The real beauty of the Fender Telecaster is its design: A simple slab body, a pair of single coil pickups, tone and volume controls and a comfortable maple neck. Maybe that’s why artists as diverse as James Burton, Muddy Waters, Merle Haggard, Albert Collins and Bruce Springsteen chose it over other, flashier guitars. And you don’t get any more “back to basics” than with a Fender Classic ’50s Telecaster. It has a premium ash body with a White Blonde finish, a comfortable “C” shape maple neck, a single-ply pickguard and two vintage Tele pickups. Oh, and it comes with a price tag that’s as down-to-earth as the guitar is – just $669.99 (which even includes free shipping from Sweetwater’s giant state-of-the-art warehouse right to your door.
The one gripe people seem to have with the “Tele” is that its tone is a bit too clean. But that’s actually unfair. Dig out your copy of Led Zeppelin’s debut album and listen to Jimmy Page’s raw, visceral sound. That was a Telecaster he was using, folks! He didn’t start using a Les Paul until the second Zep album. All it took was a fuzz pedal to bring out the dirty, nastier side of his Tele. So when you’re looking at your budget and think you can’t get a really good instrument for under $700, well then, think again. The Classic ’50s Telecaster also includes a gloss polyurethane finish, a maple fingerboard with 21 vintage style frets, a three saddle string-thru-body bridge, and the standard electronics, which include two vintage Tele pickups, master tone, and volume control with 3-way blade pickup switching. It ships in a deluxe padded gig bag that provides a surprising amount of protection without the weight of a hardshell case.
