1977 Fender Telecaster
When the November 1976 issue of Guitar Player came out, with Roy Buchanan on the cover, with his beat up '53 Tele, I just KNEW I had to have one. I had never had my hands on a Tele at that point; there was just something about it... I obsessed on it for a LONG time, but it just seemed to be unattainable. Then one night in 1978, a few weeks before my high school graduation, my father and I were sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He asked me one of those "what if?" questions. "If you could have ANY guitar in the world, what would it be?" And he wasn't going to settle for just a brand and model, he wanted specifics! I told him I wanted a white Telecaster, with a black pickguard, and a maple neck. A week before my graduation, I came home, and there it was! Truthfully, I didn't use it much the first few years. It was just so NEW, with no marks, scratches.... it even had an antiseptic "new" smell! Well, it's been 30 years now, and it gets used more and more. It's got some dings, scratches, and wear, and now it's just plain comfortable, like an old pair of shoes. One night in 1990, I forgot it behind the seat of my truck, and it was about 20 below that night. The finish now has cracks in it as a result. It WAS white, but over the years, has yellowed nicely. In 1993, I sent it to Dan Erlewine in Ohio and had it refretted. Not from excess wear, but because of Fender's haphazard quality control at the time. I also made a bone nut for it, and replaced the stock pickup with a Dimarzio Pre-B1. If I had to choose ONE guitar for life, this is it. No matter what I own for guitars at any moment, this is the one I can always go back to.
Here I am in the summer of 1978 (dig the shirt!), with a lot less body mass and a lot more hair, sitting under an apple tree with my brand new snow white Telecaster. Carter was President, gas was 60 cents a gallon, disco music was the biggest threat to our nations youth.... God, I feel old......
