The Fender Telecaster : A Short History

[Music] hi welcome to five art world where instant helping you get the most music from the least gear this is the fourth video in my gear history series the Fender Telecaster the first production built solid body Spanish style electric guitar I played them for decades but I've always wanted to know the real history if you've wondered the same thing then you're in the right place I'm going to run through the high points in the history and include famous flares and guitars from each era if you like the series please be sure to subscribe to 5 wot world to see others and now back to California in 1948 interestingly the building and marketing and distribution of Fender instruments was always actually done by two separate companies the fender electric instrument company run by Leo fender and George Fullerton and radio television and equipment company run by Don Randall the split comes into play in the history of the Telecaster fender had a successful business selling lap steel guitars and for production reasons it was decided that the new guitar would be a solid body Spanish style guitar of course other electric guitars had been built before but they were mainly hollow body acoustic guitars would pick up that these were called electric Spanish or es guitars to differentiate them from the solid electric lap steel guitars that were the craze at the time the es in Gibson's electric hollow-body guitar names like the es 175 comes from the term electric Spanish next given Leo's background and repair work he decided on a bolt-on neck something that hadn't been done before but not on a production electric guitar he believed that if a neck ranee did to be repaired it would be much easier to remove the neck and ship it back to the company separately it also didn't occur to Leo that a neck would be reef read it instead it seemed more logical to him that it was when it was worn out he'd simply removed the neck and both on a new one the next would be made on a single piece of maple and leo decided it would have a scale length of twenty five and a half inches the same as many flattop acoustic guitars but more importantly to leo at the time the scale of the Gretsch hollow body guitars being built then many of us think of 25 and 1/2 inches as fender scale but it was in fact the existing scale of some of the Leo's favorite guitars Leo was always experimenting with new pickup designs and was anxious to capitalize on the sound of his accessible lap steel guitars he saw using separate magnets for pull pieces for each string he told guitar player magazine 1978 I think that perhaps I was the first one to use separate magnets for each string I found that the notes didn't all run together you could get more of an individual performance off each string that way he also wanted to make the pickup height adjustable so player could modify that balance between the treble and bass sides of the pickup he also wanted the new bridge designed to improve the intonation adjustment other electric Spanish guitars had wooden bridges that floated on the top and to adjust the intonation you had to move the entire bridge Leo designed a bridge with saddles that would move both back and forth and up and down depending on the player's style the large plate of the metal bridge assembly helped with shielding for the electronics most would agree that this is the thing that makes the telly different from most other guitars so much so this was the part that fender applied to Patton in January of 1950 and the earliest guitar sold carry a patent pending stamp on the bridge plate in the fall in 1949 this all came together in a prototype instrument with the help of George Fullerton who had worked out the body shape the body would be recognizable as a Tele to any of us today but the peghead showed its lap-steel roots with his three on a side tuning machines the body was pine and was painted opaque white with a simple black pickguard below the strings later that year the peghead was replaced with the now famous six on a side design that is the fender stucked guitar suit to this day was also around this time that the pickguard was redesigned to the one we all recognize now story has it that fender and Fullerton would take the prototype down to clubs and try to get the guitarist in the band to take a look on the break it was on one of these field trips they had a chance to put the guitar in the hands of Western Swing star Jimmy Bryan the story goes that Jimmy started playing it on the break and when the band came back they simply gathered around it with the members of the audience while Jimmy continued to play the guitar for the next two hours Leo very much wanted to release a to pickup instrument and work tirelessly under the design of the front pickup and the switching circuit the front pickup was finalized in the spring of 1950 the metal cover was fitted for shielding purposes so by 1950 thunder electric instrument company was ready to release their to pick up instrument but our tech pushed to introduce a single pickup model first so the Esquire was born coming into fenders catalog in the spring of 1950 it was launched alone with no mention of a to pickup version to come in July the Esquire was displayed at the NAMM show in Chicago according to trade magazines at the time the single pickup version was listed for 139 95 and the case was 39.95 extra the Esquire was released first but Lee when George began selling to pickup broadcaster guitars from their workshop in the summer of 1950 neither guitar was made in quantity and are among the rarest of electric guitars these earliest guitars can be identified by the one-piece maple neck without a truss rod and by a small channel carved in the body between the neck and the bridge pickups as a side bar it's often hard to specifically date old fenders because they would often build bodies and necks and let them sit on a rack for months before pulling them down and putting it together into a single completed guitar in the fall in 1950 the two pickup broadcaster was officially released for 160 995 plus 39 95 for the case unlike the first Esquires the late-night 50 broadcasters were fitted with a truss rod installed from the rear creating the skunk stripe were familiar with on the back of the neck a string guide for the beanie string was also added to the headstock and next to the silver spaghetti fender logo the total number of Broadcasters produced is something that's hotly debated estimates run from 50 to 500 but given the size of the fender workshop at the time an estimate of 200 seems reasonable the model would only last for six months early in 1951 just when things were ramping up on the production of Broadcasters the Gretsch company wrote a letter informing fender that they had the trademark for the name broadcaster for some of their banjos and drums being a very small company compared to the well-established Gretch fender decided to drop the name and come up with a new one the early 50s saw an explosion of television in the u.s. sedan Randall that our tech stirred the broadcaster name with the excitement around television and came up with the name Telecaster but between the time Gretchen's letter came and when Randall came up with the new name fender continued to build to pick up electric Spanish guitars and in the sort of practical move Leo would become famous for he simply clipped the name broadcaster off the fender decal and kept building guitars so for a short time in 1951 the guitars went out without a specific model name on the headstock these guitars have become known as no casters during 1951 the single pickup Esquires were also still being produced it's worth noting the unique wiring on these guitars the three-way switches front position had a preset BC jazzy tone the middle was the pickup with a tone control and the rear position was a lead sound with no tone control the pickup we're directly to the output jack and for this reason the earlier Squires have a reputation as real screamers on the back position both the Esquire in the new Telecaster model were displayed at the NAMM show in Chicago in the summer of 1951 famous early broadcasters include Waylon Jennings original leathered cover 1950 and my Campbell's iconic guitar purchased upon arriving in LA with his record advance money he's either in 1950 or an early 1951 broadcaster by many accounts Billy Gibbons played a 1951 broadcaster on Jesus just left Chicago and finally Keith Richards 52 or 53 Telecaster with a humbucker added to the neck position is nicknamed macabre for a character in Charles Dickens now both David Copperfield the telling Esquire then retained most of the original broadcaster features until the mid 1950s the most prominent being their yellowed blonde butterscotch finish and black pit guards giving rise to the moniker blackguard tele interestingly in 1952 the standard Telecaster pickups wedge circuit was similar to an Esquire with the front pickup with a deep bassy tone capacitor middle position was the front pickup with a tone control and the back position bridge pickup with tone control the now logical lead both and bridge positions wouldn't be adopted but it's a standard wiring until 1967 even though many guitars were modified by their players to this configuration in the years in between in 1953 with the end of the Korean War incite fender was having trouble keeping up with the demand for their guitars the country and Western Swing players were the majority their market electrified blues coming out of the south via Detroit in Chicago was coming on strong a young McKinley Morganfield aka Muddy Waters began using the Telecaster both BB King and Clarence Keith mouths brown were also pictured playing blackguard Telly's there is a bevy of famous fifty-three Telecasters to hear on record Roy Buchanan's guitar Nancy Vince kills 53 white blackguard has been his main for most of his career and Danny Gatins 53 fitted with Joe Barton custom pickups showed us all that you could do it all on a Telecaster 1954 saw a number of changes steel bridge settles replace the original brass the dome knobs were switched to flat tops and the selector switch tip changed from a small barrel to the larger top hat the serial number moved from being stamped on the neck plate to the base of the neck and the early butterscotch finish evolved to the transparent off-white blond finish of the post fifty fours and very late in that for the same year the black bakelite pick guard was replaced by a white guard in 1955 the bridge pickup was modified to have staggered pole pieces replacing the flat pole pieces of the originals this was likely brought about by research to perfect the pickups for the Stratocaster at least released in the previous year the neck shape also changed from the original club' neck to a pronounced v-shape popularly referred to as boat necks and these became the norm on most fender guitars until 1958 Bruce Springsteen's Esquire is a 53 or 54 with an added neck pickup although some believe that it's more v-shaped neck implies that it's a 56 or 57 with a white pickguard swapped out to black Jeff Beck's 54 white blackguard Esquire is the guitar he played in his later days with The Yardbirds and famous tele will there Clarence white played his 54 Telecaster with the Byrds and on endless sessions with Linda Ronstadt the Everly Brothers and Jackson Browne the explosion of interest in amplified music in the mid 50s swept fender along the early days of rock and roll had completely changed the playing field for electric guitars in the front of this new crowd of players was a young James Burton who what just 16 had recorded susie-q with Dale Hawkins Burton would go on to become synonymous with the image of the Telecaster this new batch of rock and rollers also started requesting different color guitars and custom colors were made available for a 5 percent up charge this is innovative and George Fullerton commented no one was making colored instruments back then so it's an opportunity for us to do something different and it turned out pretty nice still not many buyers to advantage of this and so custom color 50s thunders are exceedingly rare the next major change came in the fall in 1958 when they moved from the string through body to a top loaded bridge this was probably done in an effort to save time and money Manufacturing but it didn't prove very successful and was changed back to a string through design in late 1959 making the top loader Telly's like the early 1959 Jim CAPA Longo uses immediately identifiable in 1959 we also see the advent of the separate rosewood fretboard like others this request came from our tech citing the use of rosewood fretboards by other manufacturers the marketing folks were asking for the same in the fender line so by the summer of 59 Telecasters were shipping with rosewood captain axe over the next few years fender experiment with different ways of applying the rosewood board the earliest necks were milled flat and then the radiused rosewood board was added these are the so-called slab boards by 1962 the factory had moved to a thinner pre contoured fretboard and by 1963 began to look like a veneer the move to a separate rosewood board also allowed the truss rod to be installed from their front removing the earlier skunk stripes down the back of the neck the white guard with rosewood fingerboard the Jimmy Page played with The Yardbirds onion and into his early days with Led Zeppelin was a late 1959 Telecaster the 1959 NAMM show also saw the introduction of the Telecaster and Esquire custom designed as a deluxe version it would feature a three tone sunburst body front and back bound with white except for their all their bodies and finish appointments the customs were in every other way just like the other 59 Telly's was also in 59 that the pit guards transitioned to a white black white 3 ply and after a short run the five screw changed to an eight screw design to give it a tighter fit compared to the earlier single ply pick guards these had a greenish hue often attributed to aging this is mostly due to the midnight trait material used and even when brand new they would not have looked pure white the nitrate greenish guard was used until 1965 when the highly flammable material was replaced with plain white plastic Andy Summers of the police used the 1961 Telecaster custom wither Gibson pif humbucker in the neck Steve cropper played a 56 Esquires on green onions with the Booker T and a of G's but he's better known for playing a blonde 1963 Telecaster on which he played the majority the Stax volt sessions and Mike bloomfield also played a blonde 1963 Telecaster on Bob Dylan's like a rolling stone the recordings and images of Bloomfield wood that white tele are so iconic that Robin Ford a lifeline Bloomfield fan has said that it influenced his own decision to buy his own 1960 white and rosewood Telecaster Albert Collins famously played his 1966 Telecaster custom with a maple cap neck and Gibson humbucker in the neck position the 60s were a big time for custom colors and the fender catalog driven by automotive colors of the era fender also began doing their own custom colors sonic blue Fiesta red and surf green are famous examples the 60s our James Burton backing Ricky Nelson on the Ozzie and Harriet TV show and guitarist would tune in just to try to steal his tele driven licks by the mid 60's wrestling with some health issues leo decided after two decades of success to consider selling the company Don Randle was given the job of looking for a buyer and this led to negotiations with Columbia broadcasting systems CBS both parts of the company were sold to CBS On January 5th 1965 for a reported thirteen point five million dollars from that point forward fender products would be sold under the single company name Fender Musical Instruments a division of CBS there is of course a stigma attached to the guitars sold during the CBS years the F stamped neck plates delineate that line in fender history the consensus is that the quality began to slip a new factory was built next to the old one and in 1967 the clusen tuners were replaced with shale errs the wiring was changed from the classic 50 stout to the more modern truth reposition circuit and a bigger television friendly logo was adopted on the headstock the folks at CBS were anxious to capitalize on the history of the senior member of the fender line and embarked on many new variants and options they produce some taillights with black body binding mostly on lighter finishes they made a big V available and factory of stalled they used a top-loading bridge body for these tremolo equipped guitars Joe Strummer played in 1966 black and rosewood Bertelli with the clash around 1967 fender began to experiment with ways to make a lighter Telecaster this started with moving wood from underneath the pick guard and a few of these smuggler delis were made over the summer of 1967 but these didn't find many friends inside or outside the company so the project continued on until the Telecaster thin line was released in the mid nineteen it was a success with a body that weighed about half the typical 60s telly hollowed out from the back and sporting single f-hole except for the thin line body and repositioning of the trolls there are in many ways the same as every other gotelli of that time to emphasize the natural wood grain the guitars were released in natural ash and mahogany finishes with a two-piece maple neck and later made in sunburst with a rosewood cap neck 1968 also saw the introduction of the Paisley red and blue flower finishes both achieved by clear coating over wallpaper glued to the top and back of the guitars despite the flower power slogans of the time the guitars were short-lived as the new rock sound of Led Zeppelin and others over ran the San Francisco vibe that the wallpaper finishes we're trying to capitalize on of course this finish has gone down in history as the one that James Burton played for so many years without was Presley in others another innovation of the early CBS years was the road with Telecaster originally built as a special design for George Harrison of the Beatles was clearly an attempt to put a Fender in the hands of the most popular band of the world and grab some of the share of the exposure that Gretchen Rickenbacker had enjoyed Harrison played the guitar on the magical mystery tour sessions in early 1969 the Rosewood tele was added to the fender catalog for three hundred and seventy-five dollars the most expensive tele issued to date though the originals were made with a solid and very heavy rosewood body Thunder quickly turned to a two hollowed out halves joined together with a maple accent stripe its availability fluctuated and it was finally dropped from the catalogue in 1972 by the late 60s strong demand for maple fingerboards led to Maple cap necks and by 69 the optional maple fingerboard had given way to a one-piece maple neck again this moved back to the one-piece maple also brought a return to the rear installed truss rod and the skunk stripe that came with it to press standardized production this method was also used on the Rosewood Borden acts and this explains why in 1969 there's a skunk stripe Anna rosewood plug showing on the headstock of rosewood board Telly's the early seventies saw economic factors at CB s shrink available features and eventually led some to some questionable changes in the Telecaster line first the rosewood and custom models were dropped in 72 the broad range of available custom colors was done away with and many classic color like candy apple red were dropped by 1975 only black white natural walnut blonde and sunburst were catalogued fender then developed its thick skin high-gloss finish the more economical polyester finish gave the 70 guitars a plasticy look and lastly the adoption of the tilt neck adjustment along with accompanying three screw neck plate attracted a lot of bad press for the CBS guitars the heavier music in the early seventies left fender wanting to develop a humbucking pickup guitar set lover the man that had amended the PAF humbuckers gibson had left his job there in 1967 and a former gibson employee now working at fender invited him to california and just like that set lover went to work a Fender subsequently designing the company's first double coil pickup the wide range by 1972 the new wide range pickup was added to a design the Telecaster custom that featured a humbucking neck pickup and a telle bridge pickup a three bolt neck plate and an elongated pick guard had four control knobs and a three-way switch a configuration familiar to anyone who's ever picked up a Gibson with two humbuckers Keith Richard comes back into our story here as he used a Telecaster custom as his main guitar from 1975 to 1983 next a Telecaster thin line deluxe with two wide range pickups bullet truss rod semi-hollow swamp ash body and a natural maple neck became available in 1972 in 1973 to continue to expand its line they released a third version with two humbuckers designated the Telecaster deluxe the solid-body guitar shared many of the attributes of the 72 and the earlier custom but added a large headstock stratts owl neck the original tele thin line was dropped in at seat 71 and the deluxe and custom models lasted until 1981 across this period fender was consistently raising prices and at the same time the reputation of their instruments was falling all this left players looking for instruments from the earlier days of the company but by 1981 new management at CBS was mostly turning their eyes towards offering vintage reissues this looking back coupled with some short-lived new offerings were part of the company struggling to get out of the red ink that had built up in 1985 CBS sold the company to an investor group headed by then fender president William Schultz I think the point when the company starts making vintage reissues seems like a good place as any to end our short history this is a short video and I hope I've hit the highlights I'm sure I can count on all of you to fill in the gaps of the features and players that you feel I've missed leave them in the comments I'd like to thank Dave Onorato of dojo guitar repair in Atlanta for answering my questions in fact checking my script Dave grew up dealing vintage guitars with his dad and this is where I turn when I need to know these sorts of things if you want to know more check out the Fender Telecaster by a/r dieter soir and the Fender Telecaster the life and times of the electric guitar that changed the world by Dave hunter both are great books on the subject and without which this video wouldn't have been possible thanks for watching if you liked the video hit the like button and if you haven't subscribed yet go ahead and hit that - until next time thanks for being part of the 5 watt world [Music] you

Channel: five watt world

Views: 1,049,221

Keywords: Fender Telecaster, Five Watt World, Keith Williams, 5 watt world, Fender Broadcaster, Fender Esquire, Leo Fender, George Fullerton, Don Randall, Fender Musical Instruments, History of the Fender Telecaster, Fender Telecaster thinline, Fender Telecaster Custom, Fender Telecaster Deluxe

Id: _hWH5Eo9W0k

Length: 21min 6sec (1266 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2019

Reddit Comments

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[u/maninco]

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[u/CjSportsNut]

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[u/[deleted]]

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