TALES FROM NERDVILLE by Joe Bonamassa
TOOLS OF THE TRADE, PART 3
OVER THE LAST two columns, Joe Bonamassa demonstrated the attributes of two of his favorite guitars: the 1954 Gibson Les Paul goldtop with P90 pickups, and the 1961 Gibson dot- neck ES-335. This month, he’ll continue our expedition with another guitar he considers to be an essential tool of the trade — the 1952 Fender Esquire.
#JoeBonamassa #FenderEsquire
TOOLS OF THE TRADE, PART 3
OVER THE LAST two columns, Joe Bonamassa demonstrated the attributes of two of his favorite guitars: the 1954 Gibson Les Paul goldtop with P90 pickups, and the 1961 Gibson dot- neck ES-335. This month, he’ll continue our expedition with another guitar he considers to be an essential tool of the trade — the 1952 Fender Esquire.
#JoeBonamassa #FenderEsquire
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00Hey guys, Joe Bonamassa here, and we're broadcasting from my apartment.
00:15Still recovering from a little neck surgery, so don't mind me, I look a little puffy around
00:18the face.
00:19It is what it is.
00:20You know, ibuprofen is my new best friend.
00:23We're talking about telecasting, or esquiring today.
00:26Well, this is a single pickup Fender Esquire 1952, and, you know, when I'm at home, I kind
00:34of like playing them with the Astreon, there's something about it, it just creates a different
00:37angle, and, you know, it just gives you, I don't know, a few more tonal options.
00:42By the way, if you want to do an Albert Collins, a dead-on Albert Collins impersonation, you
00:48got to leave the Astreon.
00:50I did this a few years ago, and I figured it out.
00:54It's because he left the Astreon, there's a little bit of a reverb and a little bit
00:58of a ping that happens, so there's a lot of cool things about an Esquire and a Tele.
01:04I mean, you can rule the world with one pickup, I mean, if you have a good song.
01:08So, you know, here's the thing, there's so many different sounds on this instrument.
01:13We're going to go through them, and we'll see what you guys think.
01:17So check it out.
01:50Here's some cool sounds on the Esquire.
01:57This switch, I don't know why, there's one pickup, but there's three positions, it does
02:01something.
02:02This one here has a filter cap on it, or a little cap on it that makes it go dead-tone,
02:05but you get some cool things happening, check it out.
02:18The middle position allows you to use the tone knob and the volume knob at the same
02:22time.
02:23Very traditional.
02:24Go all the way back, the tone knob is disconnected.
02:54And you just have the volume straight to the jack, so.
03:22You know, you reach for a Telecaster, an Esquire, anytime you want to be heard, because
03:32they cut through the mix, and they do something very special.
03:35I mean, you know, to think about the design, the innovation, this guitar is 70 years old,
03:42or maybe 71 years old this year, because it was built in May of 52.
03:46And you're sitting there going, wow, nothing's really changed about the design in 71 years.
03:51Leo got it right the first time.
03:54And you use it, there's so many specific, you know, things you can do, you can rock
04:00with the guitar, you can play country music, you can play blues, I mean, there's those
04:03great pictures of Bebe with an Esquire, Clarence Gatemouth Brown had an Esquire.
04:09So you know, I mean, it's one of those things where you just go, they're so versatile, and
04:14you can play any style of music that you want, and do it, and service the song the right
04:21way.
04:22So that's why I always reach for a Tele or an Esquire, it's always fun, it's always fun
04:27to mess around with these things.