What compelled you to buy a Tele?

[eggman]

Howdy,

After 20 years with a Stratocaster, I plugged in an American Std. Tele in Dec. 1999. I couldn't believe how the Tele out-Fendered my Strat in terms of tone!Understand that in that 20 year period I'd played a Tele for maybe all of 4 minutes.
I sold my Strat and bought the Aqua Marine Tele and have never looked back!
I even have a USACG flamed Mahogany Tele with a '52 RI bridge and DiMarzio Twang Kings which sounds a little less trebly, but has a tad more sustain. IMHO, The Telecaster is th REAL Fender guitar! Obviously, YMMV :)

Eggman

[David Barnett]

When I was a kid I used to collect catalogs and brochures. Car catalogs, guitar catalogs, anything really. I picked up a '67 pocket-sized Fender full line brochure, and stared at the pictures for hours. I didn't really much care for the Telecaster then, preferring the more flashy Stratocasters, Jazzmasters and Jaguars. The Tele looked cheap to me, and I didn't understand the whole bridge/tailpiece ashtray looking thing. And in the front of the catalog, in the artist endorsements section, the only guys with Telecasters were country players. I didn't like country.

Several years later I was wasting time in a music store and they had blonde Telecaster with a maple cap on a stand in the window, and I liked the way it looked. I picked it up and I liked the way it played, a lot. That planted the seed in my mind that maybe Teles weren't just some cheap loss leader for people who couldn't afford a Strat.

When I was in college I had a '60s Epiphone Riviera, bright cherry red, and a friend down the hall had a '73 Tele, natural ash w/maple neck. That Tele felt as heavy as a concrete block, but it sounded a lot better than my Epi, which always seemed kind of dull.

In 1979 I was "between jobs" and got a bad speeding ticket. I needed some fast money so I sent the Epiphone to George Gruhn's and got well more than I'd paid for it. A friend of mine had a 1966 Telecaster that he hated, he'd recieved it as part of a barter deal for some hifi gear. His guitar idols at the time were Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, and Ritchie Blackmore, and a Telecaster didn't fit him at all. I liked it, and needed a guitar, so we worked out a deal where I'd pay him off as I could. I think we finally settled up in 1984.

I bonded with that guitar quickly, and with a few adjustments got it feeling pretty good. I've had it ever since. Several Gibsons have come and gone, but the Telecaster was always the guitar I picked up while the Gibson gathered dust on a stand.

[Joel Terry]

Growing up in the Pentecostal church, the son of a pastor, I was exposed to great music since Day One. My mother was, and still is, a pianist, and my father sang, played guitar, and played piano, too. My older brother plays piano, drums, guitar--just about any instrument he has a mind to play; and my little brother plays drums.

Back in the early 1970s, there was a fellow by the name of Doug Enoch--who, as I think back, uncannily resembled Danny Gatton--who played electric guitar in my church's ensemble. He played a Tele; first, a 1958 Tele. That '58 was stolen when someone broke into our church, along with a '62 Precision Bass, an Ampeg B-15 amp, a tweed Deluxe, a Gibson J-45 acoustic, and several other instruments--I found the police report in my teens while rummaging through Dad's files, and I still have it.

Anyway, Doug replaced the '58 with a 1967 Telecaster, and he replaced the tweed Deluxe with a blackface Deluxe Reverb. His sound was etched into my brain. An amazing, bright twang drenched in reverb (and vibrato on slow spirituals). From memory, I recall he sounded like a cross between Ry Cooder and James Burton. Great, great, stuff.

Since those salad days, I became a guitarist, of course. I started playing guitar when I was eight; and since then, I've tried to cobble together my own patchwork style from many incongruent influences. My first electric was a Les Paul copy that wouldn't hold a tune. Eventually, when I was 15, I graduated to a Stratocaster. For years, primarily under the influence of Jimi and Stevie Ray, I played Stratocasters. Even after my musical horizons widened to include jazz and classical, I remained a Stratocaster loyalist.

About three years ago, my stepdad--an ardent Tele player just about his entire life--swapped straight up his '75 Tele Custom for my 1971 Precision Bass. That did it. (Also, joining the TDPRI around that time sealed the deal. ) I've since acquired four more Teles.

Don't get me wrong--I still love Stratocasters, much as I still love Jazzmasters, Mustangs...just about any popular Fender model. But I have to say that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Tele guy, now--thanks to my stepdad, to you ladies and gents, and to that long-ago guitarist in my apostolic-rich youth, Doug Enoch.

Tele heroes don't always have big names or record deals.

Joel

[67tele]

Seeing Danny Gatton at partys and Roy Buchanan at local clubs . Also the 1st guitar I could afford was a 67Tele for 100.00 (Worked the whole summer to buy it from a neighborhood kid) Love it to this day. Big Tele area here,mainly due to these 2 guys

[Ed Bickert]

First of all, what a sick question! How can you not reply to that? That's like asking people what their favorite color is. Lol!

But for me? After 20+ years of playing you inevidably buy quite a few guitars. And the law of averages states that you buy at least one tele along the way. For me? it was seeing Eric Clapton with one. Bruce Springsteen. And the Stones. Even though at the time my main influences were Iron Maiden, Saxxon, Scorpions, Riot, AC/DC, Van Halen (not Van hagar), Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, etc.

My tastes have mellowed considerably with my age. Nowadays it was Ed Bickert and Ted Greene that really pompted me to buy a tele. This time it was more for the sound than anything else. ...Remember those Aria Pro Urchin IIs? Or those Jacksons? Had to have a Jackson in the 80's. Lol! And don't forget Steinbergers.

I remember meeting my brother's freind in Berklee College of Music who had a blue "Paul Reed Smith" before anyone ever heard of the name. You used to be able to buy them for about the price of an LP back then. Gone are those days.

But I'll take a tele over all of them. Tone wonderpup, workhorse, versatile. How many other guitars out there can you genuinely play blues, metal, jazz, and everything inbetween on? And still fit in too? ...Can you see Ed Bickert playing an Explorer? Lol!

[Joel Terry]

Originally Posted by TG

(The Telecaster is) what electric guitars are supposed to sound like, and look like, in my mind.

Exactly. Perfectly stated, TG.

Joel

[franchelB]

Everyone had a Strat...and I always thought I didn't want to be like everybody else!

[mr natural]

M first good electric was a '61 Melody Maker bought used from a soundman friend for $400 back in '88 or so. The cash was stolen from his van at a gig in NYC the next day. The MM through an old Legend Super lead 50 was my setup in bar bands for a long time. I wanted to sound like Jimi, Carlos and Page. Fast forward to 2003. I've been playing acoustic and violin for a while, but want to get back into the electric. The MM is kind of undependable as the output jack keeps needing to be replaced and the original tuners are not great (I refuse to replace them as this axe is bone stock) I do some consulting work and get enough cash to get a really good guitar. Go back to the music store (The always awesome Parkway Music in Clifton Park) and play everything in sight. Only guitar in the place that impresses me are the American Teles and this really nice old Guild Dreadnought which really tempted me.So basically I ordered a 2003 American series cause it looked durable, had a single coil bridge pickup with some balls, and sounded more like I wanted my electric sound (moving away from hard rock and more into country and jazz) Ordered a natural cause it matches my amp and if I'm payin' for the wood, I wanna see it. Absolutely the perfect electric for me. Can't do those above the nut bends on an SG. It's funny, at our block party, this past summer, I played in a pickup blues band with some heavy cats. Tele through Legend. Other guitarist playing a strat through 2 little Fenders. At the end of the night my wife, used to my old tone said, "your guitar sounded kind of tinny tonight." When we got home I put on Buckaroo and asked her "tinny like that? she said yeah. I know I don't have the classic tele tone but I can get close enough to fool most people. I can get a great jazz tone, hard rock, you name it, the tele is one versatile guitar. Have you seen what Melody Makers are going for on Ebay? Hilarious.
-Mr N.

[genelovesjez]

Thanks to being a Hendrix fan for as long as I can remember, Strats were always my idea of the ideal electric guitar. Nevertheless, Telecasters always had a certain mystique for me that Strats never did. While I admired many of the better known players (Keef, for one), three specific memories stand out that really turned on the Telecaster GAS:

1. Seeing Ralph Macchio playing one in the movie Crossroads. I know, I know - take the shots if you must, but there was something about getting an old Telecaster from a pawn shop to go down into the Delta to play the blues that seemed really right to me.

2. Seeing Prince play his Telecopy in Purple Rain. Something about a very style-conscious guy like Prince playing a telecaster copy also seemed really right to me.

3. Seeing Jeff Beck bring a Telecaster to jam with Eric Clapton in the Secret Policeman's Other Ball . Somehow, having a Telecaster to jam with EC seemed way cooler than having a Strat. It was like Beck was so confident, he didn't even need his Strat. If I ever jam with EC, I will probably do the same.

Plus, I was also very affected by almost every picture I ever saw of regular joes playing Telecasters. Seeing how cool Telecasters make non-cool guys look is still the thing about them that hits me the most.

[Aen]

I played a butterscotch squier affinity tele. It felt like it was made for me. Somebody else has it now, of course.

[OutlawSteph]

First time I played my Custom, I felt like it was supposed to be mine. It was 'the one', and I wasn't long over a relationship and wanted to get myself a nice guitar. I always dug the country rock players that used them, but if it didn't feel right to me, I wouldn't play them.

[Platefire]

To be honest Years ago I always looked down on Teles
and thought of them as too trebely bittey type guitars.
I have this good friend that has this 69 tele that always encouraged me to play it. I began to take him up on it and after a while he didn't have to encourage me to use it because I sought it out on my own. I found I could adjust my amps to really compliment the guitar. After I realized there was something special about a tele I began
seeking one for my own in the late 90's. I wasn't in too much of a hurry to get off the 69 so I definitely took my time, even bought a case for the future tele. Well I stopped in at a local music store about two months ago and tried out a three tone sunburst Hwy 1 and I knew it was the one--I was really thrilled and amazed at what I was feeling and hearing--so I made the deal and brought it home. I haven't picked up the 69 since. Maybe someday. The truth is if you want that tele tone and feel, you have to have a tele and there is nothing else quite like it. Platefire

[Southpaw433]

Roy Buchanan - late 70's
old videos of Jimmy Page playing a tele
Buck Owens on Hee-Haw
Reading books on Fender History
Brad Paisley

and TDPRI !

[Tony Dogs]

The Boss (Born to Run cover) piqued my interest: 8)

Chrissie Hynde closed the deal!

Now if I could only get Charlize Theron to start playing a Tele!

[Buckocaster51]

James Burton
Luther Perkins
Don Rich
Roy Nichols

Any other questions? :D

[Nick Fanis]

I bought the Bruce Springsteen album "BORN TO RUN" & there on the cover was the COOLEST looking guitar EVER made,I had to get one of these!!

[nathanmanansala]

about this time a year ago i was reading about fralin pickups in HC and one review mentioned brad paisley. so i looked for stuff about him and got my hands on some of his stuff. i flat out loved the tone he was getting from that very first song i played (the fishing song if i remember it right) and had to have that sound. 2 weeks later i bought a 97 am. std tele and SD antiquities for it. a month later came the callaham mods (bridge, contol plate, electrosocket). and now a year later, a second tele is on its way from ishibashi.

so i guess i'm playing a tele because of brad paisley. :)

[eddiewagner]

when i was a kid i went to the easyridermovie and was blown away by "wasn´t born to follow" by the birds. and that is where c.w. played those beautiful tones. then came the stones and status quo. when i finally really knew what was going on, i had to have a tele. i love teles for the simplicity, although you can make teles into a kind od rocket science as well ;^). i totally agree with hellecaster that dave edmunds sweet little lisa was killer at that time!
eddie

[Sarge]

Though I was very content with my array of strats and Les Pauls, I felt as though something was missing in my sonic arsenal. After doing some on line web surfing, I came across a Levinson Blade Delta Thinline that really looked sweet. So, I bought it, then I came across a Fender CE Tele, so I bought it. Then I got a great deal on a Fender Nashville Deluxe Tele and bought that also. They introduced me to the "world of telecasters". Though I still prefer Strats and Gibsons......I do enjoy playing the tele's on occasions.

[Vunz]

and came home with a rosewood MIJ. It did help that Bruce did have one. The sound got me convinced I desperatly needed that one (and the fact that is was used and much cheaper). Saw myself on the foortop playing yee ol beatles.
Will never part with that one. Sometimes you walk into a store and one of those grabs you and wont let go.
I know thats a problem, and I try to avoid that by not going into guitarshops that often any more. :P

Vincent

[JoeyV]

It was a picture of Bruce Springsteen , it was May of 1982 and I was playing a 64 Fender Mustang(my first guitar, got it in January for my 18 birthday) and I was playing my first few club gigs and the other guitar player in the band had a Springsteen album that we were checking out and I just stared at that guitar for hours, I could not get it off my mind for months and months..about a year later I saved up enough money to get my first one...been happily playing them ever since..

[fancychords]

I grew up with strats i always loved the fender sound, i always liked teles and although i played teles here and there i never connected with one to where i felt comfortable..all the players that i admired played teles...to me when you can master a tele you have arrived...one day i tried a nocaster and that was it i felt as if i played it all my life, and i felt that all those years with the strat i was playing the wrong guitar...

[nick_g]

Combination of:
-Brad Paisley
-Jerry Donahue
-Danny Gatton
-Brent Mason
-Johnny Hiland
-Bridge pickup
-Construction
-GAS!