[Elliot Easton]

The '57 Classic is a fine choice. The reason for flipping the pickup so that the polepieces are on the bottom edge is to pick up the string vibration a bit further down, toward the bridge. This will yield a slightly brighter, less muddy tone. The famous Peter Green Les Paul has the neck pickup oriented the same way. This will not only affect the tone in the way I have described, but also the 2 pickup setting will have a bit more chime, not a bad thing at all. Installing the humbucker in a stock Tele will require some routing in the body to accommodate the larger pickup, but a good repairman can do it easily. Here's another possible reason for reversing the pickup: on a Strat, or even a Les Paul, the polepieces of the neck pickup fall directly under the 2nd harmonic, sort of where the 24th fret would be. This is always preferable as it will give a more ringing, harmonically rich tone. One more idea: if you have a push-pull tone pot installed, you can split the humbucker to a single coil for that great 2 pickup jangle that is such a great sound on a Telecaster. Although it won't sound exactly like a stock Tele neck pickup, it will be close, giving you the option of having the guitar get all of the classic Tele sounds plus the humbucking tone. I doesn't require any extra cutting or routing, but you'll have a couple of more useable sounds on the guitar. Just a thought...