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THE “TELE-GIB” – OTHERWISE KNOWN AS “SYREETA”
‘It’s a bastardised Telecaster with all Tele except for the pickups – they were removed,’ explained Jeff as he introduced this unique guitar from his home studio for the bonus feature ‘At Home with Jeff Beck and his Guitars,’ for inclusion on the 2011 live concert DVD Rock 'n' Roll Party - Honouring Les Paul. ‘The original pickups were exchanged for Gibson humbuckers by the great Seymour Duncan who is a devout guitar maker and pickup specialist. He came to a recording studio where I was working… and he said, “Try this guitar.” It was fantastic – it had a big fat sound like the Gibson but it played like a Tele, which it is, and I said “Well, I’ve fallen in love with this.” Although recollections vary with regards to the exact chain of events, Jeff apparently agreed to part with his Yardbirds Esquire in exchange for the “Tele-Gib”. ‘I realised, there goes my piece of history, the Yardbirds Esquire… it was too late. But this makes a great sound. This is a cross – the best of both worlds between a Telecaster and a Les Paul.’
Renowned pickups wizard Seymour Duncan had struck up a friendship with Jeff when he was working as a repairman for Ivor Arbiter at the Fender Soundhouse on London's Tottenham Court Road during the mid-seventies, not far from CBS Studios where Jeff was recording at the time with Beck, Bogert and Appice. Seymour recalls that Jeff's favourite Les Paul had been sent for repair due to a volume control problem and, to Jeff’s dismay, had been returned with Gibson humbuckers in place of its original 'Patent Applied For' pickups. Although Seymour wanted to do something to help, he couldn’t afford a replacement Les Paul, so came up with the idea of creating a “Tele-Gib” – a hybrid guitar that started out as a butchered ‘50s Telecaster with a slab rosewood fingerboard that he had found at a music store in Cincinnati in 1972. The ’59 PAF pickups were sourced from a broken Gibson Flying V that had once belonged to Lonnie Mack. As the coils had been damaged when the covers had been removed, Seymour rewound them himself, using wire that he found at a motor repair shop, using a heavier gauge to wind the neck pickup and finer wire to wind the bridge pickup, as he could then get extra turns on the bobbins for increased sustain, harmonics and output. Seymour removed the old rosewood board and replaced it with a maple fingerboard with Gibson frets, which made for a thicker neck that would be closer to the feel of his old Les Paul. ‘Once it was finally ready,’ Seymour told us, ‘I brought Jeff the completed guitar and he seemed impressed by it. About a week later, Jeff's manager, Ralph Baker, came over with three disassembled guitars in a duffel bag – he said Jeff wanted me to pick which one I wanted and fix the other two. I was a huge fan of his tone with the Yardbirds, so I picked the Esquire and set to putting it back together. I'm honoured that the “Tele-Gib” I made for Jeff became a part of “Blow By Blow” and that he has described it as the best of both worlds.'
Jeff would go on to record the Stevie Wonder track ‘Cause We've Ended As Lovers’ on his new “Tele-Gib”. Questioned by guitar historian Tony Bacon on why he chose to record the track on the “Tele-Gib”, Jeff recalled:‘The Esquire had gone, the Jimmy Page Tele had gone, and up comes this [‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’], smack in the middle of the sessions, and Seymour turns up with his humbucker Tele. The Les Paul, I thought… well, everybody's got those, and I wanted to speak quite clearly as me. The Les Paul sounded good, but it just sounded like… well,I won't mention who it sounded like [laughs]. There wasn't much amplification variables that could make me sound like it, but as soon as I picked up the Tele, there was something there.’ Although Wonder had written ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers for his wife Syreeta, he offered the song to Jeff to make up for recording and releasing hit song ‘Superstition’ himself at the insistence of his label, despite originally composing the track for Jeff. Former road manager Al Dutton told us that the “Tele-Gib” was thereafter known as “Syreeta” to Jeff and his crew. Presumably because of the specific tonal variations and bends he achieved with the “Tele-Gib” on the recording, Jeff would always use the same guitar when performing the song live, notably including his performance with Eric Clapton at The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball at London’s Drury Lane Theatre on 9-12 September 1981, until he eventually switched to performing it on a Strat.
Jeff had intended to take the “Tele-Gib” on his 2022 tour - the guitar was brought to rehearsals in London and even to the first show in Cardiff – but in the end Jeff decided not to take the risk, as he was too worried about the famous “Tele-Gib” being stolen, and the guitar was sent home after Cardiff.
SEYMOUR W. DUNCAN
It would be impossible to discuss the electric guitar without touching upon pioneer and ‘guitar pickup king’ Seymour W. Duncan, who revolutionised electric guitar customisation through his innate appreciation and understanding of the engineering and innovative possibilities in pickup technology.
Born and raised in New Jersey in the 1950s, Seymour W. Duncan grew up exposed to music from an early age. At around the age of 9 his uncle Bid, a trumpet player and decoy carver, introduced him to the guitar and later to the guitar legend and aficionado Les Paul. Inspired by this introduction, during which Les Paul had explained the function and structure of electric guitar pickups to him, Duncan began to experiment with creating his own pickups from shortwave radios and old record players. His fascination with the guitar continued to grow as his uncle Howard, a guitarist who performed locally, taught him his first guitar chord alongside other techniques. For Christmas 1962 Duncan was given his first guitar and amplifier, a Sears Silverstone.
Throughout the rest of the 1960s, Duncan began playing in a variety of bands, including The Ad-Ventures and The Flintones, as well as attending live concerts by the likes of Roy Buchanan, Bob Bogle and Bob Moore and the Temptations. He first heard Jeff Beck playing with The Yardbirds in 1965 when listening to the radio at a local talent show, the same year Duncan became the lead guitarist for The Sparkles. At around this time Seymour performed his first pickup repair when his bridge pickup stopped working during a gig. In 1968, Duncan’s emerging reputation as a ‘pickup guru’ landed him on stage giving Jimi Hendrix a white Fender Stratocaster that he had fitted with custom hand-wound pickups. Through these experiences, he gained an undeniable appreciation for the different sounds, tones and ultimately the possibilities that a guitar could yield.
In the 70s, Duncan continued his pursuits as a guitarist, working and collaborating with the likes of Rory Gallagher, Slade, Chris Rainbow and Marc Bolan, to name a few. Duncan also took up work at a variety of music stores and repair shops, notably as a guitar repairman at the Fender Soundhouse in London. It was here that he continued to hone his craft, developing new pickup designs and modifications including multi-tapped pickups and 5-way lever switches for Stratocasters. Being in London at this time brought Seymour into contact with some of the world’s greatest guitarists including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and, of course, Jeff Beck, for whom he specially put together the Fender-Gibson hybrid guitar known as the ‘Tele-Gib’, in 1973.
After moving back to America in the mid-1970s and taking his ‘pickup guru’ reputation with him, Duncan continued to refine his craft, making guitar parts such as phenolic pickguards and three-piece brass saddles with new business partner Cathy Carter. After using the funds from a guitar sale to purchase his first coil machine in 1974, he moved beyond rewinding and began making his own pickups. Two years later, he co-founded the Seymour Duncan Company, specialising in the handcrafted pickups for which the company would become renowned worldwide. From his humble beginnings taking apart a radio to working with some of the world’s most famous musicians, his desire to engineer the sound and tonality of the electric guitar has remained at the core of what Duncan has sought to achieve through his ever-evolving and fundamentally innovative career.
In the years following the creation of the ‘Tele-Gib’ and particularly after Jeff became temporarily resident in California after the twin successes of Blow By Blow and Wired, Jeff and Seymour formed a friendship and the latter even looked after one of Jeff’s beloved Hot Rods for a period of time. Many more guitars and guitar parts would be made specially for Jeff in subsequent years, with Seymour able to produce guitars to a spec that he knew Jeff would like.
‘It’s a bastardised Telecaster with all Tele except for the pickups – they were removed,’ explained Jeff as he introduced this unique guitar from his home studio for the bonus feature ‘At Home with Jeff Beck and his Guitars,’ for inclusion on the 2011 live concert DVD Rock 'n' Roll Party - Honouring Les Paul. ‘The original pickups were exchanged for Gibson humbuckers by the great Seymour Duncan who is a devout guitar maker and pickup specialist. He came to a recording studio where I was working… and he said, “Try this guitar.” It was fantastic – it had a big fat sound like the Gibson but it played like a Tele, which it is, and I said “Well, I’ve fallen in love with this.” Although recollections vary with regards to the exact chain of events, Jeff apparently agreed to part with his Yardbirds Esquire in exchange for the “Tele-Gib”. ‘I realised, there goes my piece of history, the Yardbirds Esquire… it was too late. But this makes a great sound. This is a cross – the best of both worlds between a Telecaster and a Les Paul.’
Renowned pickups wizard Seymour Duncan had struck up a friendship with Jeff when he was working as a repairman for Ivor Arbiter at the Fender Soundhouse on London's Tottenham Court Road during the mid-seventies, not far from CBS Studios where Jeff was recording at the time with Beck, Bogert and Appice. Seymour recalls that Jeff's favourite Les Paul had been sent for repair due to a volume control problem and, to Jeff’s dismay, had been returned with Gibson humbuckers in place of its original 'Patent Applied For' pickups. Although Seymour wanted to do something to help, he couldn’t afford a replacement Les Paul, so came up with the idea of creating a “Tele-Gib” – a hybrid guitar that started out as a butchered ‘50s Telecaster with a slab rosewood fingerboard that he had found at a music store in Cincinnati in 1972. The ’59 PAF pickups were sourced from a broken Gibson Flying V that had once belonged to Lonnie Mack. As the coils had been damaged when the covers had been removed, Seymour rewound them himself, using wire that he found at a motor repair shop, using a heavier gauge to wind the neck pickup and finer wire to wind the bridge pickup, as he could then get extra turns on the bobbins for increased sustain, harmonics and output. Seymour removed the old rosewood board and replaced it with a maple fingerboard with Gibson frets, which made for a thicker neck that would be closer to the feel of his old Les Paul. ‘Once it was finally ready,’ Seymour told us, ‘I brought Jeff the completed guitar and he seemed impressed by it. About a week later, Jeff's manager, Ralph Baker, came over with three disassembled guitars in a duffel bag – he said Jeff wanted me to pick which one I wanted and fix the other two. I was a huge fan of his tone with the Yardbirds, so I picked the Esquire and set to putting it back together. I'm honoured that the “Tele-Gib” I made for Jeff became a part of “Blow By Blow” and that he has described it as the best of both worlds.'
Jeff would go on to record the Stevie Wonder track ‘Cause We've Ended As Lovers’ on his new “Tele-Gib”. Questioned by guitar historian Tony Bacon on why he chose to record the track on the “Tele-Gib”, Jeff recalled:‘The Esquire had gone, the Jimmy Page Tele had gone, and up comes this [‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’], smack in the middle of the sessions, and Seymour turns up with his humbucker Tele. The Les Paul, I thought… well, everybody's got those, and I wanted to speak quite clearly as me. The Les Paul sounded good, but it just sounded like… well,I won't mention who it sounded like [laughs]. There wasn't much amplification variables that could make me sound like it, but as soon as I picked up the Tele, there was something there.’ Although Wonder had written ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers for his wife Syreeta, he offered the song to Jeff to make up for recording and releasing hit song ‘Superstition’ himself at the insistence of his label, despite originally composing the track for Jeff. Former road manager Al Dutton told us that the “Tele-Gib” was thereafter known as “Syreeta” to Jeff and his crew. Presumably because of the specific tonal variations and bends he achieved with the “Tele-Gib” on the recording, Jeff would always use the same guitar when performing the song live, notably including his performance with Eric Clapton at The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball at London’s Drury Lane Theatre on 9-12 September 1981, until he eventually switched to performing it on a Strat.
Jeff had intended to take the “Tele-Gib” on his 2022 tour - the guitar was brought to rehearsals in London and even to the first show in Cardiff – but in the end Jeff decided not to take the risk, as he was too worried about the famous “Tele-Gib” being stolen, and the guitar was sent home after Cardiff.
SEYMOUR W. DUNCAN
It would be impossible to discuss the electric guitar without touching upon pioneer and ‘guitar pickup king’ Seymour W. Duncan, who revolutionised electric guitar customisation through his innate appreciation and understanding of the engineering and innovative possibilities in pickup technology.
Born and raised in New Jersey in the 1950s, Seymour W. Duncan grew up exposed to music from an early age. At around the age of 9 his uncle Bid, a trumpet player and decoy carver, introduced him to the guitar and later to the guitar legend and aficionado Les Paul. Inspired by this introduction, during which Les Paul had explained the function and structure of electric guitar pickups to him, Duncan began to experiment with creating his own pickups from shortwave radios and old record players. His fascination with the guitar continued to grow as his uncle Howard, a guitarist who performed locally, taught him his first guitar chord alongside other techniques. For Christmas 1962 Duncan was given his first guitar and amplifier, a Sears Silverstone.
Throughout the rest of the 1960s, Duncan began playing in a variety of bands, including The Ad-Ventures and The Flintones, as well as attending live concerts by the likes of Roy Buchanan, Bob Bogle and Bob Moore and the Temptations. He first heard Jeff Beck playing with The Yardbirds in 1965 when listening to the radio at a local talent show, the same year Duncan became the lead guitarist for The Sparkles. At around this time Seymour performed his first pickup repair when his bridge pickup stopped working during a gig. In 1968, Duncan’s emerging reputation as a ‘pickup guru’ landed him on stage giving Jimi Hendrix a white Fender Stratocaster that he had fitted with custom hand-wound pickups. Through these experiences, he gained an undeniable appreciation for the different sounds, tones and ultimately the possibilities that a guitar could yield.
In the 70s, Duncan continued his pursuits as a guitarist, working and collaborating with the likes of Rory Gallagher, Slade, Chris Rainbow and Marc Bolan, to name a few. Duncan also took up work at a variety of music stores and repair shops, notably as a guitar repairman at the Fender Soundhouse in London. It was here that he continued to hone his craft, developing new pickup designs and modifications including multi-tapped pickups and 5-way lever switches for Stratocasters. Being in London at this time brought Seymour into contact with some of the world’s greatest guitarists including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and, of course, Jeff Beck, for whom he specially put together the Fender-Gibson hybrid guitar known as the ‘Tele-Gib’, in 1973.
After moving back to America in the mid-1970s and taking his ‘pickup guru’ reputation with him, Duncan continued to refine his craft, making guitar parts such as phenolic pickguards and three-piece brass saddles with new business partner Cathy Carter. After using the funds from a guitar sale to purchase his first coil machine in 1974, he moved beyond rewinding and began making his own pickups. Two years later, he co-founded the Seymour Duncan Company, specialising in the handcrafted pickups for which the company would become renowned worldwide. From his humble beginnings taking apart a radio to working with some of the world’s most famous musicians, his desire to engineer the sound and tonality of the electric guitar has remained at the core of what Duncan has sought to achieve through his ever-evolving and fundamentally innovative career.
In the years following the creation of the ‘Tele-Gib’ and particularly after Jeff became temporarily resident in California after the twin successes of Blow By Blow and Wired, Jeff and Seymour formed a friendship and the latter even looked after one of Jeff’s beloved Hot Rods for a period of time. Many more guitars and guitar parts would be made specially for Jeff in subsequent years, with Seymour able to produce guitars to a spec that he knew Jeff would like.