What did you play before you realized the greatness of the tele?

[fiestabender]

What kind of guitar did you play before the telecaster. Don't know why i am outing myself. This was my favorite pre tele guitar. I had a les paul that was amazing, but i used to lust after this kramer. Remember this was 1986.

[Thorpey]

I used to play (and still have) a heap of junk Yamaha Pacifica... it's metallica red (well not shiny now) and certainly beat up... Got my tele and no looking back!!!

[Amby]

Strat user since 1963.

[jkingma]

Early 80's Schecter Strat.

[HappyTelecaster]

Vester Tradition Series Stratcopy with fixed bridge. It has telelike-Twang and made me realize I love that Twang so much I need to get me a decent Telecaster with even more Twang. A twangalicious one, kinda.

[Kornelius]

I used to play this



and i still do when i need a warm humbucker sound. Lag is a french brand producing good guitars, electric and acoustic and if i had to buy another guitar wiz hmbucker i would still buy a LAG, rather then a gibson.
You can have a look at the website here: http://www.lag.fr/boite/revueM.php?bt=2&boite=1

[neocaster]

I tried at 16 with a Cort strat copy, 18 with a Martin Stinger strat copy, 27 with an Ibanez RG570. Never learned to play any of those. Got a Squier affinity tele at 31 and since then I've picked up and played a guitar every day. All hail telecaster. (I still have the Ibanez. I even play it sometimes.)

[ericmichel]

back in the nineties my first good guitar was a Charvel CH4,then I had a black Les Paul custom but I couldn't get used to the neck;I went through a Valley Arts phase(Carlton and Lukather model);Let me point out that at the time my playing was terrible,that I played in crappy bands and that my wife thought I was a nut...
I improved,my bands were better and I bought a strat(ultra)then a standard sunburst;after the Van Halen years I fell for Albert Lee and Country;I practised harder and I bought telecasters(fenders,g&l's)and I'm the happiest man in the world;
20 years away from my Charvel and my ****ty bands I now play in one of the most hardworking country band in France and my main axes are a G&l asat classic and.......a blue Baja telecaster.

So I guess there's a lesson to be learned here....

[Telemarkman]

I realized the greatness of the Tele from the moment I saw/heard it, but I couldn't afford one.

My dad bought me this though (1963?) - it totally lacked sustain, but it sure had a lot of pickups and push-buttons ...

http://www.fetishguitars.com/html/eko/500/pearl4v.html

[django365]

Still a Strat Player ,Frankenstrat that is

[Dave_Strat]

I played a Strat from 78 until a few years ago, then changed to Les Pauls. About a year ago, I bought a Squire Tele and installed Fender CS Texas Specials. The more I play it, the more I like it.

Prior to that, I played an SG and a hand made Microfrets single coil. Great action guitar with limited tone and sustain.

[jhundt]

'68 Strat for many years, until I got a '68 Tele.

[brokenjoe]

First guitar was a cheap tele copy. Then I got a real one.

[mrmorrison]

Les Paul Custom
Fender Hendrix Tribute
Crap Strat copy
Imitation Martin
Jackson

[keithcc]

Strats and a solidbody Gretsch, a Peavey (it was actually a great guitar), and then a custom guitar built by a co-worker that looked like a Hofner in the Beatles book, sort of Les Paulish. I then had a guitar custom made by Roger Borys that I hated and, having lost a bundle to get rid of it, I started putting Fenders together out of parts and haven't looked back.

[leonard22]

my first was my dads hand me down 60's mustang, then a 72 SG with mini HB's... love those guitars (still have them)

-then a couple of kramers, the elliot easton model, and a focus classic strat copy(still have both)....
-then a PRS and a LP Studio that are long gone (gladly) a couple of RG ibanez things that are also gone....
-then 2 mexican strats when they came out, also gone..... then a parker fly, i still have it, and love that weird looking guitar... then a LP junior that a friend scratched all up then bought from me with those P-90's I think I fell in love with single coils again! I miss that one so I got a LP with a P-90 in the neck....
Then one day I woke up and I just knew I needed a telecaster... I talked and talked about how I needed one.... I was recently married and had a baby on the way (I was broke) so I got some parts here and there and pieced one together... I talked so much about tele's my dad bought himself one right around the time I finished assembling mine... I have nearly 20 guitars in total including acoustics and basses and I can honestly say I do not remember the last time I played anything other than my tele or my Taylor.... Kind of a waste really...!

[TELE_BLUES]

Ihad some gibby's 70's blonde 335 and a really cool firebird I That someone had refinished to cardinal red.The porblem wit hboth of thes ewere they're size.The bod yof the 335 and the length of the firebird.

[dburns]

i started on an old Honda guitar. black with white stripes, not unlike the Van Halen guitar. my dad got it from a garage sale or something, barely remember it. 25+yrs ago and its long gone now. didn't know much about guitars then, thought it looked cool.

my first new guitar was an Ibanez Allen Holdsworth signature model. AH-20 i believe. had a spider on the headstock. white w/blackguard. had no idea who he was at the time, but it was a good instrument for me then. also long gone.

graduated to strats in my early/mid teens. was pretty much a strat guy throughout my 20s. bought a highway one tele a few years ago and haven't looked back.

[A440]

Started on a Jedson guitar (very cheap!), then a Kimbara strat, then a Tokai Strat. Very recently a Baja Tele...loving the twang, such a great guitar.

[bo]

Fender Mustang, Music Man Sabre II, Ibanez Rocket Roll, Heartfield RR9.

[Donnie55]

Tele was my first guitar. Over the years I have played Gibson SG`s, Firebirds , Flying V`s. Played PRS. for awhile. Played Strats for years. Back to a Tele about 10 years ago never looked back.

[guitarman823]

a Tele was my first, but I switched to Strats for a long time. Couldn't get used to the wide, flatness of a Tele neck. Small hands... Switched back in the mid-80's and have been playing one since. You just can't beat the sound.

[edwardjeffrey]

63 jag with p-90s offa old 330 and a gibson stop bridge.

[Faraldi]

Actually gave up on music totally until about five years ago. Then I started playing bass in church.

When I decided to start my band, the first guitar I bought was a red Affinity Tele.

[repeatofender]

Strat

[davie blue]

I started learning guitar on a couple of Squier Strats, but in high school I joined a rock band and thought an Epiphone Flying V looked the part a bit better. That was a fun little guitar but hard to practice sitting down.

After moving to Nashville I heard Brad Paisley's first record and promptly traded the V for a Fender Nashville Tele so I could join a country band. The neck from the Nashville has now joined an MIJ Foto-Flame tele body in my current franken-tele incarnation.

[golfnut]

The guitar I played before a telecaster was the first electric I ever owned. I came from a bluegrass background. When I was 21 I joined my first country band and needed an electric. I looked around and settled on a Fender Lead 2. I played that for almost a year until I first discovered the Telecaster. I never looked back. I've always owned and played Telecasters. Through out the years I've owned and played various strats, Kramers, Hand made Lado a Gibson SG an Ibanez, etc, but Teles were always my main guitars.

[zoppotrump]

strat plus and a les paul standard.
both sold now.....

[newtwanger]

1987 SG '62 Reissue.

For a time, I WAS Tony Iommi.

[nvilletele]

1989 US Strat Plus . . . my first electric guitar.

[woodman]

Teisco
Strat
335
Jazzmaster

[PaisleyIsGod]

I played a Godin Freeway Classic. I thought it was a great guitar. I didn't really have a preference for a while when I was just getting into playing.

[Sergey]

Teisco
Briefly, a Squier Strat

[Saxguitar]

A untunable Maestro Les Paul Junior copy from Meijer. I snapped the bridge off by putting a set of 11's on it, so it was unplayable until I found replacement screws for the posts, which is what prompted me to buy a SX tele, the only good part of the LP was the pickup, it didn't sound half bad.

Still I wish I would have bought a Squier instead, at least I could have intonated the bridge. Lesson learned.

It was my first guitar so I will never get rid of it, alot of sweat and blood(literally from bad fret ends) went into learning on it.

[Deadsy]

My first ever guitar was some ancient junky acoustic. I don't i've "properly" played that guitar once since I've had it. My second guitar was a Cruise VMI custom or something like that. Had a no name humbucker and I think was a really short scale, but not child short haha. I didn't play it much, learned power chords and that was about it. I got a strat a year or so later with an amp when I joined indoor percussion freshman year of high school, (we played "Lateralus" by Tool. It was epic, we won every competition except the final, when one of the snare drummers fell flat on his face) but went back and forth between the Cruise and Strat. A year or two later I bought an Epiphone 7-String Korina Flying V, which as just evil, but wayy too balance to keep around (I mean seriously, who was in charge of that?? Sure, let's find the lightest wood we can and slap an oversized headstock with an extra tuner on a longer neck! I broke two tuners due to nose dives on that thing.) i sold that and got a Bronze Series BC Rich Warlock. It's... Meh. I stuck with my strat (which now has the Cruises humbucker in it, for a while. Eventually, I put a Dragonfire Active Humbucker in the strat, with only a volume knob. That got old fast, and luckily, my friend had given up on his tele project. He gave it to me, I fixed it up, bought a new neck, loved it! Since then I've swapped many things, the neck (MiM), the bridge (Black Wilkenson w/ comp. Brass saddles), the pick-ups (Fender Mod Shop Hotrod SCN's), the body (70's Thinline style) lol. I'm still using the original pot's, switch and input jack, but everything (the wiring included) else has been swapped haha. Tele's are just so much fun to mod!

[Rich_S]

Progressed from cheap 70s Japanese guitars (I had a 4-pickup Teisco for a while) to SGs, then Les Pauls, then a Dean V, then got my first Tele. Briefly gave up the V and the Tele for a mutt Strat, then move on to a Schecter PT in 84, added an MIJ Tele Custom in 85. It's been all Tele-style guitars since then; PT's and/or Fender Tele's.

[Deadsy]

VVV

[xjazzy]

Washburn mercury -> Gibson LP standard -> Strat standard than I found the light

[LennyEdwards]

I rotted away in the realm of mediocrity.

[Paul in Colorado]

Strats and Strat type guitars, a Travis Bean TB 500, Epiphone Riviera and a Les Paul