What compelled you to buy a Tele?

[Scatterbrain]

Was it a specific song, player, or even a picture? Maybe it was a friend's Tele or it was just a random encounter at a music store. Whatever the story, it would be cool to hear.

I was into Gatton's 88 Elmira Street for years, but could never even approximate any of the tones with my arsenal at the time: a Les Paul, Strat Plus, and Strat partscaster. The snap of the low E on Funky Mama is a good example of a tone that is not easy to replicate on another guitar. This tone quest drove to get my Nocaster. The Strat Plus is no longer with me and the Les Paul lives in it's case while the Nocaster has become my everyday player. My tones are closer to Gatton's, but my playing...

[gls500]

I was getting out of the pointy guitar phase of my early playing days in the early 90's, and wanted something "different". I was getting into blues and rock at the time, and all my favorite pickers played strats. I found a good deal on an Eric Clapton strat and bought it.

Then I was watching SNL, and someone (don't remember who) was playing a blackguard tele, and it was the meanest, most beautiful sounding tone I had ever heard.

Two weeks later I bought and American Standard tele, and the strat was gone within days. The rest is history.

[boogaloo]

I told this story here before when I first "joined" but it's what started my love affair with this guitar so a slightly abridged version:

It was around November 1997 or so and I had about $200.00 or so in my pocket intending to buy a travel acoustic guitar to play outdors and in all sorts of conditions with the church youth group, of which I was and still am a leader. I walked into a local guitar shop and saw a 72 Tele Custom, CIJ, hanging there. I plugged it in (just to satisfy my curiosity, you understand) and ultimately walked out with it, my wallet slightly lighter than the 200 I intended to spend. My wife, who is very supportive, said in a most practical way "Are you going to be able to use that for something specific?" (I was not playing in a band at this point, and although I had played guitar on and off for 20 or so years, I had never played lead before). I responded that I just knew I needed it. Got a small used amp and started messing around with blues progressions. Took my acoustic to youth functions and was just real careful with it.

By April 1998 I was in a band as a fill in for a lead player (they were desperate and I was eager..) who had suddenly left. Been in three bands since then, learned to play lead much better (still have a way to go ) but best of all still love those teles.

In a moment of maddness I traded that first tele, but have always had one in the stable since then!
Brian

[Poppatwang]

they look cool.

[tweedtone]

The visual for me was Pete Townsend in the video for "Rough Boys" but like you, for me the sonic revelation was also Gatton's playing in general and 88 Elmira Street specifically. Plus I'd gotten tired of changing strings on my pointy headstock Kahler-equipped Guild. :)

Every five years or so, I'd buy a Str*t ... and then a week or so later, I remember why I don't play one!

[cdobbs7977]

Two days after graduating high school, I had only asked for grad money for a new guitar. So with a wad of cash in my hands I went out searching with my best friend (and bass player). Went in planning to test out a Lone Star Strat and buy one. Tried it, but it didn't quite speak to me. Then my buddy points out a Nashville Deluxe Power Tele on the wall. I'd never seen a tele with 3 pups, and this also had the Piezo bridge. I played it, went back to the strat, back again. My buddy looks at me and goes, "Its a no-brainer man, the tele." She's been with me ever since.

[Ericwest53]

Though I started playing guitar when I was a kid, I strayed into Pedal Steel for a quarter century. In that time I think I've played with or against every guitar I can name, and some I don't remember. Never heard a single one that sounded anything like a Tele. Not Les Ps, not Gibsons, not Danelectros, not Guilds, not Epiphones.

In some cases, it was the guitar player, like once when a local guy asked me "Which guitar of his I preferred?", I shot back, "That's like The Dentist asking me which drill I'd like him to use."

I got a Tele, made by some little guy in a Red Chinese Work Farm, and never looked back..

There is no other kind of guitar.

:)

EJL

[txspreacher]

One album....."Waylon Live".

[Fuzzyhead]

The desire to play guitar first came to me when I saw Bruce Springsteen live on stage for the first time in '93 (I was ten at the time). From that moment on, I wanted to play guitar someday and there was never a question to what type of guitar: I wanted one like Bruce's. It was the perfect archetype of a guitar to me: It looked very stylish in an understating way, it sounded exactly right and very down to earth (I later thought Strats sounded too "funky" in a snooty way and I always disliked Les Pauls for their lack of treble) and it was also a very sturdy and trusty guitar that you could depend on. That's why I bought my MIM Std and I have never looked back since then. If you play a Tele you're always in the slight minority which gives the whole thing a nice rebel attitude and is just fine by me...

[andy__woods]

First off, I still don't own a Tele, but it's the only electric even in my field of vision. For me though, someone who doesn't necessarily listen to country/western music very much, it's hard for me to pin down the appeal.

It probably goes back to the 2nd acoustic I ever purchased, an Inca Silver Telecoustic, which I bought on a whim. I had been playing about 6 months and was interested in getting a new acoustic, and my friend and I found a picture of it in the Musician's Friend catalog and I thought it was the coolest thing. I loved the shape, a lot more than the Stratocoustic, and when I got it I was very pleased. When I sold the Telecoustic this past Spring to get a full dreadnaught acoustic I was right away thinking of buying a Telecaster.

It's been about 6 months of wanting and wishing, and to feed my hunger I've downloaded who knows how many desktops and images of Teles off the net, spent countless hours on these forums just soaking up everything and reading the Fender Telecaster book. Thankfully, I will be buying one in a week or so and I can't wait.

So to answer your question (that was kind of a roundabout way) the things I love about the Tele are these:
- the history of it, being the first massively produced solid body guitar
- the neck, it just feels good
- simplicity
- design, chrome hardware
- Brad Paisley - I know I don't listen to country/western a lot, but Brad has certainly increased my interest in the Tele, especially the Paisley designed teles

[Cobra8272]

saw Status Quo and Rolling Stones Live in 1980 i think it was - Quo in Glasgow and Stones at the Hammersmith?
Keef, Ric and Francis on the Tele just blew me away.
wanted one ever since.
Cobra

[Hellecaster]

I was totally into Jimi Hendrix and played Stratocaster only until I saw the light.

There was a tv program about Dave Edmunds on Swedish television were they had filmed the recording of the song Sweet little Lisa where Albert Lee play the lead part.

That day I promised myself to live long enough to have time to learn that solo and that what I have been working on since that very special moment hehe.

I got myself a Tele with a B-bender and I have stayed with Teles apart from a few Strats and one Les Paul.

[TG]

Two things. I was given Paul McCartney's first solo album (the one with 'Maybe I'm Amazed') for my 9th birthday in 1970. My first 'very own' record ever. There's a picture in it of him playing a sunburst tele. I'd been taking guitar lessons for awhile but that album really got me into it. I still like listening to the guitar licks on it.
Roll on to New Years Eve 2000 and I was at a party jam session and I borrowed an old tele and played it thru a small tube amp (a 50w Marshall combo from the 80s, I think). I couldn't believe how simple but GOOD it felt, sounded, responded, etc, etc. The epitome of the 'electric guitar' sound that I thought was so utterly cool as a kid. Right there in a plain old uneffected telecaster.
Put the 2 things together...simple functionality and childhood association... and now I only play a sunburst tele thru a small tube amp.
It's what electric guitars are supposed to sound like, and look like, in my mind.

[teletwangler]

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

Maybe ... it was just a random encounter at a music store.

Yep. I'm just a reformed drummer who's been fooling around with guitars for years, mostly Gibsons, but never really found the right sound. Sold all my electrics and went acoustic for a few years. Took my kids to the music store to have my son's sax looked over before high school band started back up and next thing I know I'm putting money down on a MIM standard marked down cuz it had a couple dings. Figured I needed an electric around the house and the price was right. Fell in love right away, bought a used Nash a year later and the rest is history! Now my daughter fools around with that standard - I hope Teles become a family tradition!

[Scotland]

I kept hearing this "particular" guitar sound on the radio when I was a kid, seemed no one around me could hear the difference in electric guitar sounds, I thought I must be a freak !
Went to a school dance night and immediately heard "that" sound.....turned out the guitarist was using a blonde Tele and I bugged the hell out of him all night about it.
First decent electric I bought just had to be the
"Fender Telecaster"

[Vince a]

I didn't buy it.

You see, I recently turned 59, but don't look it (I'm told) or act it!

When I was a teenager, I saw a picture of a natural finish (I think it was natural - the pic was B&W) Tele with a black pickguard. I ripped it out of the advertisement, framed it, hung it on my wall, telling myself, "Some day."

I carried that picture everywhere I went . . . hanging it somewhere, usually in the garage. For 46 years! I learned to play and continued to play on a cheap acoustic.

I remarried for the second time in 2000 to the best thing that's ever happened to me. In 2004 my wife bought that guitar for me . . . giving it to me for Father's Day that year. Oh, and she paid for a year's worth of blues guitar lessons . . .

She since, has been me a Simon and Patrick Showcase electric-acoustic rosewood cutaway guitar, a Fender Blues Junior, A Traynor YCV-80Q . . . two of those this year. I added a Parker this year too!

She is a keeper!

[eryque]

I grew up watching the Blues Brothers movie (thinking it was a documentary), and then the more I learned about music, the more I thought Steve Cropper was the baddest cat around.

In 2000 I got my very first bonus check from a company, and it was huge. First up was to buy an amp, and while I was in the store I saw a Fiest Red California Fat Tele hanging on the wall. There are a few things that I'm a sucker for. Pretty girls with big eyes, dutch apple pie, things that are just a little bit out of the ordinary, binding on guitars, and big, shiney pickups. That guitar had two of those things, so I couldn't resist and went back a little while later to get it.

I spent the next month bugging my guitar teacher to show me all the Steve Cropper licks he knew.

[Mur]

Clarence for his style, and Gene for inovating the b-bender.

[Kilt]

Saw Buck Owens back in the day... Saw Waylon and saw Merle. Got a tele.

[0le FUZZY]

1950s dreams!!



Please visit my page

[maestrovert]

my Uncle's....
my early years were spent with my Grandparents and other extended family on a farm/ranch 12 miles outside of a small town in Montana.....
when my Uncle came home from college, he had a Tele and Fender amp, and he let me play it !! this was in '55 and i was 7..... {you must understand that in those days, electric guitars were still somewhat new rarities and were not at all the common everyday items they now are, and Les Paul was in his prime with his "New Sound".....}
.....well, i've been hooked on Teles ever since, and finally got one (well, 2 actually, but that's another story) of my own when i was 15.....
why do i choose to play Tele ?
TONE!!!!
there's nothin' quite like it

[Oster]

Originally Posted by 0le FUZZY

<li>1950s dreams!!

Ole Fuzzy, I think I may speak for a lot of people here by saying: I was hoping for more of a story! :)

For me, it just happened. I played a Strat for years and eventually had a small collection (of two). The newcomer was a MIJ '57 that caught my brother's eye.

He had a '71 parts tele lying around for years back at home that he suddenly offered as a straight trade. At first I refused! I have to admit; teles weren't as important to me as strats back then. I thought they were kind of frumpy looking!

But I couldn't stop thinking about the trade I passed up on and called my brother in a panic about it a couple months later to see if he was still interested.

He was so he got the strat and I got the tele.

It's got a heavy ash body and it took some getting used to. The unforgiving quality. The uncontoured feel. No 'tremolo'. That tiny little headstock.

But I got used to it! 8)

[RevMike]

When I was younger and all I could afford was crappy guitars, I always lusted after Gibsons LP's. They had all the inlays and bindings and looked really fancy. This was in the days when Ibanez, Aria etc. LP copies were everywhere. I had a really cheeseball LP copy (Global? I think) and then moved up to an Aria (not a bad guitar really, kept that one for a long time). Then I saw a picture of Jimmy Page playing a chocolate brown Tele and it looked like the coolest guitar I ever saw. I tried a 70's blonde at my local shop and I was hooked. I saved my money for what seemed like an eternity and finally got my 84 Squire, which I still have today.