Brad Paisley's soft spot for Paisley Telecasters is no secret. In fact, the country star has recently teamed up with Fender on a signature guitar – the Limited Edition Brad Paisley 1967 “Lost Paisley” Telecaster – that celebrates the Summer of Love-inspired, cult-classic finish originally introduced in the late ’60s, but which quickly fell out of fashion.
However, before Paisley got his own, er, Paisley, the guitarist was on an “Indiana Jones”-style quest to collect and restore as many ’60s Paisley Teles as possible.
“I remember when people heard my name they started to say, ‘You should play a Paisley Tele,’” he recounted in a recent Guitar World interview.
“I thought to myself, ‘That is the wildest-looking thing.’ And in 1968, they weren’t an immediately good idea. Fender must have regretted it immediately! John Jorgensen has told me about walking into a music store in the ’70s, and there were five of ’em hanging on the wall – no one would buy ’em.”
One of his Paisley Teles, La Brea, was unearthed at Chicago Music Exchange – and its unique finish, which, due to its rarity, meant the guitar would be worth at least $30,000, had been hidden under spray paint.
However, crossing paths with an original Paisley Tele was far from what the guitarist was expecting, as around that time, he was focused on recreating the Paisley finish.
"Bill Crook [his friend, soundman, and guitar builder] had started to get closer,” he tells Rick Beato. “He was like, ‘You know, I feel like I'm closer to something I could pull off as a Paisley Tele. If you want, I could try to replicate the original pink.’ And I'm like, ‘Okay, we should try that. Let me find the right guitar.’
“I walk into Chicago Music Exchange and I say, ‘Hey, do you have a ’68 refin Tele that I could buy that's a good guitar?’ They said, ‘Yeah, we have a black one, not a good paint job.’ But I said, ‘Well, I don't care. I'll pick it up if it's a good guitar.’”
Paisley chucked it in his tour bus and a month or two later, sent it to Crook to inspect. However, the two weren't expecting what the guitar had in store for them.
“Bill sits down, [and] throws the thing on a guitar stand. He's looking at it hanging on the wall. And he looks at the way that the black finish is cracking. When you look at the photo, it's black tar, white pickguard, ’68 neck... electronics don't even work.
“He takes the neck off, pops off the neck plate, and there's a Paisley staring at him... Takes the finish off, and that's 100% paper. I had accidentally bought a Paisley Tele, thinking I would turn it into a Paisley!"
Perhaps the biggest question you have right now is: why did its original owner decide it was a good idea to hide such a unique (and rare) finish? Well, Beato asked the same thing.
Paisley replies: “The guy surfaced – he's from somewhere in Texas – and he said that he basically went out in the backyard, got a good deal on it because nobody was buying them, went out, hung it in a tree, took the electronics off of it, and sprayed it with a can of black paint, and it was probably acrylic paint from an art store, and then put everything back together and put a white pickguard on it.”
As part of his Paisley Tele revival effort and his collaboration with Fender, the guitarist will personally build 19 of his signature models – with another 67 crafted by the Fender Custom Shop team in Corona, California.
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