Pickup Artist

With its Wide Range humbuckers, the 1970s Fender Telecaster Thinline scores better than most of its contemporaries.

- DAVE HUNTER

FENDER NEVER OFFERED a “deluxe” rendition of the Stratocaster until 1987, more than three decades after that model’s introduction. By contrast, the Telecaster proved ripe for modification on several occasions long before the Strat reached that milestone. I’m not talking about the evolution of components and appointments that defined the chronological march of all Fender guitars through the company’s early years, but rather the unveiling of a souped-up or upgraded rendition that appeared alongside an original model.

Leo and company did just that with the Telecaster Custom in 1959, a mere nine years after it was introduced as the Broadcaster. The Telecaster Custom featured a bound body and a then-new rosewood fingerboard. The next change came nearly a decade later when Fender lightened the load of heavier ash stocks with the Thinline model, a chambered Telecaster with an f-hole on the upper bout.

But the Telecaster Thinline would soon undergo significant revisions of its own. In 1971, Fender’s owner, CBS, began to implement a series of major design changes that would impact its guitars, including the Tele Thinline. Midway through that year, a version of the guitar appeared bearing the company’s new Wide Range Humbucker pickups. Designed by Seth Lover, the former Gibson engineer behind the humbucking pickup, the Wide Range was designed to sound characteristically Fender — bright, crisp and articulate — while being fuller and more powerful, and rejecting 60-cycle hum. With it, Fender could finally compete in the rock territory dominated by Gibson.