The Telecaster
I’ve been listening to a lot of Fender Telecaster players lately. Not that that’s unusual, it’s always been my favourite sounding guitar and I’ve been fortunate to have owned three of them over the years; a blonde ‘68, then a ‘50 blackguard (actually called a Broadcaster) and a ’98 American Vintage ‘52 reissue that I have today. Each had its own individual identity but the family tradition was strong. I added a Bigsby vibrato to the ‘68 (I was a big John Cipollina fan) then a little later luthier Dick Knight added a humbucker in the neck and navy blue paint. Sadly no photos of the Broadcaster which I owned from ‘76 -‘82.
As for the ‘Telemeisters’ I’ve been recently enjoying, here are a few of them. I particularly love this rough live recording of Clarence White at a club gig with The Fabulous Reasons (also known as Nashville West depending on the night) in 1967.
Even after listening to Danny Gatton’s Notcho Blues for over 30 years it still scares me to death.
Michael Bloomfield with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, playing sensational bottleneck in the first integrated and most influential blues band of the sixties.
The great Jesse ‘Ed’ Davis with Taj Mahal, always playing the right note at the right time with great feel.
The clean picking Bakersfield sound of Don Rich of Buck Owens and the Buckaroos.
Let’s end this off with Roy Buchanan.
There are plenty of others - Albert Collins, Steve Cropper, James Burton, Jeff Beck (in his Yardbirds days), Reggie Young, Brad Paisley and jazzers like Julian Lage and Bill Frisell. If you can play it, it’ll sound great on a Telecaster.
Lockdown
I appreciate that I’m really lucky, dealing with Lockdown when living by the sea means daily morning walks, fresh air and space. And everything is well organised now; on Wednesday and Friday there’s a one hour Zoom class with The Pilates Shed, every Wednesday Kingsdown Breads deliver a rye sourdough and two seeded brown loaves, once every three weeks local roasters Garage Coffee send freshly ground coffeethrough the post and each Sunday it’s click and collect from Sainsbury’s Deal. And that’s about it, apart from treats like the partly-baked bagels and salt beef from Monty’s Deli or music from Bandcamp or Honest Jon’s.
What’s so great is that some of the above businesses didn’t offer any home access or delivery a year ago. They have been forced to pivot to survive, but once things become normalised (hopefully soon) some of these direct to home services may still be a viable part of their future.
And finally….some of you know that I write album reviews for London Jazz News. If you haven’t already, why not consider signing up for their free Wednesday morning newsletter? It’s an excellent weekly update on what’s happening, and with venues closed, where you can find live jazz to stream.