Longtermers - Fender American Professional Deluxe Shawbucker

A few months’ gigging, recording and everything that goes with it – welcome to Guitarist ’s longterm test report

- Dave Burrluck

Strolling around the stands at this year’s NAMM show, more than ever I was struck by just how many makers seem to be, ahem, borrowing other brands’ classic designs. I’m not referring to lazy low-end lookalikes, either. It just seems that ‘new’ design is more likely to be a rerun or mash-up of fewer and fewer elements and styles. Sign of the times or ever the way? A bit of both.

Someone at Fender in the early 70s clearly decided they needed to offer a more Gibson-style guitar and the Tele Deluxe was a relatively early example – originally released late in 1972 – of one company ‘doing’ another company’s style and coming up with a guitar that’s far from a copy. It wasn’t the first Tele with humbuckers, that was the second version of the Thinline released a year earlier along with the Keef-fave Custom (again, the second version), which kept the Tele’s bridge pickup but added a Wide Range humbucker at the neck. Like the Deluxe, it included a four-control layout. But the Deluxe not only borrowed from Gibson, but it also added in the Strat’s big headstock and rib-cage contour, too. A few even came with a Strat’s vibrato. A cut-and-paste design if ever there was one.