What compelled you to buy a Tele?

[grindliner]

G.A.S.

I have a strat, so I wanted a Tele as well. I sold a PRS Custom 24 to buy the strat.

Now, I have only owned the Tele for two days, and I think the strat is headed for ebay.

[vic108]

Hey, it MAY be a cold winter.
You may want to save the Strat for the woodpile.

[danbind]

Joe Strummer, 1979.

Being able to sound A LITTLE like Gatton or Paisley at this point is just gravy. The coolest sound around, even from my fingers. The fact that it is probably the simplest design around appeals to my egalitarian tendencies.

[Twangbanger]

Redd did it!

But my dad put the idea in my head when I was about 12. He said that he'd always wanted to build a white washed tele, so I did that right after I saw Redd for the first time about 3 yrs ago. Traded my 78' Cherry sunburst strat in for a SF vibroluxe and made tele heaven. No longer have the vibro, the strat's still at the shop where I traded it in(South Austin Music in Austin, Tx), but the tele will never leave my hands.

Except to be sent to Mjtele for a refinsish in about 20 years. Thanx Redd!!!

[kp8]

One day i went into the store to buy a pedal and the shop had a tele for testing stuff out. I plugged in and liked what i heard. I flipped the switch to the middle and liked that a lot too, i flipped it to the neck and thought wow! and it played great; Musical sounds, simple design, played great, i was hooked. I didn't buy a pedal, but i bought a tele only a couple weeks later. But i was so impressed with the fact that you got, right out of the box, three really distinct tones and all musically useful all sounded round, bold, clear, fender-y and delicious.

-kp8--

[DAK]

James Burton making all that noise behind Ricky Nelson on TV... later backing Elvis. Steve Cropper playing those funky licks for the Stax/Volt artists. Waylon Jennings.

There were other influences... but these three were the biggest.

[rdchapman]

1971, I had my first real electric guitar, a 62 Gibson single pickup Melody Maker (still have it). I was working sound/lights for a band and one of the guys had a Tele. I fell in love with the sound of the neck pickup. I had never heard a sound so lovely in my life. Then a friend turns me on to Roy's first album and I hear his version of Lonesome Fugitive. I am floored, but at this time, I'm playing pedal steel and saving to replace my Sho-Bud Maverick with a Pro. As the years pass, I have no need for an electric guitar as I go from the steel to dobro/mandolin in a bluegrass group to playing piano and organ in rock groups. Of course, I have to buy all the gear to do these things. No thoughts of electric guitars for years. Finally a few years ago, I play guitar at a jam(using a borrowed Gibson ES-175) with some bandmates and old friends and one of the bandmembers says "You should play some guitar with the group". I get the itch, but say to myself, "Hey, I'm a Gibson guy, I need a Les Paul style guitar". After trying to get several Gibson type guitars to get the sound I want, my brother says, "Try my Strat". I'm hooked and go out and buy a 57RI. Great guitar. Now with this group, I'm starting to get back to my roots. Looking for material, I pull out my old Roy records and put them on. The lights go on and I realise that the sound I want to have is right there. Put on my old Merle Haggard stuff, there it is again! It seems everywhere I look to play the electric music I love, It's the Tele I hear. No choice. I go down to the shop and play EVERY Tele in the shop in an afternoon. I had em lined up 4 at a time in the sound room. I walk out with a 2003 Custom Telecaster with CS Nocaster Pickups. I really don't think I stopped smiling for months when I was playing that thing thru an amp. Since then, I got a chambered spruce top that has become my #1. Sure, I have a Les Paul and other guitars and they have thier uses, but when I get ready to go out the door for a gig, it's my Teles that get the call.
r

[scotabilly]

The players that most inspired me, originally, to play a Tele are Keith Richards, Andy Summers, Chrissie Hynde, and two album covers. Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, and Stephen Bishop's Songs We Can Dance To. Got my first Tele (a blonde partscaster) in 1982. Later that year I traded the first one to get a real Fender all black Tele, which I still own. That day was one of the happiest days of my life, ranking right up there with my wedding day, and when our children were born. I don't play that black Tele too much because it weighs about 10 lbs, and honestly, doesn't sound as good as some others I own.

[teleman77]

Waylon, pure and simple. I got my first tele in 1976 and never looked back. Then it was Roy Buchanan, Albert Lee, Ray Flacke and the master................Danny Gatton.

Is there any other guitar that can create such passion, I don't think so.

[darkstar]

For me it was sort of a random music store encounter. I had been playing for about 5 months, lately on a cheap superstrat i borrowed from a friend. I had almost no experince with electric guitars until then, so i was jsut feeling stuff out and trying to figure out what i really liked. I was expecting to be more of a les paul guy after doing some research online about guitars. I picked up a tele on a whim, not really expecting it to be my thing. It sounded so good when i started playing it though! It was so much brighter and clearer than any of hte other guitars i had been trying, and it could do dirty tones jsut as well as any of those humbucker guitars too. A few weeks later i got one for my birthday. I loved them ever since.

[JTM45blues]

Staying up late on Saturday nights as a kid and watching GE Smith with his ultra cool blackguard Teles into Blonde Fender amps.

Then later in life the Black Crowes, and then getting heavily into the Stones. After that being turned onto guys like Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton, Albert Collins, Jim Weider, etc., etc.

[Cheese]

i heard the london city tele copy was the best bang for the buck so i bought it (i was thinking of buying a ibanez artcore archtop)

i like it alot