1996 Fender Pink Paisley Telecaster, as made famous by James Burton

Most famous in the hands of Elvis Presley's chicken-picking maestro James Burton, and since then anyone from Noel Gallagher to Taylor Swift.  An eye-catching beauty, let alone a great player.  "Play it, James".

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Fender first launched their Telecaster in spaced-out pink paisley in 1968.  A guitar for the Flower Power generation.  The story goes that the original print design wasn't some bright spark of in-house inspiration.  It was wallpaper, from the local paint shop.  More specifically, a peel-and-stick product made by the Borden Chemical Company, called Cling-Foil.  And when they decided they were going to make a run of these, the Fender Fullerton team bought up the entire supply of pink paisley Cling-Foil from that local paint shop.  They then stuck that onto the slab-board of a Telecaster, and layered it in nitrocellulose to protect it.  It was always going to be a limited run - when the wallpaper ran out, so did production.  Fortunately, Fender Japan have done a great job of reproducing the 69 version of the Paisley Tele over the years, with a more repeatable silk-screening taking over from a finite supply of wallpaper.  They don't come up often, but when they do, they're snapped up.

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The original paisley Tele may have missed the boat for 1967's Summer Of Love, but Fender found their way to nail it into the history books.  James Burton had made his mark on music long before his more famous part in Elvis' TCB band.  He'd co-written the often-covered Suzie Q, and had been Ricky Nelson's guitarist for 11 years.  Ricky liked to keep James busy.  But, whatever other time James did have, he filled it working with other musicians.  It's what you do - better busy, than waiting for the call.  So busy, that he turned down Elvis' request to appear on the legendary 68 Comeback Special - James was working in the studio at the time, with another of the greats, Frank Sinatra.  But when the second call from Elvis came through in 1969 - sugared with the opportunity to hand-pick Elvis' backing band - he jumped at the chance.  And it was around the same time that Chuck Weiner, then vice-president of Fender, called up and said "I have a guitar here with your name on it".  No sending it, no pictures, but in the flesh - prompting James' immediate response: "Wait a minute, that's too fancy!"  But he played it, he loved it, and the rest is history.  And this model will forever be known as the James Burton Tele. An absolute peach of a guitar!