Hi folks,
Been lurking for a while but this is my first post!
Despite being old, I'm pretty new to this guitar-playing thing, and there is a lot I see and read that leaves me scratching my head.
One is the way that what is seen as being a suitable guitar for a rock guitarist seems, to a large degree, to depend on what a few very influential players used back in the 60's and 70's - i.e. the Les Paul and the Stratocaster. I can see how the sound these players made with these instruments when fed into certain classic amps came define what rock music 'should' sound like, but given that the shape of a guitar is pretty much irrelevant to how it sounds, how come it is specifically the LP and Strat' that seem to have become the iconic 'rock guitars'? For example, relatively few rock guitarists are associated with the Telecaster, despite the fact that it a very versatile instrument and can give sounds that are somewhere between those of both a LP and a Strat..
I know Page used a Tele' for the early Zeppelin stuff, and some other players have favoured them, so the instrument is obviously 'fit for purpose', but the classic image of a rock guitarist generally seems to involve a LP or a Strat'. Is this because those instruments portray the right image? Is it because players feel that can somehow channel the spirit of Page, Kossoff, Hendrix et al. if they play the same instrument? Is is because players fear being mistaken for someone who might play 'country', or something else? If Hendrix or Kossoff had played a Telecaster, would a Tele' probably now carry the same aura as the Strat' and LP do today?
Comments
I believe Jimi had a Tele neck at one point. (May have broken a Strat neck and fitted a substitute.)
I think the Strat became more popular than the Tele simply because it had more pickups and vibrato, so was seen as the top of that maker's range. (Hank Marvin has told the story many times that he chose the Strat for that reason.)
My feedback thread is here.
My feedback thread is here.
Good point about the importance of the Strat having a trem, but there still doesn't seem to be the same sort of cult surrounding the Tele as there is surrounding the Strat - and even more so the Les Paul. I can't help that this is more of an image and 'accident of history' thing than the ability of a Tele (or many other guitars) to make the 'right' sound.
Rock and roll being dependent on image? Surely not
England during the late 50's and early 60's had very little choice in guitars, a lot of knock offs of things but very few 'real' US guitars due to trade restrictions post war.
One defining record was Buddy Holly and the Crickets, which featured a Strat on the cover, the Telecaster was being played by a lot of country pickers at the time and so got stuck with that label.
It wasn't until later into the 60's when Clapton and his peers discovered the power of the, at that point, deeply unfashionable Les Paul humbucker into a cranked Marshall, remember at this stage Gibson had discontinued the Les Paul as we know it and re launched it as the SG.
Thus the thick biting snarl of the Paul was lusted after, right up until the mid 70's when Clapton ( that bloke again) brought a job lot of late 50's Fender Strat parts whilst on tour in the US, then assembled them at home and gifted them to his mates (G Harrison was one)
Then as Eric reinvented himself as Derek and the rest is history.
Jimi played a LOT of guitars, as pictures pre-fame show, he happened to use a Strat when he got big, maybe cos of the Trem, maybe cos of the better access compared to a flipped LP.
But he was championing the cause of the Strat for a couple of years, influencing Blackmore who begat Malmsteen who begat a thousand copyists until their number was beyond reckoning and they dominated the earth and the 80's
Till a bloke in a top hat used a LP copy to record one of the biggest albums of the decade.
Im sure a lot of players used a Tele but none that graced walls on iconic posters like Hendrix, Blackmore, Slash etc.
Plus Telecasters smell faintly of wee.
True.
Just look at some of the videos Darrell Braun has done - a LP versus a Tele Deluxe, 335 versus a LP, an Ibanez RG versus a Strat and so on - the differences in sound are tiny, and certainly much smaller than differences generated by the amp one uses, picking technique and so on, especially once an amp is being over driven. Another good one is the video where Henning Pauly (eytschpi42) puts a Harley Benton up against a PRS and gets exactly the same tone. Here's another.
Beyond this, the cult of the '59 Les Paul, or the Clapton's black Strat and so on very much look like examples of the continued modern day belief in magic ( or 'mojo' as musiciams prefer to call it ). This is exactly the same belief in magic that manufacturers exploit when talk about 'tone woods', or the tonal benefits of using horse glue and old fashioned car paint whilst adding another 5 grand to the price! It is also the same sort of belief in mojo that affects many other domains as well, including the classical music world, where it has been shown that despite their reputation, even experts and top-line players cant tell the sound of a Strad' from that of a modern instrument!
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check