First Tele solo on record

[paulmcg]

Pardon my asking a question that has undoubtedly been asked before, but who put the first Tele solo on record? My guess would be Jimmy Bryant.

[Mr. Sparkle]

That'd be my guess as well.

[Mark Davis]

I spent several weeks of research trying to figure this out and came up with Shotgun Boogie by Tennessee Ernie Ford 1951 and Jimmy Bryant was the guitar player.

[paulmcg]

Thanks for the reply. I figured somebody out there had been systematic enough to track this down. My downloaded Jimmy Bryant CD's do not come with benefit of liner notes, so I couldn't check the record dates of the earliest Bryant or Bryant\West recordings for a date there. I am presuming from your reply that the Tennessee Ernie Ford session predates any Bryant\West recording. Whether or not the rest of the world was aware of the Bryant\West recordings I'm not sure, so it's certain that Shotgun Boogie was at the very least the revelation of the Tele sound to the world at large. Any further opinions or thoughts?

[64Strat]

In the book that came with my Bear Family box set of all of Jimmy & Speedy's recordings, it says that Jimmy got an early Leo Fender guitar "at some point in 1950". No specific date. It goes on to say that the I'll Never Be Free session of June 28, 1950 was recorded with Bryant and West along with Tennessee Ernie Ford and Kay Starr. I'll Never Be Free got to #2 on the Country charts and #3 in the pop charts. What is not disclosed is what guitar Bryant was using on that recording. It then says, less than a month after the I'll Never Be Free session(around August 9, 1950), they then recorded The Shot Gun Boogie session with Tennessee Ernie Ford. It says that Bryant's guitar work is only in the background.

It certainly is not clear but if I get a chance today, I'll listen to his earliest recordings back to 1949 and '50 and see if I can pick out when he transitions to the Tele. All the recordings are dated, so if I can hear the twang come in, I'll be able to at least get one date point.

If you can find the Flamin' Guitars box set from Bear Family, get it!

[Mike Rice]

Every now and again, like most I would imagine, I get to thinking that I know a thing or two about music trivia and, more importantly, music history. Then I visit the TDPRI, read a thread like this one, and realize I am but a little grasshopper on my musical journey.

Great info gang!!

[Mr. Sparkle]

If you can find the Flamin' Guitars box set from Bear Family, get it!

I have "Frettin' Fingers" and love it. Is Flamin' Guitars a must-have?

[paulmcg]

This is getting interesting. The semi-famous story of Jimmy being handed his first Telcaster in a bar (by George Fullerton?), and wowing everybody in the place, appears to be summer 1950. Am I correct in my recollection that Bryant was a steel-only player until he encoutered the Tele? If that is the case, I see no reason not to surmise that the guitar he played on that first session (apparently only shortly after being handed the Tele) was in fact a Tele, seeing as it the first non-steel he had played. Is that too risky an assumption

[paulmcg]

More on this - an April 1950 Fender catalogue shows a Tele in the hands of Spade Cooley's guitarist Jimmy Wyblie. I'll go through my Spade stuff and see if my ears can hear the transition to Telecaster.

[Ron Garson]

Jimmy was a fiddle player first of all, and then took up the guitar at the end of WW 2.

[Eric Karonen]

I’ve read that Bill Woods used the first Telecaster (in Bakersfield) on the stage of the Blackboard in 1949 or 1950.

[paulmcg]

1- Reading back, it appears I imagined the summer 1950 date for Jimmy Bryant's first encounter with the Telecaster. As stated elsewhere "some time in 1950" is still the best we can do so far. I'm still looking

2 - I have no Cooley material from the crucial first 6 months of 1950. Any Bear Family people have the right stuff?

[64Strat]

So, I listened to the early recordings and it sounds like by the time Jimmy recorded Bryant's Boogie and Red Headed Polka on Sept 25th 1950 he was using an Esquire or a Broadcaster. The Telecaster name didn't appear on 2 pup guitars until Aug of '51. No idea if Jimmy was using a single or dual pickup on the earliest recordings and what exactly he got from Leo (or George) as his first Fender guitar. There are plenty of early pictures of Jimmy with a 2 pup Fender but I can't read the decal model id.

[paulmcg]

To clarify -- when I say Telecaster I mean all its antecedents, in this case the Esquire. Should have said that before. Sorry.

[64Strat]

Originally Posted by Mr. Sparkle

I have "Frettin' Fingers" and love it. Is Flamin' Guitars a must-have?

It has almost 100 recorded songs from 1949 to 1962 and a 52 page book of the history of Jimmy and Speedy.

IMHO, it is a "must have", if you like Jimmy and Speedy as much as I do.

Edit:
Here is an eBay listing of the box set.
http://cgi.ebay.com/WEST-SPEEDY-JIMM...QQcmdZViewItem

[Mike Rice]

Originally Posted by Eric Karonen

I’ve read that Bill Woods used the first Telecaster (in Bakersfield) on the stage of the Blackboard in 1949 or 1950.

But this can't be...right? I know for a long time Fender even claimed that 1948 was the birth year for the Broadcaster. I remember the now imfamous add with the 1948 and 1973 Broad/Tele Casters side by side claiming not much had changed. But inspection of the white pine prototype showed pot codes dated toward the end of 1949. I thought it had been fairly well established that the first Broadcasters, even pre-production models, probably weren't available until at least April of 1950.

Is all of this info still up to date, or do I have some reading to do?

[paulmcg]

1948 is bogus for sure, and I've seen the misinformation, in true Web fasion, repeated in many places. Production line numbers were available April 1950 for sure. Somewhere in between mid-1949 and April 1950, prototypes were certainly running around. For instance, if Spade Cooley's man is holding one in a flyer put out in April 1950, the photo could be anywhere from, let's say, 10 days minimum, to a couple of months old.

[paulmcg]

I'll correct my earlier nonsense about Jimmy Bryant. Those in the know here know Jimmy was never a steel player at all, that the revolutionary switch for him on that day in 1950 was from hollow-body electric (with the legendary feedback problems Leo Fender had set out to solve) to this new solid-body guitar. Obviously he was duetting with Speedy as a guitarist well before Leo Fender entered his life.

[paulmcg]

Jimmy Bryant's Telecasters according to Deke Dickerson:

"Jimmy had several Broadcasters and Telecasters during the 1950s, including a very early prototype model -- a customized Tele that was hollowed out from the back (the origin of the hollow Telecaster Thinline produced in the ‘60s -"

[JoeyV]

Jimmy helped Leo Fender in the voicing of the neck pickup, he wanted the pickup to match the sound of his DeArmond and thats kind of what they went after..
This was told to me by his sister Lorene Bryant...was he the first to record with it, probably..it was probably hist Broadcaster single pickup model modified with a neck pickup...I will ask them again...
J.

[JoeyV]

He also played lounge piano while living in Washington DC when he was still in the service recovering from injuries.
J.

[Telemarkman]

After rereading some Telecaster literature, I have found
nothing to clairify the initial question, but the first Tele
recording I positively know of, is Jimmy Bryant playing on
Tennessee Ernie Fords "Shotgun Boogie" - just as Mark
Davis says. (But 64 Strat could well be right !)

The suggestion from paulmcg that Jimmy Wyble could be
the first one, must be rejected, though.
The picture of Spade Cooley's Band, with Jimmy Wyble
holding a Tele was a promotion picture, and Jimmy being
a die-hard acoustic-electric jazz player was more than reluctant to even hold the solid bodied guitar long enough
for the picture to be taken !(1950)

So you can stop listening for Tele tones on your Spade
Cooley records, paulmcg.

[64Strat]

Originally Posted by Telemarkman

After rereading some Telecaster literature, I have found
nothing to clairify the initial question, but the first Tele
recording I positively know of, is Jimmy Bryant playing on
Tennessee Ernie Fords "Shotgun Boogie" - just as Mark
Davis says. (But 64 Strat could well be right !)

The suggestion from paulmcg that Jimmy Wyble could be
the first one, must be rejected, though.
The picture of Spade Cooley's Band, with Jimmy Wyble
holding a Tele was a promotion picture, and Jimmy being
a die-hard acoustic-electric jazz player was more than reluctant to even hold the solid bodied guitar long enough
for the picture to be taken !(1950)

So you can stop listening for Tele tones on your Spade
Cooley records, paulmcg.

I would bet money that the "I'll Never Be Free" recording done at Capitol Records 11 days earlier than "Shot Gun Boogie" recording at the same location has Jimmy playing the Esquire/Broadcaster also.

With the recordings I listened to today, "Bryant's Boogie" & "Red Headed Polka" were recorded Sept 25, 1950 and sound like a Fender guiatr with the treble rolled off. The next earlier recording with Jimmy was a year earlier in Sept of '49 and was definitely with a jazz box guitar.

Ironically, one of my all-time favorite Jimmy "the Shredder" Bryant pieces for guitar was not recorded with the Tele or any Fender guitar. Stratosphere Boogie was done on the Stratosphere dual neck guitar. His work on that piece just absolutely KILLS me! He was so far ahead of his time as a player.

[Telemarkman]

There's every reason to believe you're right 64Strat, it's
just that I haven't seen it with "my own eyes", as in the case of "Shotgun Boogie". (Video on YouTube). :?

[paulmcg]

Group - even before I digest everything that came in late yesterday, let me say thanks to everyone so far for their attention to historical detail without competitivensss or surliness. On a different subject I once had an e-mail conversation with Carol Kaye regarding her claim in an interview to have been in the studio on the day a fuzz pedal was first used. I was delighted to have discoverd theat little nugget of info, and wanted to know the name of the song if possible. She couldn't really back up her claim and was somewhat snippy with me, suggesting I should get a real life.

[Eric Karonen]

Originally Posted by paulmcg

..... She couldn't really back up her claim and was somewhat snippy with me, suggesting I should get a real life.

Hang around here long enough and you just might get the same advice again.

BTW: Nice to see another Torontonian/GTA'er sign into the TDPRI. There's a few of us here. (Then again, you could be signing in from Toronto, Ohio!?!)