Want To Start An Instant Argument? Let’s Talk About ’70s Fenders!

As with amps, there were deeper changes in varying degrees with regard to guitars of the period as well. Some models fared better—notably, the standard Telecaster. While the merits of ’70s Teles are hotly debated, they seemed to weather the decade with a little less tampering than other guitars, retaining the original four-bolt neck joint when many models had been changed to an arguably less stable three-bolt assembly. A slight change in the body shape and neck pocket of the standard Telecaster began sometime around 1972, and while some Tele enthusiasts still maintain it looks “wrong,” many wouldn’t notice if it wasn’t pointed out.

As with other guitars, there does seem to be a general increase in the weight of Telecasters of the period, and some are indeed quite heavy. My own 1976 Telecaster, while not featherweight by any stretch of the imagination, isn’t unbearably heavy, and it’s one of the heaviest Teles I’ve encountered. That said, I have encountered enough painfully heavy Stratocasters, particularly of late-Seventies manufacture, to understand why many players are dismissive of the lot of them. It’s not hard to imagine that many of the complaints about the instability of the era’s three-bolt neck joint could have been caused by guitars with unusually heavy bodies being hung by their necks in stores.

My ’76 Tele

At any rate, for reasons that aside from the difference in neck joint are unclear, Telecasters of the era seem just plain better than Strats made at the same time. Of course, coming from someone who favors Teles anyway, that comment should be taken with a grain of salt. Johnny Dowd has been appearing with a Seventies Strat often the last few years, and his guitar sound makes a compelling argument for them.

It’s worth noting that some common complaints about a general decline in quality, particularly in materials, of Fenders of this era, does hold water. It’s not uncommon to see Strats and Teles of the era sporting polyurethane finishes displaying bodies made of three or more pieces of wood glued together, a method of construction generally regarded poorly. Those thick finishes are generally not well-regarded themselves, and conventional wisdom is that they don’t “age” well and stifle resonance. That said, my ’76 is made of two pieces of wood—a body and a neck—and the finish is well worn, and it’s not the only exception to the rule I’ve seen. It’s also worth noting that many ’70s Fender guitars, even lower-end student models, feature beautifully figured necks. Both of my ’70s Fenders sport lovely Birdseye necks that, on a guitar made today, would come at a significant premium.

Sadly, while they remained in Fender catalogues througout the Seventies, it seems the Jaguar and Jazzmaster, Fender’s top of the line models popular with Surf-rock bands a decade prior, were pretty much extinct by mid-decade. Ever seen a ’70s Jazzmaster? Not a Jazzmaster in the Seventies, but one made then? Didn’t think so.

While artists like Television and Elvis Costello had latched onto the model by ’77 or so, most punk and post-punk bands seemed attracted to Jags and Jazzmasters because they were “real Fenders” at rock-bottom prices, since few others wanted them. Aside from Costello’s famous (and recently reissued) Jazzmaster that appears to have been made in that decade, the only other actual Seventies model I recall seeing—that is, one with the larger headstock, thicker finish and block-font model name—is Richard Buckner’s.

The Mustang seems to have done slightly better for itself earlier in the decade, possibly in part due to getting a facelift, with muscle car-influenced paint jobs available (racing stripes!) as the Competition Mustang, but while there seem to be a few more Mustangs than Jags or Jazzmasters from the period, you don’t see many post-’76 or so. Strangely enough, the Mustang’s older (but slightly dinkier) sibling, the Musicmaster—a model nearly identical minus the vibrato tailpiece and bridge pickup—seems to have been popular from ’76 to ’78 or so. My late ’70s Musicmaster was my second electric, and just may still be my favorite.

Fortunately, Fender’s new guitar offerings in the ’70s seem to have stood the test of time a bit better than many of the amps introduced simultaneously. While for years the only notable proponent of the Starcaster, a semi-hollowbody instrument designed to compete with Gibson’s ES-335, was the Meters’ Leo Nocentelli, I’d guess the starting bids of Starcasters on eBay will probably go up quite a bit since Jonny Greenwood played one on Radiohead’s recent Saturday Night Live appearance.

Perhaps the most consistenly popular guitars to make debuts in the ’70s were variations on the Telecaster. The semihollow Thinline was introduced in the late ’60s, but was revised with a pair of humbucking pickups in the early ’70s and remains popular. The solid-body Telecaster Deluxe appeared around the same time, also featuring a pair of humbuckers, separate volume and tone controls for each pickup, and a headstock shape taken from the Stratocaster. Sometime in the middle of the decade, it was also offered in a version with a Strat-style vibrato bridge.

Maybe most iconic, though, is the Telecaster Custom, a model somewhere between those two and a regular Tele. It shared the humbucking neck pickup as the Thinline and Deluxe, and the Deluxe’s control layout, but featured a standard Telecaster bridge and bridge pickup, and was favored for some time by Keith Richards. All three shared the much-maligned three-bolt neck, and all three are currently available as reissues.

Pages: 1 2 3 4