The Workhorse Ax

Many great guitarists are known by the guitar they played. When one thinks of Hendrix, it's hard to see him without his flipped over Fender Stratocaster. Johnny Winter was the man who made the Gibson Firebird famous. Robbie Krieger would use the same Gibson Solid Guitar up to this day that he used with James and the Doors. You can picture these men with these instruments and you know this is the essence of who they are as an artist.

One of the very first blues records I ever listened to featured one of those iconic images. It showed the silhouette of a man on a rooftop at twilight, too dark to see his face. You can see the outline of a water tower in the background, in the foreground you see a guitar in his hands, it is lighted perfectly well however. In his hands is a Fender Telecaster it is plugged into a glowing block of ice.

The album is of course Albert Collins: "Ice Pickin'."

Albert was often known as "The Iceman," a name earned by having the absolute coolest tone in all of Texas Blues, if not blues in general. He cashed in on this persona with such songs as "Meltdown," "Deep Freeze," "Cold Tremors," "Thaw Out," and his most famous "Frosty."

But on "Ice Pickin'" he goes for broke and really cashes in with tracks like "Ice Pick," "Cold, Cold Feeling," and "Avalanche." Certainly a cool assembly of songs on one heck of a frosty album (this is still my favorite blues album cover of all time).

Collins was often referred to as "The Master of the Telecaster." Here is Collins playing "Mastercharge," one of his most humorous works:

This track was also standard fair of another man who's own mastery of this guitar is legendary to those who've heard him. He may of surpassed even Collins from the standpoint of technique. This man will never be known as "The Master of the Telecaster" but is actually known as "The Greatest Guitarist Never Known," a name taken directly from the title of a PBS documentary about him in the late 1980's with the same title.

This man is Roy Buchanan, from near Bakersfield, CA.

 

Buchanan is absolutely staggering to listen to, using a huge variety of tones. What becomes more impressive about Buchanan is that he gets all these tones from a small Fender Blackface amplifier and his Telecaster in most instances.

Seeing film of him playing really is the only way to demonstrate his prowess as a guitar player.

Unfortunately Roy left us early in an apparent suicide at a young age, we will never really know the full scope of his abilities.

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The Fender Telecaster is such a unique and primitive instrument. It is as simple as it outwardly appears. The classic bolt-on neck that has graced most every Fender Guitar. A slab-sided body with a cut-out (and a half). The strings are drawn through the body, by first passing through a steel plate that also houses a bridge pick-up and over three saddles usually made of brass or steel.

This configuration lends the guitar a very twangy and an almost steel guitar sound when using the bridge pick-up. This sound has been so synonymous with blues and country players since the Telecaster's inception in 1949. A favorite of the great cowboy bands of the time, who were some of the guitar's first adopters.

There is something gravitational about these guitars, when played, you can feel the warmth of the soil from which the trees came forth to create this ax. You can feel the roots from which this guitar came when you play one.

Simple curves combine, simple simplicity, and to quote a great banjo man, Pete Seeger, "Any darn fool can make something complex, it takes a genius to make something simple."

Leo Fender certainly hit on something good.