Hey, Look. STUPID Google Blogger is finally allowing me to post photos using Internet Explorer 11. That was a long blogging "hunger strike."
;-)
Anyway...way back in the late 1980s as a teenager with a small pile of saved $ from my paper route and new summer job, I placed a call to the long since defunct Rainbow Music in Poughkeepsie, New York hoping to acquire an American Standard Fender Telecaster. Oddly enough, though no fan of either one of them, I'd observed both Bruce Springsteen and Prince playing butterscotch colored Telecasters with great interest, and that's what I was after.
The sales person said they were OUT of that particular model, BUT..."We have a couple of Esquire re-issues. They're basically the same thing as a Telecaster, and we have one in Butterscotch." Being young, inexperienced, and more than a little naïve, I took his word for it and "pulled the trigger" on what was to be one of only a handful of guitars ever shipped to me sight unseen, and when the UPS driver showed up with it a couple days later, I was NOT wild about this new instrument.
An authentic re-creation of one of the world's first commercially successful electric guitars, my Esquire had simple electronics and only one pickup. Also, Fender's colors "butterscotch" and "butterscotch blonde" couldn't be more different. It was YELLOW! To make a long story short, I made peace with the instrument after having a local guitar shop install a neck pickup and properly set it up for better playability. It was with that guitar and a borrowed Marshall JCM 800 half stack that I made my debut as a legitimate lead guitarist in front of an auditorium filled with my school's 7th through 12th grades (well over 800 people) while ripping The Kink's "All Day and All of the Night" a "new one," and it was also through that instrument that I learned to LOVE the feel and tonal capabilities of a Telecaster-style guitar.
In my early 20s, I experienced a bit of a "downturn in fortunes," and was forced to sell my modified Esquire, and I've been without a similar instrument ever since. Thankfully, I recently arrived a point in my existence where finances and my music "career" came together to drop a new Telecaster into my hands. This new axe is a dream in every way, and I'm looking forward to fetching it along to the recording studio when my band starts work on our 2nd CD this week.Twangy shredding will surely ensue...
Three observations:
ReplyDelete1) Look who came crawling back...
2) Yep, caught the reference in the title. One of your turns indeed.
3) You might be the only person that I have ever heard of who went out of their way to convert an Esquire into a Telecaster. Not saying that you're the only one to do it, just the only one I've heard of.
Terry! It's good to know you're still "out there."
ReplyDeleteI miss blogging and the wall freaked me out as a kid. ;-)
As far as misadventures in guitar redesign were concerned, my ill-advised DIY attempt at installing the neck pickup I so desired involved a hand brace, a coping saw, a metalworking vice, an ancient giant soldering gun, and the cast off bridge pickup from a 1984 Squire Stratocaster. That project ended exactly as it should have. After replacing the destroyed pick guard and getting a proper Bill Lawrence II for the neck position - installed by a qualified professional - I had a sweet, useful guitar. Jack Daniels from the band Highway 101 bought it from my guitar guy who had it on consignment at a guitar show out of state.