This Guitar Is Available As A
Fabulous Fake
The Fender Custom Shop
proudly announces a long-awaited tribute to one of
the pioneers of electric guitar and more
specifically the Telecaster guitar. The Jimmy Bryant
Signature Telecaster guitar is a “Twang Machine”
designed with the most discriminating Telecaster
player and features a white blonde premium ash body,
modern tone Circuit Wiring and a vintage maple neck
with a 9.5” radius. Vintage tones come courtesy of
two Fender Nocaster® single-coil pickups. It also
features a hand-tooled leather pickguard overlay.
It’s not difficult to imagine the huge impact that Jimmy Bryant’s
explosive guitar style had on his fellow guitarists of the 1950s.
Listen to his music today and you’ll get that tingle down your spine
that Danny Gatton, Albert Lee and all those hot Telecaster players
experienced when they first heard Bryant blasting through classics
like Red Headed Polka and Stratosphere Boogie. Bryant’s gift for
melody, and his sense of humor that shines from every cut, is
timeless. Always performing with a swagger that made even the most
complicated techniques look ridiculously easy, Bryant was the
fastest player that anyone had ever heard, raising the bar for
guitarists forever. Also worth remembering is the fact that, in an
era when amplifier distortion was still considered a ‘fault,’ he
played every note clean, with absolute precision. He was also an
accomplished songwriter, penning the Waylon Jennings classic, The
Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line. Just how Jimmy Bryant came to be a
guitar player in the first place is a classic tale of one man’s
triumph over tragedy and great adversity.
Jimmy Bryant was born Ivy. J. Bryant Jr on March 5, 1925 in
Moultrie, Georgia, into a poor farming family. Like many families
caught in this relentlessly tough existence, the Bryant’s enjoyed
the welcome relief that performing music could bring. Jimmy’s
musician father instilled the joy of playing a musical instrument in
his young son and pretty soon the boy was a fiddle-playing prodigy
supplementing the family’s income by playing for tips on the
Courthouse Square of Moultrie. As he grew Bryant honed his fiddle
skills by playing with local bands and performing at the Saturday
night barn dances that were popular at that time. Even though
opportunities were few, Jimmy had no desire to follow in his
parent’s footsteps, working the fields of Georgia. As it turned out
he needn’t have worried. In addition to his incredible talent, this
young man had fate on his side…
In 1943, the 18-year old Bryant was drafted into the US Army. While
he was fighting in Germany he was critically injured by an exploding
grenade, sustaining head injuries that would see him hospitalized
for several months. While recuperating in hospital he taught himself
to play guitar, applying his lightning fiddle skills to the
six-string instrument, and that explosive guitar style was born.
When Jimmy Bryant passed away on September 22, 1980 he left behind
an incredible body of recorded work. In addition to the countless
sessions he’d played on, for various pop and country artists over
the years, he released some of the most important instrumental
guitar music ever committed to tape. From his first self-composed
recording, Bryant’s Boogie, to his final solo sessions in the late
60s, Bryant never disappointed his fans, always breaking the rules
with his usual style. Check out the ringing harmonics of Liberty
Bell Polka, the complex picking of Yodeling Guitar, and the
earliest use of that country music staple, chicken picking on the
aptly named Pickin’ The Chicken. Some of his most awe-inspiring work
can be found on his The Fastest Guitar in the Country album.
Recorded in 1967 the album features Jimmy’s breakneck speed
rendition of the classic Sugar Foot Rag. Incidentally, every
guitarist should own a copy of Frettin’ Fingers; the Lightning
Guitar of Jimmy Bryant, a 3-CD box-set packed full of Bryant’s finest
moments. Speaking of which…
Probably Jimmy Bryant’s best-loved recordings are those that he made
with steel guitarist Speedy West. The pair played together on
sessions backing singers such as Tennessee Ernie Ford and Kay Starr
but soon began working on their own material. It was a match made in
heaven. Their melodic, fast guitar lines intertwined with each other
creating an exciting brand of music that nobody had ever heard
before. Between 1950 and 1956 Bryant and West recorded an incredible
amount of material including the now legendary Stratosphere Boogie.
Both men entered the studio in the mid 70s to record a reunion
album. Unfortunately, the results of the sessions wouldn’t be
released until 1990, ten years after Bryant’s death.
Although Bryant used many different guitars in the course of his
career he will always be best remembered as a pioneer, the first
endorsee, of Fender’s legendary Telecaster model. While some players
of the day were reluctant to replace their ageing hollow-body
guitars with this ‘new-fangled’ solid-body instrument, Bryant
instantly warmed to the guitar’s unique playability and lively tone.
The story goes that in 1950, Leo Fender, and his engineering
consultant George Fullerton, visited Bryant at the Riverside Rancho,
a Western music nightclub in Glendale, California. After handing
Jimmy his new Broadcaster – later renamed the Telecaster – Leo and
George watched as the guitarist caused such a sensation with the
groundbreaking guitar that the crowd in the club gathered around him
to watch him play. Apparently, even the band performing onstage at
the time stopped playing to catch Bryant’s impromptu show! In 2003,
Fender released its Jimmy Bryant Tribute Telecaster, produced with
the input of Jimmy’s son, John. With its ash body, white blonde
finish and hand-tooled leather pickguard, the guitar is a fitting
tribute to a true pioneer of the Telecaster, and the electric guitar
in general.
Of course, as well as his awesome guitar playing, it should be
mentioned that Jimmy Bryant had that all-important ‘cool’ element
that all guitar heroes should effortlessly possess. Always dressed
to the teeth in a sharp suit or decorative country shirt, with hair
slicked back, and that handsome face, it’s easy to see why the sight
of Jimmy with his radical new Fender guitar was such an inspiration
to guitarists, and music lovers, of the 1950s. It’s still a powerful
image today. |