Blog #3

The Fender Telecaster

Whether I’m teaching guitar in Sale or touring around mainland Europe, the Telecaster is by far my favourite guitar model. With a wide variety of adaptations and modifications, telecasters are used by a wide variety of guitar players. From singer songwriters like Bruce Springsteen to the likes of Slipknot’s Jim Root. One of the reasons why I have always played a Telecaster is simply because I’ve never had to. Whether I was playing in my hard alternative rock band or as a pop trio It never failed to suit the genre of music I was playing.

The second reason I’m so in favour of everyone buying one of these guitars is their absolute reliability. Telecasters are known by many to be an extremely reliable type of electric guitar, they’re undeniably rugged and will rarely let you down. During my time gigging I have never been let down by either of my guitars, despite watching many of my fellow guitarists struggle on many occasions with their instruments. All in all, Telecasters are not only great sounding guitars but they are one of the most reliable out there, and would be a great addition to any guitar collection – (particularly if you’re not lucky enough to have a guitar tech to help you).

The History

The Fender Telecaster was the first electric guitar to be sold commercially way back in 1950. However, back then the instrument looked a lot different than it does now. The very first version of what we now know as the Telecaster was originally known as the Fender Esquire. The guitar had just one pickup and didn’t have trust rods (an issue which became quite problematic as the instrument aged). The second version came soon after and became known as the ‘Fender broadcaster’ this version of the guitar resembled the modern version a lot more as a second pickup had been added over the neck.

Finally, as the 1950’s went on and television became more popular, Fender’s Marketing Chief Don Randall came up with the idea of changing the name of the instrument to the ‘Telecaster’, and so the guitar in which we know today was born.