Keith Richards Signature Model Telecaster

I received my CIJ Keith Richards model Tele from Archie Stone today. Got it at work and couldn't wait to get it home to try it out.

First off, what a great looking axe. Nice white blond finish on what looks to be a 2-piece ash body with plenty of nice grain showing through. Tight neck pocket with a killer vintage U shaped neck. 7.25 radius and vintage frets, nice and smooth.
The brass 6 saddle bridge plate looks a little odd but not bad. I'll probably change it to a vintage 3 saddle.
Gotoh tuners that are very smooth and hold tune well. Vintage 52RI string tree.

Domed control knobs and 3-way switch. 5 hole 1 ply pickguard with chrome covered humbucker and pickup ring.

Aesthetically - a very nice looking Tele.

Set up was fair. I had to tweak the action and intonation a little bit, but not bad.

Sound very nice unplugged. No fret buzz, Very harmonic to my ears.

I plugged it in to my Roland cube 30. What a great sounding axe.

I started with the bridge pup. To me, this sounds similar to the Nocaster in my Nashville. Fender Japan says it is a vintage Tele. With just a little delay, I got all the twang I could handle. About midway on the tone, I was getting the country style tones that are expected from a vintage bridge pup.

The Dragster humbucker I wasn't sure about until I played along with some B.B. King tunes and this pup is so smooth, I was matching some of the licks and was very pleased. Not exact, but very nice bluesy tones.

With a little more volume, I got a little break-up that sounded just about right. I'll have to try it in my Blues Juniorr to check out the tube tones with it. But so far, very pleasing to my ear.

OK, mid position... There was a thread that asked the question,” Does a Tele Jangle??"

To me the tones Keef got on the song "Brown Sugar" is a jangle to me. This position nails that tone to a tee. It’s definitely not a Rickenbacker tone, but it's a very bright and ringing tone that will be very versatile by playing with the tone a bit.

All in all a very nice looking and playing Tele that I will be spending a lot of time with.

The only changes I will be making are, adding straplocks and I will probably swap the bridge to a 3 saddle vintage style. I'll review again after the change and quite a bit more playtime.

Greg Beecher (FDP: riggergreg)