cliff playing apache

[cockroach]

Tag or no tag, it would still have been a superb guitar- although many fans back then mistakenly assumed that the Tele was 'only' good for a rhythm guitar!!!

I had an Esquire of similar vintage years ago...wish I still had it..

I've wondered what the Shads would have sounded like if Hank HAD got Cliff to buy him a Tele, which WAS the guitar that James Burton used!

I've also wondered whether Hank ever had a try of Bruce's Tele or Jazzmaster too! Maybe he tried the Jazzmaster and thought it sounded too much like the Ventures...

[RayL]

I've wondered what the Shads would have sounded like if Hank HAD got Cliff to buy him a Tele

He'd have used it for a while, until a Strat came his way. Hank was actively looking for new sounds - Bruce's book makes that clear - and the limitations of a guitar without a tremolo arm and without that quality of sustain that a Strat achieves when combined with an echo unit, would have made the Tele an 'OK until something better comes along' guitar, like the Antoria.

Also, as Bruce's book again makes clear, Cliff wanted Hank to have something special
"After much discussion, we chose the most expensive guitar in the book at around £120, which was a fortune in 1959. It was a flamingo pink Stratocaster with a birds-eye maple neck, tremolo arm and gold-plated hardware".

So even if they'd known that James Burton used a Tele, they'd have almost certainly gone for the Strat, because being the most expensive, it must also be the best (and Buddy used a Strat).

Note that Bruce, writing in 1989 and long before all the 'what colour is Fiesta Red' controversy, calls the colour flamingo pink.

Ray