The Guitar Storage staff took a roadtrip to see the “Masters of the Telecaster” show at City Winery on Thursday night. Three of the best and most famous Tele players showed their stuff. Arlen Roth, GE Smith and Jim Wieder brought just about all the Telecaster tone there is to a tribute to Roy Buchanan.
Arlen and GE started, out with Arlen taking most of the leads and covering the Roy Buchanan covers masterfully. They turned the stratocaster classic into an homage to tele.
Just when you thought you heard all the Tele tones you could dream of, out came Jim Weider. Now there were three vintage blonde telecasters, with black pickguards, being played by three masters. It was almost too much to handle. In fact it was, for one of the wine glasses at our table. Nothing like a stage full of tele harmonics to do in a cheap wine glass.
They did a kick-ass version of Peter Gunn.
Later they slowed it down on a Roy Buchanan slow blues style tune. One of the biggest surprises was GE Smith on the slow blues. His vocals were impressive. He also manged to get some great twangless slow blues tone on his Tele on this one. GE brought out his Rick Kelly Telecaster for some slide work on one of the songs. Beautiful guitar made from some NYC building salvage. Coincidentally, we had just stopped into Kelly’s Guitars on Carmine St. before the show and saw Ge Smith’s photo with the Telecaster on the wall.
An added bonus was Jim Campilongo who opened. Showcasing his own Telecaster style. Twas was a great night of Tele Tones.