Big stars, with their old guitars...

[machinehead]

Wilco Johnson's black Telecaster.  I think he still plays it today.

Frank.

[stingrayPete1977]

Flea has used a black Stingray five for 27+ years, but only in the studio. 

[Baxlin]

Alvin Lee (Ten Year’s after) and his red Gibson, complete with Ban the Bomb sticker, IIRC.

[SH73]

Since mid 70's. It has been refinished several times.

[casapete]

Keith Richard's 'Micawber' Telecaster.

https://www.fender.com/articles/gear/iconic-mods-the-legend-of-keith-richards-micawber

[megallica]

17 hours ago, Graham said:

Does Billy-Joe Armstrong still gig the green, sticker covered strat in Green Day?

Fat Mike from NOFX seems to have been playing the same Danelectro for years, don't know if it's the same one though.

Didn’t fat mike smash the headstock on Melvins head one night? On backstage passport dvd 

[Fozza]

BB King and "Lucille".

[Happy Jack]

21 hours ago, bassbiscuits said:

Rory Gallagher's battered strat?

Nah - he bought it relic'd by some guy in Denmark Street to make it look like he knew what he was doing.

[NJE]

Sting has been using his 57 precision for over 25 years and and apparently uses a Jazz in the studio that he has had since he first started out in Last Exit

[casapete]

1 hour ago, Fozza said:

BB King and "Lucille".

I was going to add BB to the list, but didn't he just keep getting newer Gibsons and call them all 'Lucille'?!!

Same as Chuck Berry - although using one 355 for a long time, he just used later versions as and when I believe. Probably sold them on when Gibson gave him new ones 😉

[Rich]

22 hours ago, Crawford13 said:

Fairly certain you could put in Mike Stern (Yamaha Tele)

My favourite gtrist!  He actually started out with an old mangled Tele (see pic). In his own words:

"Yamaha modelled it on a mutt Telecaster that I had been playing since back when I began recording with Atlantic, and that guitar was itself actually kind of a copy of a Tele I got from Danny Gatton, who got it from Roy Buchanan. Danny souped it up and sold it to me for $500, because he wanted to buy a used car. It was stolen from me at gunpoint many years ago."

I've only ever seen him use the neck pickup. I'm surprised they bothered with a bridge pup on his signature Pacifica.

[Graham]

3 hours ago, megallica said:

Didn’t fat mike smash the headstock on Melvins head one night? On backstage passport dvd 

I never saw that, but it sounds like something he'd do

[stingrayPete1977]

3 hours ago, Fozza said:

BB King and "Lucille".

He had many guitars but called them all Lucille rather than just one guitar for his career. 

[stingrayPete1977]

Casapete beat me to it ^

[Jono Bolton]

Herbie Flowers and his blue jazz?

[AndyTravis]

Bobby Vega’s “Shark Bass” - He’s had it since the 70’s

[BigRedX]

On 25/11/2018 at 11:11, NancyJohnson said:

Francis Rossi (the Telecaster with the hole in it),

All of Francis Rossi's Telecasters have the hole drilled in them. According to an interview I read in IM back in the 70s, it was done originally to run the lead through rather than tucking through the strap, but it wasn't comfortable to use like that. However having the hole drilled in them did make the guitars easier to identify and recover if they got stolen, so AFAIK he's done it to all his guitars since then.

[Happy Jack]

You'd think that people like Sting and Bobby Vega could afford a decent re-fin, wouldn't you?

 

[Roger2611]

22 hours ago, machinehead said:

Wilco Johnson's black Telecaster.  I think he still plays it today.

Frank.

On a recent documentary Wilco said Fender had built him a couple of custom shop Tele's as exact copies of his famous beast, I believe he plays those now as he was terrified of losing the original (not sure terrified and Wilco Johnson really belong in the same sentence!)

[EliasMooseblaster]

14 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

You'd think that people like Sting and Bobby Vega could afford a decent re-fin, wouldn't you?

 

I think Bobby's Jazz already has quite enough fins on it...

[Silvia Bluejay]

3 hours ago, Jono Bolton said:

Herbie Flowers and his blue jazz?

As well as his double bass, as he told us at the SE Bash a couple of years ago.

[AndyTravis]

45 minutes ago, Roger2611 said:

On a recent documentary Wilco said Fender had built him a couple of custom shop Tele's as exact copies of his famous beast, I believe he plays those now as he was terrified of losing the original (not sure terrified and Wilco Johnson really belong in the same sentence!)

Having met him in person, I doubt he’s scared of anything. Lovely man with a slight overtone of “I might headbutt you at any given moment”.

Same with Norman Watt Roy, but he’s a bit smaller.

[silverfoxnik]

Herbie Flowers has used the same Jazz bass for over 40 years, as seen at the South East Bash in 2016.

And I think I'm right in saying that Prince used the same Hohner Telecaster, the so called MadCat Telecaster,  for many, many years.

They've known some great tunes between them, those two instruments!

[silverfoxnik]

4 hours ago, Jono Bolton said:

Herbie Flowers and his blue jazz?

Beat me to it! 😊

[MoonBassAlpha]

Bilbo and his Wal.