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The Merle Haggard Tribute Telecaster

The Merle Haggard is a modified Telecaster Thinline (figured maple top with no f-hole) with four way switching*, and some other stuff you can only appreciate by looking at one . . . so here are the pictures. When we first heard that this was a very difficult and complex guitar for the Fender Custom Shop to produce and they were having quality control problems it was hard to understand. Once you get a good look, it's not so hard to imagine that this is not an easy guitar to build. We are trying to confirm that Fender Custom Shop Master Builder Mark Kendrick built these guitars, and if so, if he is now working in the Guild division of Fender.

Click on an image to get more information about the Merle Haggard Tribute Telecaster

*The pickup combinations are what you would expect for a four-way Tele, but not in the order you might expect. The combinations in order are: bridge, bridge+neck in parallel, neck, and bridge+neck in series. It's a bit weird since you would normally have the switch pointing at the bridge for the bridge pickup and pointing at the neck for the neck pickup with the combinations in between.

Here's the Fender page with the specifications:

• Merle Haggard Tribute Telecaster

And an account of Mark Kendrick on the road with Merle:

• Merle Haggard Article

Merle plays this stunning Telecaster (In the cameo role in the movie Wag the Dog he performs "Courage, Mom" on it.) people particularly interested in Merle Haggard can peruse the Merle Haggard Web Ring:

This site in the Merle Haggard WebRing is owned by doc.
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