God doesn't need to know what time it is.

@stuatk: The Hellecasters! I have their Escape From Hollywood album (the CD booklet includes this line: "Dedicated to the memory of Danny Gatton 1945-1994"), and saw them live in the 90's. Three masters of the Telecaster, on stage together. Jorgensen was also a member of a favorite group on mine, The Desert Rose Band (with Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen, themselves mighty fine musicians, singers, and songwriters).

I've been a fan of Bill Kirchen since hearing him on Commander Cody's debut album. Saw them live at Winterland (or was it The Fillmore?), a great band. The West Virginia Creeper was on pedal steel that night, though he ended up getting booted out of the band (I played a gig with him in the mid-70's. He had a drinking problem).

David Lindley's first few albums are amazing, and live he is even better. Surprisingly loud, too. He plays with much more sustain than most Tele players, as does Cooder. It's the Blues thing.

My mates and I were really into Taj Mahal's debut, where we first heard Jesse Ed Davis. I'm currently on the search for Davis' debut album on LP. I was unaware until recently of how involved he was with the George Harrison, John Lennon, Eric Clapton crowd. Davis played on a favorite Dylan song of mine "Watching The River Flow", and Jackson Browne's "Doctor My Eyes". Guitarists with that kind of talent and taste are rather rare. Too many guitarists are imo show-offs, sacrificing musicality at the alter of technique..Drummers, too. Real glad to see there are others of my stripe here!

Great story bdp24.

Yes to Danny Gatton. I play an early 90's Antholgy 2 CD now and then. Storied player.

The 50's country, R/R and fringe Tele players up to the Beck/Page era are the ones who really made the Tele otherworldly. Big respect to all the Telecaster players.

The Telecaster is the Timex of Electric Guitars? I made a note to follow up on the Clapton Daytona, which goes to bid in May.

Really curious if bidding  reaches anticipated value. That  is a comfortable retirement IRA amount!

@bdp24 

I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments about "show offs", which is a syndrome that appears to affect mostly Rock players.

There are Black Soul/R&B Tele players we are surely failing to list, here. The Tele was a favorite (preferably with dead strings) in these genres. Someone out there must be knowledgeable in this arena.

Of course, we've not mentioned Steve Cropper, James Burton, Roy Nichols and Roy Buchanan.

And, Robben Ford has performed and recorded for many years with a Tele. 

 Moving to Jazz, let's not omit the masterful Ted Greene. Back in the mid 70'S, I was very frustrated, trying to play S. Wonder tunes from "songbooks". The guitar chord diagrams rarely sounded right, so out of desperation, I began laboriously transposing the piano voicings to guitar. Around the same time, I bought a copy of Ted Greene's "Chord Chemistry", which, among other things, helped me understand why the piano voicings sounded better. I started learning chord formulas and how to build chords from scales. He was a monster chord melody player as well as a fine teacher. 

FYI, Jesse Ed Davis' solo albums were, at one time, reissued on CD. 

Three points:

1 - Eric Clapton is a great blues guitarist. He was on top a very long time for good reason

2 - Eric Clapton is also aging gracelessly and saying dumbass stuff about vaccines in particular. If you go back and look for it, he always said dumbass stuff, including racist and antisemetic stuff. Not entirely unprecedented for a mid-to-lower class Brit of his vintage, but still

3 - I have a longtime fascination with wristwatches. Collect American watches from the '30s-'80s for decades, still have ~175 or so. Later on got deep into larger/more expensive Swiss watches, though I'm not rich enough to totally plunge there. Timepieces are fascinating little machines that combine aesthetics and detailed engineering. I've pretty much stopped with watches, but every now and then that beast wants to get out again. I'm particularly drawn to the largest & most expensive vintage Panerai watches.

@stuartk +1 on James Burton.

Glen Campbell’s massive overall talent often overshadows the fact that , if he wants to, he can play as well as anybody.

Jerry Reed holds his own on a YouTube vid with Chet Atkins, which is a remarkable feat.

I abhor modern “country” music, but the average session player on these tracks could play circles around just about anybody.  Brad Paisley is a recording artist in this milieu who is an unbelievably great guitar player.