The James Burton Telecaster is a Signature/Artist Series electric guitar made by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. The guitar is available in two models, Standard and Upgrade, and both were designed by American country-rock guitarist James Burton

James Burton

James Burton is an American guitarist. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2001 , Burton has also been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame...

 along with Dan Smith at Fender. Both models are patterned after mid-century Fender Telecaster

Fender Telecaster

The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is typically a dual-pickup, solid-body electric guitar made by Fender.Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music...

 guitars played by Burton during his long career with Ricky Nelson

Ricky Nelson

Eric Hilliard Nelson , better known as Ricky Nelson or Rick Nelson, was an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, and actor...

, Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

, Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard

Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...

, Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...

, John Denver

John Denver

Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...

 and many other well-known artists.

James Burton Standard Telecaster

The Standard model of the James Burton Telecaster was introduced in 1996 and features a solid alder body finished in Candy Apple Red with a 1-ply white pickguard. This model was inspired by Burton's third guitar, the 1953 Telecaster that he played on the seminal 1957 recording of "Susie Q

Susie Q (song)

"Susie Q" is a song by Louisiana-born singer and guitarist Dale Hawkins . He wrote the song himself, but when it was released, Stan Lewis, the owner of Jewel/Paula Records, and Eleanor Broadwater, the wife of Nashville DJ Gene Nobles, were also credited as co-writers to give them shares of the...

" with Dale Hawkins

Dale Hawkins

Delmar Allen "Dale" Hawkins was a pioneer American rock singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist who was often called the architect of swamp rock boogie...

. The neck is a 1-piece maple 1960s vintage U-shape design with a satin finish and 1950s-style decals. The hardware includes a vintage six-saddle Telecaster bridge, a pair of Texas Special Tele single-coil pickups, a three-way switch and vintage chrome Ping tuners

Machine head

A machine head is part of a string instrument ranging from guitars to double basses, a geared apparatus for applying tension and thereby tuning a string, usually located at the headstock. A headstock has several machine heads, one per string...

. This instrument is made in Mexico.

James Burton Telecaster Upgrade

The Upgrade model features a solid basswood body finished in solid Olympic Pearl, or with a flame design in Red Paisley

Paisley (design)

Paisley or Paisley pattern is a droplet-shaped vegetable motif of Indian, Pakistani and Persian origin. The pattern is sometimes called "Persian pickles" by American traditionalists, especially quiltmakers,The Persian Pickle Club, Sandra Dallas. St. Martin's Press,...

 or Blue Paisley on a black background. This model is based on a 1969 Paisley Red model Telecaster (popularly called Pink Paisley) that Burton played while touring with Elvis Presley from 1969 to 1977. The neck is the same as the Standard model. The electronics include three specially designed James Burton blade single-coil pickups (mounted similar to the Stratocaster

Fender Stratocaster

The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as "Strat", is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top...

 layout) and a 5-way "Strat-o-Tele" pickup selector with an S-1 switching system that allows a wide variety of pickup tones. The hardware includes a gold-plated hard-tail Strat bridge, gold-plated Schaller die-cast tuners with black or pearl buttons and gold-plated tone and volume knobs. The current Upgrade model was designed to commemorate a 2005 benefit concert for the James Burton Foundation in Shreveport, Louisiana. This model is made in America.

The original Upgrade was introduced in 1991 and had a poplar body, three Lace Sensor

Lace Sensor

The Lace Sensor is a guitar pickup designed by Don Lace and manufactured by AGI since 1985.This line of electric guitar pickups was used exclusively by Fender from 1987 to 1996....

pickups (models Blue at the neck, Silver in the middle and Red at the bridge) and a treble/bass expander (TBX) tone control. The TBX was a dual function stacked potentiometer tone control. From settings 1 to 5, the TBX responded like a normal tone control and routed the signal through a 250k pot with filtration through a .022mf capacitor. Settings 6 to 10 routed the signal directly through a 1 meg pot which added both treble and bass. This model was available in Black/Gold Paisley, Black/Candy Red Paisley, Pearl White and Frost Red.