With the Fender Telecaster celebrating the big seven-five this year, Guitar World has been speaking to some of the biggest names to pick it up in anger. Here's Blur's Graham Coxon's take on the Tele, and he's very much of the opinion that Leo got it right the first time around.
“It’s one of the first designs for an electric guitar, and there’s nothing on there that you don’t particularly need,” says Coxon. “If I had a perfect Strat, I’d take off a volume and a tone knob – because I’m a dreadful man – just to make it stripped down like a Tele.
“The Tele is a stripped-down hot rod. It’s easy to play, simple and really versatile. It’s a funny-looking thing, but I think people who actually settled down with a nice Tele as a wooden wife saw this incredible thing that Leo Fender decided to make.
“He made it out of bits of old tin and wood and put strings on it, and it was one of the best things ever – and it still is one of the greatest guitars ever built. Maybe because the design was too perfect in the first place, compared to the Strat, which came after… it was an absolutely perfect design.
“But it’s a funny old shape. And the headstock isn’t quite like a Strat headstock. With the Tele, it’s like, 'What’s happened to your headstock?' And it’s like, 'Man, I was born this way…' [Laughs] It’s kind of weird and not quite formed. It’s strange, but it fucking does the job!”
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