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Lot Essay
I wanted a Telecaster that I could play lead on, so I swapped out the pickups on this for a more powerful sound. This guitar was used a lot with Electronic and with Billy Bragg on ‘Sexuality’ and ‘Cindy Of A Thousand Lives’. I played it for my set at Patti Smith’s Meltdown concert in 2005 at the Royal Festival Hall in London. After the show, Patti signed the back of it and put in quotes: ‘People have the power ... Patti Smith’. Her message wore off over the years, and at one point it just said ‘the Smith’.
JOHNNY MARR, MARR’S GUITARS, 2023
Johnny Marr was first introduced to the Fender Telecaster during the recording of The Smiths’ self-titled debut album in late 1983, when he borrowed producer John Porter’s 1950s Tele to track the Rickenbacker on ‘This Charming Man’. That was my first experience with a Tele, Marr told Jonathan Horsley for Total Guitar in April 2021. It really suited my super-clean sound. But it still had plenty of attitude. The combination of that '50s Tele sound and the Rickenbacker was perfect for what I was looking for… I made it my business to get a Tele. Marr acquired his distinctive green Roger Giffin Telecaster (lot 10) as a gift from then girlfriend Angie in early 1984. It’s very, very practical, that guitar but it weighs an absolute ton, Marr told us. And I was such a little fella. I mean, I’m still not such a big dude now, but I was so tiny back then. I could only ever play it for three songs in a row live, and then someone would have to come and relieve me of it. Whilst the trusty Giffin Tele was used extensively in the studio, its hefty weight made it somewhat impractical for regular stage use, so Marr enlisted famed guitar tech Alan Rogan to source him another. The green one I used mostly on Meat Is Murder, Marr told Horsley. I guess by the time of the last [Smiths] album, I acquired a mid-’60s Tele which had been customised with a humbucker in the neck position. While the serial number on the neckplate led Marr to assume that the Telecaster Rogan supplied was mid 1960s, we have established that the neckplate is not original and the guitar is composite, with a late 1970s body and a 1967 neck. In addition to the humbucker modification, the guitar had been fitted with an extra toggle switch enabling the player to split the rails or play in parallel polarity.
Marr was in possession of the present Telecaster by spring 1987 and immediately swapped out the pickups for higher output Seymour Duncan humbuckers that would deliver a heavier tone for lead as well as rhythm. Whilst The Smiths had recently wrapped recording on their fourth – and would be final – studio album Strangeways, Here We Come, they would return to the studio once more to record the two B-sides for their forthcoming single ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’. Marr consequently used the new Tele on the last ever Smiths’ recording ‘I Keep Mine Hidden’ and the infamous Cilla Black cover ‘Work is a Four Letter Word’ when they were both laid down at Firehouse Studios in Streatham in May 1987. Marr announced that he was leaving the band that August and recalls that he played this Tele for his first post-Smiths gig when he snuck out onstage unannounced in Brixton one night with A Certain Ratio to play the Haçienda classic ‘Shack Up’.
In the aftermath of The Smiths, the Telecaster would see regular studio use when Marr linked up with New Order’s Bernard Sumner in 1989 to form the alternative dance supergroup Electronic, blending guitars, synthesisers and other studio wizardry to explore new ground in guitar driven synth-pop. Marr also used this Telecaster on the Billy Bragg songs ‘Cindy of a Thousand Lives’ and ‘Sexuality’ (the latter co-written by Marr) when he co-produced several tracks on Bragg’s 1991 album Don't Try This at Home. Marr went on to use the customised Telecaster when he emerged as a frontman for the first time with The Healers in 1999, telling Total Guitar’s Joe Matera that a '65 Fender Telecaster which is fitted with a humbucker formed part of his arsenal during the recording of 2003 album Boomslang.
The Tele made a notable stage appearance when Marr played a short set with The Healers at Patti Smith’s Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 24 June 2005. Patti Smith had invited me to play at the Meltdown Festival she was curating in London, wrote Marr. She’d been an inspiration since the night I stood at the front of the stage at the Apollo as a fourteen-year-old boy. I got to the Royal Festival Hall with my band and I was introduced to Roy Harper, who was also on the bill… During the soundcheck, Patti’s guitar player and band leader Lenny Kaye suggested that he and Patti and Roy join me in my encore. Patti came to the stage to say hello, and I thanked her for filling up my mind with Radio Ethiopia in the mornings before I went to school and I told her how she’d been a connection between me and Morrissey when I formed The Smiths. She was happy to hear about it and told me she was pleased how things had turned out, and when it came to the encore I played a Strawbs song called ‘Lay Down’, with Patti Smith singing on my mic on one side of me and Roy Harper singing on the other, and I wondered what I’d done for things to have gone so right. Circulating bootleg footage confirms that Marr certainly played the Tele for The Smiths’ classic ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’. As Marr notes above, Patti Smith signed and inscribed the reverse of Marr’s Telecaster after the show, however the inscription has worn away with use over the years so that only the word “the” remains legible.
JOHNNY MARR, MARR’S GUITARS, 2023
Johnny Marr was first introduced to the Fender Telecaster during the recording of The Smiths’ self-titled debut album in late 1983, when he borrowed producer John Porter’s 1950s Tele to track the Rickenbacker on ‘This Charming Man’. That was my first experience with a Tele, Marr told Jonathan Horsley for Total Guitar in April 2021. It really suited my super-clean sound. But it still had plenty of attitude. The combination of that '50s Tele sound and the Rickenbacker was perfect for what I was looking for… I made it my business to get a Tele. Marr acquired his distinctive green Roger Giffin Telecaster (lot 10) as a gift from then girlfriend Angie in early 1984. It’s very, very practical, that guitar but it weighs an absolute ton, Marr told us. And I was such a little fella. I mean, I’m still not such a big dude now, but I was so tiny back then. I could only ever play it for three songs in a row live, and then someone would have to come and relieve me of it. Whilst the trusty Giffin Tele was used extensively in the studio, its hefty weight made it somewhat impractical for regular stage use, so Marr enlisted famed guitar tech Alan Rogan to source him another. The green one I used mostly on Meat Is Murder, Marr told Horsley. I guess by the time of the last [Smiths] album, I acquired a mid-’60s Tele which had been customised with a humbucker in the neck position. While the serial number on the neckplate led Marr to assume that the Telecaster Rogan supplied was mid 1960s, we have established that the neckplate is not original and the guitar is composite, with a late 1970s body and a 1967 neck. In addition to the humbucker modification, the guitar had been fitted with an extra toggle switch enabling the player to split the rails or play in parallel polarity.
Marr was in possession of the present Telecaster by spring 1987 and immediately swapped out the pickups for higher output Seymour Duncan humbuckers that would deliver a heavier tone for lead as well as rhythm. Whilst The Smiths had recently wrapped recording on their fourth – and would be final – studio album Strangeways, Here We Come, they would return to the studio once more to record the two B-sides for their forthcoming single ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’. Marr consequently used the new Tele on the last ever Smiths’ recording ‘I Keep Mine Hidden’ and the infamous Cilla Black cover ‘Work is a Four Letter Word’ when they were both laid down at Firehouse Studios in Streatham in May 1987. Marr announced that he was leaving the band that August and recalls that he played this Tele for his first post-Smiths gig when he snuck out onstage unannounced in Brixton one night with A Certain Ratio to play the Haçienda classic ‘Shack Up’.
In the aftermath of The Smiths, the Telecaster would see regular studio use when Marr linked up with New Order’s Bernard Sumner in 1989 to form the alternative dance supergroup Electronic, blending guitars, synthesisers and other studio wizardry to explore new ground in guitar driven synth-pop. Marr also used this Telecaster on the Billy Bragg songs ‘Cindy of a Thousand Lives’ and ‘Sexuality’ (the latter co-written by Marr) when he co-produced several tracks on Bragg’s 1991 album Don't Try This at Home. Marr went on to use the customised Telecaster when he emerged as a frontman for the first time with The Healers in 1999, telling Total Guitar’s Joe Matera that a '65 Fender Telecaster which is fitted with a humbucker formed part of his arsenal during the recording of 2003 album Boomslang.
The Tele made a notable stage appearance when Marr played a short set with The Healers at Patti Smith’s Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 24 June 2005. Patti Smith had invited me to play at the Meltdown Festival she was curating in London, wrote Marr. She’d been an inspiration since the night I stood at the front of the stage at the Apollo as a fourteen-year-old boy. I got to the Royal Festival Hall with my band and I was introduced to Roy Harper, who was also on the bill… During the soundcheck, Patti’s guitar player and band leader Lenny Kaye suggested that he and Patti and Roy join me in my encore. Patti came to the stage to say hello, and I thanked her for filling up my mind with Radio Ethiopia in the mornings before I went to school and I told her how she’d been a connection between me and Morrissey when I formed The Smiths. She was happy to hear about it and told me she was pleased how things had turned out, and when it came to the encore I played a Strawbs song called ‘Lay Down’, with Patti Smith singing on my mic on one side of me and Roy Harper singing on the other, and I wondered what I’d done for things to have gone so right. Circulating bootleg footage confirms that Marr certainly played the Tele for The Smiths’ classic ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’. As Marr notes above, Patti Smith signed and inscribed the reverse of Marr’s Telecaster after the show, however the inscription has worn away with use over the years so that only the word “the” remains legible.