Few guitarists represent the future of blues guitar quite like Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. Recognizing this, Fender has teamed up with the Mississippi-born guitarist, championed by Eric Gales, Buddy Guy and Slash, for a revamp of his 2022 signature Telecaster Deluxe.
In an interview for a promo video, however, Kingfish confessed that he didn’t always like Fender’s second-most famous electric guitar. He says it was Prince, chief among a litany of six-string greats, whose music convinced him to revisit the instrument with a fresh mindset.
“My first Telecaster was a red Squier Affinity Tele,” Kingfish explains after a tour of Fender’s Corona, California, factory, where his new Daphne Blue axe has been crafted. (The model was previously made with a shimmering purple Mississippi Night finish.) “At first I didn’t get the whole Telecaster movement, because I felt like they were too twangy.”
The Tele Deluxe, however, delivered a solution to what he feels is the guitar’s biggest tonal problem: its pickups.
The Fender Telecaster — first produced as the Broadcaster in 1950 — went through several iterations leading up to the development of the Telecaster Deluxe in 1972. Rather than a pair of single-coils, the Deluxe model featured two of Fender’s Wide Range humbuckers, giving it a warmer, thicker and more rounded tone than its standard sibling. (The Tele Thinline, first introduced in 1968, was likewise revised in 1972 with a pair of Wide Range pickups.)
While that tonal change spoke to Kingfish more than any other Tele, he needed another guitarist to convince him to make the leap. He found what he needed in his own record collection.
They include “some of my favorite Telecaster players out there, like Freddie Stone, from Sly & the Family Stone, Prince, Keith Richards, Albert Collins, and of course all of the country players as well, like Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan,” Kingfish says.
Of all those players, he says Prince was the most influential. Listening to him play, Kingfish says, “I found out how funky these things can get.”
(It should be noted that while Prince played a modified Tele in his early years, he was best known for playing a Hohner Mad Cat Tele-style model, as seen in his celebrated live performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." The Mad Cat featured a flamed maple top on an ash body with a walnut strip in the middle, as well as a distinctive-looking leopard-print pickguard.)
Ultimately, it was the sound of those twin Wide Range humbuckers that drew Kingfish not to the Telecaster, but to the Tele Deluxe.
“Coming from traditional blues, I'd always been into players that had a big sound,” he adds. “Then I started to expand my ear and got into guys like Gary Moore, who has that classic overdriven humbucker sound.
“I always wanted that kind of tone — something where I can hit the pedal and everything can be boomy, and I can scale back and be pretty. The pickups do just that. Between that and two Fender Twins, the sound guy is always telling me to turn down!”
Having a signature Telecaster also meant Kingfish could go further and specify his own custom-voiced pickup. “I wanted a sound that could really punch and hit heavy,” he explains. “But being that I come from church, I wanted a guitar that doesn't scream. I can dial back the volume if I want to.”
Speaking to Guitar Player last year to dish out his top tips for guitarists, Kingfish discussed his love of aggressive melodic soloing, the need for his live shows to tell a cohesive story, and the key lessons taken from his time jamming with Buddy Guy.
And in related news, Samantha Fish is the latest blues star to name-drop Kingfish's talents as one of the torchbearers of modern blues.
