Vintage Fender Telecaster- The History Behind the Tele
Guitar collections seem incomplete until they have a vintage Fender Telecaster. Reason being is because it was the first popular solid body guitar produced. There were a lot of attempts before it, but none of them caught the success of the Telecaster. It would set the stage for a new era of guitars.
Over 17 years of trial and error Leo Fender would put together the guitar better know as the "Tele". The first real "prototype" of the Telecaster was the Esquire. 1950 was its big debut and 1950 was its death. Due to manufacturing problems only around 50 guitars even made it off the self, just to be called back. Leo, however, analyzed his mistakes and pushed forward.
After patching up his botched guitar and adding some new features he was ready for a re-release later that year. He would name his new release as the Fender Broadcaster. Leo's luck remained poor and almost as soon as he started selling his guitars he was hit with copy righting argument with the Gretsch Company. They had a line of drums called the "Broadkasters" that they claimed an obvious violation of their copy right. The Broadcaster needed a new name.
Leo once again not set back by this failures renamed his guitar the Fender Telecaster. Some people often ask, why the "Telecaster" or the "Tele", thats an easy question. He named his guitar after the newly popular medium the television. Just like what it was named after the guitar was wildly popular and effected the music industry forever. Leo had altered music history.
With the release of the Telecaster the new players not only like the sound, but liked the way that the guitar was put together. It was rather simple to fix. The components were not individually constructed like most guitars at the time, but were mass manufactured. You would think with such a strategy that the performance of the guitar would suffer, but it did not. The Telecaster was sawed and routed from slabs, not hand-carved, necks were bolted and not glued, and the fretboards was a single piece with the neck not separate. Just a few examples of many neat features... - 18418
Over 17 years of trial and error Leo Fender would put together the guitar better know as the "Tele". The first real "prototype" of the Telecaster was the Esquire. 1950 was its big debut and 1950 was its death. Due to manufacturing problems only around 50 guitars even made it off the self, just to be called back. Leo, however, analyzed his mistakes and pushed forward.
After patching up his botched guitar and adding some new features he was ready for a re-release later that year. He would name his new release as the Fender Broadcaster. Leo's luck remained poor and almost as soon as he started selling his guitars he was hit with copy righting argument with the Gretsch Company. They had a line of drums called the "Broadkasters" that they claimed an obvious violation of their copy right. The Broadcaster needed a new name.
Leo once again not set back by this failures renamed his guitar the Fender Telecaster. Some people often ask, why the "Telecaster" or the "Tele", thats an easy question. He named his guitar after the newly popular medium the television. Just like what it was named after the guitar was wildly popular and effected the music industry forever. Leo had altered music history.
With the release of the Telecaster the new players not only like the sound, but liked the way that the guitar was put together. It was rather simple to fix. The components were not individually constructed like most guitars at the time, but were mass manufactured. You would think with such a strategy that the performance of the guitar would suffer, but it did not. The Telecaster was sawed and routed from slabs, not hand-carved, necks were bolted and not glued, and the fretboards was a single piece with the neck not separate. Just a few examples of many neat features... - 18418
posted by X - Men at
2:03 AM
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