline made its debut and quickly gained popularity.
The psychedelic “Paisley Red” and “Blue Flower” Telecaster versions were also released in 1968. They were given those names after the color and pattern of the self-adhesive wallpaper (!) that was used to adorn their tops (each guitar had a clear pickguard). Despite James Burton’s close association with the Paisley Red guitar, neither design was particularly durable.
Two significant debut albums by the UK, both produced in 1968, featured the Telecaster as the primary musical voice on an artistic level. artists. The first was Black Claw & Country Fever, performed by master country, rockabilly, rock, and R&B guitarist Albert Lee, who became popularly known as “Mr. The second was Led Zeppelin’s self-titled debut album. Jimmy Page had founded Led Zeppelin from the remnants of the Yardbirds. Jimmy Page utilized a Telecaster with psychedelic paint (a gift from Jeff Beck) on Led Zeppelin’s songs “Dazed and Confused,” “Good Times Bad Times,” “Communication Breakdown,” “How Many More Times,” “You Shook Me,” and other songs.
The Beatles, however, were the band that best embodied the 1960s, and as the decade came to an end, so did the band’s incredible career. The Beatles had been using more and more Fender instruments ever since they recorded “Ticket to Ride” in February 1965, which featured a droning Stratocaster part. However, it wasn’t until the band’s last album that the Telecaster played a prominent role.
Philip Kubicki of Fender developed a prototype all-rosewood Telecaster for George Harrison. Harrison used this guitar to record the final Beatles album, Let It Be, and used it on top of Apple’s London headquarters at the renowned rooftop concert on January 20, 1969, which served as the band’s final live performance (as seen in 1970 documentary Let It Be). The guitar was temporarily produced by Fender, however it was a transient addition to the line due to its odd timbre and substantial weight. Harrison handed Delaney Bramlett of Delaney & Bonnie his rosewood Telecaster shortly after the rooftop concert (Delaney put the guitar up for auction in 2003; it was bought by actor Ed Begley Jr. on behalf of the Harrison estate).
The 1960s came to a conclusion with Fender’s first electric guitar being used more widely and in more different contexts than ever before, and the firm had only begun to investigate creative new incarnations of the Telecaster that would last well into the next decade.
up to the 1970s
Beginning in the 1970s, the Telecaster underwent significant alterations thanks to its two most renowned American masters. James Burton was using the paisley Telecaster that would later come to be so strongly associated with him. Initially, he had only joined Elvis Presley’s band the year before, playing a red Telecaster. Second, Steve Cropper departed from Stax Records in the autumn to start his own studio, TMI, where he would collaborate and produce musicians like Jeff Beck, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Tower of Power, Rod Stewart, and many others. Later in the decade, there would be additional significant changes as well as even more praise and success for both men.
In the final days of 1970, Tom Zito, a journalist for the Washington Post, wrote about visiting the Crossroads Restaurant and Supper Club in Bladensburg, Maryland, where he saw a performance by the club’s house band, Danny Denver and the Soundmasters. Zito stated that even though the venue itself was completely unattractive, Roy Buchanan’s presence made the Crossroads stand out since he offered what might be the best rock guitar picking in the entire world.
After working for more than 15 years in relative obscurity (he briefly replaced Burton in Dale Hawkins' band in the late 1950s), Zito’s Post article was reprinted in Rolling Stone two months later, in February 1971, and eccentric and phenomenally talented Arkansas-born guitarist Roy Buchanan, 31, suddenly found himself the subject of much attention.
Writing about what Buchanan was capable of doing with a guitar does not do it credit. Many who saw him left with the impression that they had just witnessed the greatest guitarist in the history of the guitar. He simply worked on another level, coaxing jaw-dropping solos, eerie cello-like volume swells, and otherworldly harmonic and feedback sounds from his main instrument, a 1953 Telecaster he dubbed “Nancy.”
The public television station WNET, the first of the then-new PBS network, became interested in the Rolling Stone reprint and created an hour-long documentary, Introducing Roy Buchanan, which aired that November and catapulted his career into overdrive. He released his independent solo debut Buch and the Snakestretchers late in 1971 with his band, the endearingly called Snakestretchers, and then signed a record deal with Polydor Records, for which he made five solo albums before switching to Atlantic Records in 1976. Despite accumulating a great deal of praise, Buchanan maintained a low profile and appeared uninterested in obtaining the major-league celebrity that would have been expected of a musician with his extraordinary talent.
However, Roy Buchanan was not the only factor in 1971’s success for the Telecaster.
On the United States With the introduction of a new model in which both single-coil pickups were swapped out for the brand’s first-ever humbucking pickups on the West Coast, Fender continued the successful tinkering with the Telecaster that had started with 1968’s hollowed-down Thinline model. These were the Seth Lover-designed Fender Wide Range humbucking pickups. Lover joined Fender in 1967 after helping to pioneer hum-cancelling pickups at Gibson in the mid-1950s (most notably, the PAF). Given that numerous well-known guitarists had begun equipping their Telecasters with humbucking pickups (particularly at the neck position) in the late 1960s, this model was reasonably well-liked.
Keith Richards acquired a butterscotch 1953 Telecaster in the UK in 1971, and it quickly rose to the top of his collection and remained so for many years following. In particular, he installed a PAF humbucking pickup at the bridge backwards (a mod that was common at the time), switched to a six-saddle bridge with the low-E saddle removed to accommodate his preference for a five-string open-G tuning, and replaced the original “barrel” switch tip with a white Stratocaster-style one. Like Buchanan, Richards gave this guitar the moniker “Micawber” in honor of a figure from Charles Dickens' David Copperfield.
In fact, over the 1970s, Richards developed into something of a Telecaster aficionado, buying and nicknaming guitars of various vintages, such as a blonde 1954 model named “Malcolm” and a sunburst 1966 model named “Sonny.” Even now, he still makes considerable use of his Telecasters.
Last but not least, no analysis of the Telecaster in 1971 would be complete without mentioning that Jimmy Page recorded one of, if not his most well-known guitar solos, “Stairway to Heaven,” on his 1958 model early in the year.
The most common modification that players had been making for a few years already—replacing the single-coil neck pickup with a fatter-sounding humbucking pickup—was institutionalized by Fender headquarters, where Telecaster innovation was continuing apace. Fender simply installed one of Lover’s Fender Wide Range humbucking pickups in the neck position on a solid-body Telecaster, added a new pickguard design, an upper bout pickup toggle switch, and a new four-knob control scheme, and there it was—the Telecaster Custom, unveiled in 1972.
The third and final major alteration to the Telecaster’s design was made by Fender in 1973. The Telecaster Deluxe, which included two humbucking pickups, a Stratocaster-style headstock, and a choice of a hard-tail or tremolo bridge, joined the Telecaster Thinline and Telecaster Custom.
The Telecaster was adapted to some of its most creative uses around the middle of the 1970s. Fender’s first guitar, remaining virtually unmodified, was more common than ever in the middle of its third decade, influencing everything from progressive music to punk, rockabilly-influenced jazz to FM rock, an unexpected blues rebirth to chart-topping pop.
When Bruce Springsteen, a native of Long Branch, New Jersey, broke through with his third album, the epic Born to Run, in 1975, it was a prototypical Telecaster moment. Springsteen was depicted on the album’s iconic black-and-white cover leaning on Clarence “The Big Man” Clemmons' shoulder while holding an Esquire? Telecaster? Although it has two pickups like the latter, the guitar is frequently referred to as the former.
Which is it then? The Esquire. Although it has a set of replacement tuners, the guitar still sports the original three-saddle, 1950s bridge with a stamped steel base plate (which Petillo later replaced with a six-saddle titanium bridge).
The year 1975 is significant in the Telecaster saga because a Washington, D.C., trio by the name of Danny and the Fat Boys released their comparatively unnoticed debut album, American Music. Danny Gatton, a stylistically varied guitar virtuoso who was regarded for the remainder of his career as one of the most technically brilliant players to ever pick up a Telecaster, is the “Danny” in this case.
Burton and Cropper were busier than ever as the middle of the 1970s gave way to the latter years of the decade. Prior to Presley’s passing in August 1977, Burton performed frequently with the musician. He also found time to record and perform with John Denver and Emmylou Harris. When Saturday Night Live alumni John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd formed the blues/soul revival band the Blues Brothers in 1978, it was an unexpected triumph that thrust Cropper back into the public eye. Cropper performed with the duo that year as a member of their backing band on Saturday Night Live and on their chart-topping first album Briefcase Full of Blues.
Large-scale transformation had occurred in the U.K. across the Atlantic. mid-decade music scene The reactionary, spiky-haired punk movement emerged, sticking its safety-pinned nose up at both the status quo and the stodgy blues-based, psychedelic, and prog titans who dominated the first half of the 1970s. However, the ever-present Telecaster also felt well at home there.
Pub rocker John Mellor—better known by the stage name he’d acquired the year before, Joe Strummer—switched from pub to punk after the Sex Pistols opened an April 3, 1976, gig at the Nashville Rooms in London for his band, the 101’ers. Strummer agreed to take the lead vocals in a new group that also included Terry Chimes, Mick Jones, and Keith Levene on guitars, Paul Simonon on bass, and Mick Jones on drums. Strummer traveled with his beaten-up 1966 Telecaster. Three months later, the newly formed group, the Clash, performed live for the first time, opening up for the Sex Pistols on July 4, 1976, at the Black Swan in Sheffield, England.
Another band formed in another part of London at the same time, one that would go on to the absolute highest heights. seasoned U.K. After spending a few years in the United States studying music at California State University, Northridge, guitarist Andy Summers (Dantalian’s Chariot, Soft Machine, the Animals) made his way back to England in 1977. A battered 1961 Custom Telecaster that had been significantly modified with a humbucking neck pickup, phase switch, onboard preamp and overdrive unit, maple fingerboard, and more was purchased from one of his guitar students during his time in California.
After moving back to London in 1977, Summers recorded and performed with a number of bands before agreeing to guitarist Mike Howlett’s (ex-Gong) request to join a brand-new band named Strontium 90 in the middle of the year. Summers first encountered drummer Stewart Copeland and bassist Gordon “Sting” Sumner, who had earlier that year started their own trio named the Police. They were Howlett’s other recruits. Strontium 90 only played a handful of shows and made a few covert demos, but the Sting-Copeland-Summers lineup had great chemistry. That August, Summers took the position of original Police guitarist Henry Padovani, and the rest is history.
Chrissie Hynde, an Ohio-born singer, songwriter, and Telecaster-wielding guitarist, formed a four-piece band in Hereford, northwest of London, in March 1978. The lineup rapidly decided on her, guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon, and drummer Martin Chambers. Later that year, Hynde gave the group the name Pretenders, and they released their debut song, a rendition of the Kinks' “Stop Your Sobbing.”
The U.S. and the UK used the Telecaster more than ever as it played the last notes of its third decade. guitarists of all experience levels. The guitar itself had altered very little in the 1970s, as it always did, while musical styles evolved drastically. The first Fender electric guitar was once again in the hands of seasoned professionals who now revered it with a newfound sense of history and a fresh young generation of imaginative newcomers who would chart new musical territory and define their own new decade with it as the 1980s dawned. Fortunately, Fender itself was in for seismic change.
1980s to present
The Telecaster rode the crest of a wave of a rejuvenated U.K. into its fourth decade of indispensableness. pop and rock. Using the same instruments—the Telecaster in particular—tight, focused punk and new wave bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s displaced blues-based Goliaths in the charts and in critical praise. Thus, a U.K. dominated by the ’70s. Giants like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Yes transitioned into a ’80s-dominated U.K. heavyweights of a brand-new and distinctive kind, including the Police, Clash, and Pretenders.
in particular, the Police. With song after hit and unparalleled visibility thanks to the debut of MTV, which promoted their alluring sound and attractive looks 24 hours a day, the infamously blonde three rose to the top of the music world in the first half of the 1980s. The Police had impressive musical substance to back it all up, to say nothing of their good looks and marketing, and their empire was built on strong songwriting propelled by Andy Summers' stunningly creative Telecaster work.
In the early part of the 1980s, The Clash also reached the height of their artistic and economic success. The band’s stylistically expansive epic double album London Calling, which was released in late 1979, was really an album for the 1980s and featured the group’s first U.S. single. Like Summers, lead singer Joe Strummer also used a battered ’60s-era Telecaster, which he constantly plastered with slogans befitting his group’s early-’80s status as “the only band that matters.” “Train in Vain,” a top 40 hit.
Through two additional successful Clash albums from the era, Sandinista!, Strummer strummed his 1966 Telecaster with forceful swagger. Before the band started to break up, they released 1980 and Combat Rock in 1982. Nevertheless, he remained a beloved post-punk icon as the Clash persevered until 1986, and in the late 2000s, Fender also paid tribute to him (posthumously; Strummer passed away in 2002) with a tribute Telecaster model that faithfully replicated his battle-weary guitar down to the last detail.
All was not well, though, at Fender. The early 1980s Fender had fallen well short of its past glory after nearly 20 years of general neglect, poor quality control, and budget cuts under CBS. In his 2011 history of the Fender Custom Shop, The Dream Factory, acclaimed guitar author and historian Tom Wheeler described it as having a depressing reputation for creating “boat anchor” instruments, and sales were beginning to fall along with quality. It was at this time that rumors started to spread that if you wanted a really nice Fender instrument, you required an old one (this is where the commonly used term “pre-CBS” emerged). A late ’70s Telecaster may have looked like its 1950s or early 1960s forebears, but that was about it.
In order to address this issue, CBS hired Dan Smith as director of marketing for electric guitars and William “Bill” Schultz as president of Fender, both of whom were formerly employed by Yamaha. Both men set out to turn around Fender’s financial situation, and one of the first things Smith did was return the Telecaster’s original body design, which had been modified inelegantly and only marginally in the 1970s to take advantage of computer-controlled body cutting gear.
Schultz proposed producing Fender guitars in Japan for the sizable Japanese market after realizing that his plan for updating Fender’s U.S. manufacturing facilities would essentially necessitate pausing production while equipment was updated and staff was retrained. This would prevent low-cost imitations from sapping Fender’s Far Eastern sales and keep Fender instruments in manufacturing.
The Vintage Reissue series, a premium new family that debuted in 1982 and featured a well-built and largely historically authentic ‘52 Telecaster model, was one of the initial outcomes. These Japanese instruments from the Vintage series were soon made available in Europe under the Squier brand.
By the end of 1983, Japanese-made Fender guitars, including a Squier Telecaster in the style of the ’70s, were also available in the US, though U.S. production had not yet fully resumed. The 1983–1984 Elite Telecaster, a short-lived high-end model with humbucking pickups and active circuitry, was made in the U.S. factory.
But 1984 was also the year that CBS made the decision to sell Fender. After 20 years of unpopular CBS rule, Schultz and a group of investors purchased Fender in a sale that was finalized in March 1985. With only the name, distribution, and some unused inventory and equipment (there was no American factory), Schultz set out to rebuild and resurrect Fender. Schultz and his team formed the new Fender Musical Instruments Corporation’s headquarters in Brea, California, and bought a 14,000-square-foot facility in Corona, California, in October 1985. Fender Japan now served as the world’s primary producer of Fender instruments. The history of the Telecaster in the contemporary age starts here.
Fender focused on quality rather than quantity at the start of the new mid-’80s era under Bill Schultz, starting with a small number of historic reissue guitars and redesigned back-to-basics contemporary instruments termed American Standard models. In 1988, an improved version of the American Standard Telecaster with 22 frets, a stronger-sounding bridge pickup, and a six-saddle bridge was released.
Elliot Easton, the guitarist for the Cars, ordered a left-handed Telecaster Thinline from the Fender Custom Shop in 1987, which was one of the shop’s very first orders. After that, the Custom Shop would frequently transform the Telecaster from a basic workhorse into a work of art.
Since its resurgence in the late 1980s, the Telecaster has regained its position as the instrument of choice for guitarists of all stripes all over the world. Since then, several modifications have been provided, but at its core, the Telecaster is still the same fantastic instrument that the world first heard in the early 1950s. It still embodies Fender’s innovative spirit and commitment to tonal and performance excellence. And it still has some durability.
Additionally, throughout its contemporary history, the Telecaster has seen the discovery of new masters, the loyalty of stalwarts, and the regrettable departure of others.
Many grunge guitarists were spotted in the early 1990s using the contemporary Telecaster during the brief but tremendously meteoric period when that music ruled rock. Midway through the 1990s, ingenious Britpop guitarists in the U.K., like the incredibly skilled Graham Coxon of Blur and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, used the Telecaster in surprisingly original (and hit-making) ways.
Modern country (Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Dierks Bentley), modern metal (Fender trademark musicians John 5 and Jim Root), modern alt-indie (Frank Black, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Jimmy Eat World, and countless others), and a lot more were all using the Telecaster in the 2000s.
Leo Fender’s autograph appeared on the headstock in place of the regular logo as the Fender Custom Shop released a limited edition run of 50 Leo Fender Broadcaster versions in 2000 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Telecaster. The American Nashville B-Bender Telecaster was also released in that year. It employs a mechanical device that elevates the B string’s pitch by a whole tone (up to C#), producing sad, serpentine bends reminiscent of those made by a pedal steel guitar.
Since then, Fender has produced a wide range of contemporary Telecaster models made to fit any guitarist’s playing style, personality, and budget. Fender has released a variety of Telecaster variations, from authentically traditional to distinctively modified, from pristine to battered, and from high-end to budget-conscious. These variations are available alongside numerous artist models and the ongoing American Vintage series Telecaster guitars. These models, which include the American Special (2010), Road Worn (2009), and Classic Player (2006), have all kept the Telecaster at the forefront of contemporary electric guitars. The American Professional Telecaster, which is also available for lefties, and the Telecaster Deluxe Shawbucker, which combines traditional styling with cutting-edge modern features, were both produced by Fender in 2017.
Its look and sound are still instantly recognizable, and it is still the workhorse instrument of countless musicians worldwide who praise its form and function as much or more today than they did in the 1950s and every decade since. The Telecaster is an original that remains, simply and uncomplicatedly, thanks to the spirit of innovation and design excellence embodied in its elegantly shapely form.