10 Modern T-Style Guitars for Your Consideration

Anyone even remotely connected with electric guitars knows that pretty much most of what is out there in the marketplace is derived from just 3 original guitars - the Les Paul, Stratocaster and Telecaster. I personally have a preference for the Stratocaster / S-type style of guitars, followed by the elegant curves of the Les Paul / LP-Style, with the T-type / Telecaster a somewhat distant third.

Until recently, I had often wondered why the Tele’s weren’t so much to my liking, and it has nothing to do with the sound, as I’ve heard lots of these that sound amazing. I’m not too keen on the really old-fashioned twin single pickup models with the diagonal bridge pickup sat within the tray - but many of those sound fantastic though. I have realised that in the main what I don’t get on with is the ugly headstock, and general lack of versatility. There are plenty of LP and S -types out there with coil-split controls, and a variety of different bridge styles / tremolos etc. I look for tone, versatility and practicality in any guitar I acquire (aesthetics and symmetry seem to be important too) - which is how I’ve ended up so much in the PRS camp. And while the LP and S-style guitars keep being modernised, the t-type largely remains old-school. For instance I like the gist of many a Chapman guitars, but by and large their ugly headstocks kind of ruin it for me - the only one of their headstocks I can get along with is on the Rob Scallon signature one - all the others jar with my aesthetic sensibilities - strange as that may sound.

There are actually all kinds of incongruities with Telecasters these days, as this was the original ’everyman’ guitar - Leo Fender devised it entirely on the premise that it would be affordable to pretty much everyone. The idea was that this could be everyone’s first guitar - especially those who could not afford the more expensive hollow body models which all the professionals were using at the time.

The Telecaster as such was a fully working-class guitar, as best typified by numerous working class hero musicians - like Bruce Springsteen, who then rose to greater things - but always remembered what got him there and still plays his early beat-up Teles. And Prince of course - who had all those fabulous Cloud and Symbol guitars - yet returned again and again to this trusty old favourite - a Japanese Telecaster copy with tortoise-shell style scratch -plates - the now legendary H.S. Anderson MadCat.

From the guitars pictured above and below, you will be able to deduce that I am not really a fan of maple fingerboards, and that I have a preference for the richer tones of humbucker style pickups. I dedicate a lot of hours to research and due diligence, and everything that I acquire - I want it to be as future-proof as possible, and ideally able to last me my lifetime. The main issue with maple fretboards being that the light wood shows up any tiny scuff or mark, and soon becomes ingrained with all manner of stains and discolourations which cannot be removed. You choose Rosewood or Ebony, and oil them regularly, and they will pretty much look the same for life, while the maple boards will start to show marks after only a few months - fine if you like the beaten-in and worn-down look, but not for me.

Then there is the truly massive incongruity of ’Custom Telecaster’ guitars - I totally get the idea of being able to specify your requirements, but it’s kind of the same as paying Rolls Royce prices for a souped up Lada, I really don’t get that. Fender’s more luxurious models were the Stratocaster and Jaguar for instance - which added some slight degree of finesse. Generally though, these guitars (Telecasters) were meant to be made quickly, easily and cheaply!

I have spend many hours pouring through dozens of T-style guitar makers - there are literally hundreds active across every country. Yet even though, and even with all the great guitars featured on this page, none of these are really my perfect Telecaster. I only really like the ones with the S-type style headstocks - the ’72 Deluxe style derived models, which also have Rosewood boards and humbucker type pickups. Yet I would also really like just a classic S-type trem. And I would also want either a 5-way selector / blade or coil-taps / splits for the humbuckers which seems a very rare for this model.

Whenever I feature a Fender, I also usually feature an equivalent lower-cost Squier, but on this occasion could find none with both Rosewood boards and S-style headstocks. I found a number of ’partcasters’ which had simply swapped out the whole neck for an S-type equivalent, yet nothing original sourced. I also really don’t like those cheap non-locking tuners. There’s far too many guitars out there which are missing locking tuners - every guitar worth £500+ or £700+ should really come with locking tuners - it’s the first thing I need to swap out typically, along with adding strap-lock buttons.

So even though there are a number on this page I rather quite like the look of, the Made-in-Mexico Chris Shiflett Deluxe being the closest to my needs, I will likely get none, as not a single one matches my full requirements - unless of course I were to go the very expensive custom route, which I kind of consider oxymoronic. This brings me to another of my pet peaves - which is lack of matching headstock - for me the headstock should either match the body or the fingerboard, or it just looks wrong. The Chris Shifflett kind of gets away with it as the maple headstock is not too far removed from the shoreline gold colour of the body.

Both Pete Honoré and Dan Steinhardt have amazing sounding Teles, but each has an ugly headstock and no trem - and they both have the really old school diagnoal tray pikcup - perhaps there is something in that variety after all!