Even if the Telecaster was a great guitar, musicians tried from the beginning to enhance the guitar in the search of their “holly grail” sound. Due to the simplicity of the guitar it was obvious that very rapidly experimentations were done on the guitar using it as a platform for tonal experiments. One of such an experiment is a guitar which has made rock history:
This is another of Rich Robinson's guitar, a butterscotch finish '68 Fender Telecaster. It was his main and most renowned guitar since the earliest days of the Black Crowes and he's been associated with it for years.
Rich bought this guitar used. The former owner had made some modifications to the guitar and had placed a Tom Holmes humbucker in the neck position and fitted a Bigsby vibrato on it. Rich removed the Bigsby vibrato while The Black Crowes were recording their first album.
In a Vintage Guitar Magazine interview Back on the Wing by Ward Meeker from the June 2007 issue Rich states:
“The first really good Fender I bought was a black Tele Deluxe from the ’70s. And then I bought a ’68 blonde Tele and that’s been my main guitar ever since. I paid 400 bucks for it. “
This guitar has been heavily used for the first Lp “Shake your Moneymaker” in 1990 and got the nickname “Moneymaker”. It was also the companion of Rich for his live performances with The Black Crowes.
This guitar remained active for most of the recordings such as the 1999 By Your Side CD. In an interview he describes his equipment used:
“It was basically two amps and five guitars. I used either a tweed 1955 Fender Twin or a tweed Fender Tremolux through a Marshall 4X12 Silver Jubilee cabinet. For the guitars, there's the 1968 Telecaster that I used the most, an early '50 Gold Top Les Paul, the Zemaitis, a Gretsch White Falcon and an early '60s ES-335. I also just bought a 1963 Fender Esquire.”
For most of the songs the Telecaster was used as main guitar, with other guitars playing lead. For the song "Diamond Ring" he used the Telecaster for his solo:
“This time it's the Gretsch Roc-Jet in Open G for the rhythms, and the Telecaster for the lead. Like "Only a Fool", it only took five minutes to write. Sometimes the songs that take the least amount of time to write work the best. I used the neck pickup on the Tele, which is a Tom Holmes humbucker, for the solo.“
