As Christmas, 1959, approached I was a freshman at Contra Costa College in beautiful San Pablo, California. I wanted a guitar for Christmas. Not just any guitar, but a Fender Stratocaster, which, then and now, I considered the most beautiful, best-sounding, etc., electric guitar available.
Nearly sixty years later I still marvel how Leo Fender, who wasn’t even a guitar player, came up with that design. He had been making electric steel guitars for some time, but a solid body steel is little more than a plank with a bridge, tuners and a pickup.
The Telecaster had been around a few years, too, and it has proved to be a classic design, but not stunningly graceful like the Strat. When you hear that a new Strat in those days cost $289.50, plus $50 for a case, or $339.50, it sounds like a screaming deal. But of course a dollar bought a lot more in those days. Gas was about a quarter a gallon, a haircut was under $2, and I don’t think my father made more than about $6,000 a year working in the lead refinery.
The college had a jobs bulletin board and about a month before Christmas I spotted an ad for a Christmas tree sales job, paying the munificent sum of $1.50 per hour (if memory serves). It wasn’t hard to hitch a ride after class to the tree lot, which was in downtown Richmond. It was a little harder to work in the cold every night until the lot closed. My parents were very generous in driving the 15 miles to Richmond every night to pick me up. And I saved every penny.
I don’t remember how many weeks I worked there but I scraped together about $200, and I had some money saved up, but I don’t think it came to $250. We went guitar shopping. And there we ran into reality: the Strat was out of reach. Dad and Mom were willing to put up enough for a Telecaster, though, so when we left the music store I was holding the leather covered handle of a “luggage linen” case inside of which was a blonde, 1959 Fender Telecaster.
I remember the orange plush interior. I remember the aroma of “new guitar” when I opened the case. I remember the smooth way the volume and tone pots twisted, and the knurled surface of the knobs. The smell of the leather strap. I remember the chrome bridge cover that came with Telecasters of that era. The bridge cover was worse than useless because it prevented you from using the heel of your hand to damp the strings. People either tossed them or used them as ash trays. Nowadays you pay a lot to Fender for a “1959 replica” Tele and that cover is not there. (Nor is the wooden thumb rest the early Precision Basses came with. Your “replica” is really a semi-replica.)
That night and for several thereafter I slept with the case next to my bed where I could reach down and feel it in the night. The linen covering was lacquered, so smooth to the touch.
There was still a bit of regret about the Strat that was not to be, but I loved that Telecaster. I played it in a Hawaiian band we had for a while at Contra Costa College, “Clarence Van Hook and the Sons of the Beaches.” And when I transferred to San Jose State I played it in a surf band called “The Crestwoods.”
Shortly after college I got married and got very interested in bluegrass. There weren’t many opportunities to play electric at that time and I was playing a totally unsuitable banjo, a British-made banjo called a Clifford Essex. It was designed for gut strings and finger-style classical picking and didn’t sound like much when I tried to mimic Earl.
Obviously I needed a Mastertone. I was working by then and had some savings and was a member of a credit union. But my beloved wife said, “You can’t just keep buying things. You need to sell something.” So I started looking for a buyer.
In those days a 1959 Telecaster was not a “vintage” instrument. It was just an old guitar, slightly beat up. So I sold it for $150 and put the money into a used early-1960s bowtie Mastertone. That banjo evolved with a new neck, tone ring, pot and resonator but I still have what’s left of it: the flange, the hooks, and the tension hoop.
I’m hoping the old Telecaster is in the collection of some longtime Fender fan. Kinda wish it was under my bed, though.
