10 Chart-Topping Country Telecaster Players

Throughout modern music history, the Fender Telecaster has played a huge part in the evolution of country music. From Western swing in the 1940s and ’50s, the Bakersfield and Nashville sounds in the ’60s, the Outlaw movement in the ’70s and the country rockers that top the charts today, the Telecaster is the sound of country.

With its signature twang and resonance, and its reputation as the instrument of the “working musician,” the Telecaster asserted itself as a country mainstay right from the very beginning.

As such, below is a list of 10 great chart-topping Telecaster players, and click here to learn how to play a few country classics:

Waylon Jennings

An original members of country music’s Outlaw movement of the 1970s, Waylon Jennings had country and rock roots that ran much further back to 1960s-era chart success and critical acclaim (he was briefly a member of Buddy Holly’s band, the Crickets, in the late 1950s). A powerful singer, versatile guitarist and phenomenally successful songwriter, he favored several 1953 Telecasters outfitted in black-and-white leather with an oak-and-floral motif. His tribute Fender Telecaster, a Custom Shop model introduced in 1996, is based on his original 1953 guitar.

Buck Owens

A pioneer of the electric guitar-based honky-tonk Bakersfield sound of the late 1950s, Buck Owens (1929-2006) boasted a phenomenal 21 number-one hits on the Billboard country music charts. He blasted a bright, loud and twangy Telecaster tone that stood in stark contrast to the syrupy strings and choruses of the Nashville sound, with nimble fretwork ably abetted by Buckaroos guitarist Don Rich.

Merle Haggard

Fellow Bakersfield sound pioneer and ’70s-era Outlaw country co-founder Merle Haggard scored an astonishing 34 No. 1 hit singles, from “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive” (1966) to “Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star” (1987). Like Owens, Haggard played with a loud, bright and twangy Telecaster tone and was backed up in the Strangers by an exceedingly adept pair of Telecaster masters (Roy Nichols and, later, Redd Volkaert, both below).

Roy Nichols

Merle Haggard’s band had a roll call of great players over the years, but perhaps nobody brought more Telecaster magic to the Strangers than Arizona guitarist Roy Nichols (1932-2001), whose deft chicken pickin’, pedal steel-like bends and jazz-inflected chromatic tonality made him a sophisticated musical foil for Haggard’s own hard-edged Telecaster chops.

Redd Volkaert

After years of session and live work in Los Angeles and Nashville, red-headed Canadian Telecaster virtuoso Redd Volkaert joined Merle Haggard and the Strangers in 1997, perfectly channeling the sound and technique of Roy Nichols—and then some. His fleet-fingered mastery of Telecaster twang—often clean and sometimes with a touch of overdrive—effortlessly blends country, rock, jazz, swing, surf and more.

Brad Paisley

West Virginia-born Telecaster shredder Brad Paisley is one of the most electrifying live performers in country music. His extraordinary skill on a Telecaster ranges from traditional country phrasing to some pretty out-there work, and from delicate clean-tone passages to dizzying solo flights that once earned him a description in Guitar One magazine as “Eddie Van Halen on cornbread.”

Vince Gill

Sure, Gill earned initial acclaim for his work with Pure Prairie League in the late 1970s, but when he went out on his own, the Oklahoma native achieved truly tremendous success. Among his many prodigious musical talents—singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, et al.—Vince Gill can play a Telecaster just about any way there is to play one. With his compressed, snappy tone, he’s a master of country Tele techniques and is at home in seemingly any genre, be it traditional country, bluegrass, R&B, country rock and much more.

Marty Stuart

With traditional clean Telecaster tone typically running straight into the amp (usually a Princeton Reverb or Deluxe Reverb) and often drenched in shimmering reverb, country hit-maker Marty Stuart deftly rolls Don Rich, Ralph Mooney and Clarence White all into one and makes it look easy. Stuart is the prime exponent in modern country of the sinuous pedal steel sound of the B-Bender Telecaster; he in fact owns and often performs with $4 formerly owned and used by the instrument’s co-inventor, influential Byrds/Nashville West guitarist White.

James Burton

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and original-era Telecaster elder statesman James Burton boasts a straight, no-nonsense tone and impeccable phrasing as one of the first practitioners of the electric guitar solo. Telecaster chicken pickin’ basically starts with Burton, who lent his considerable Tele talent to artists including Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, John Denver, Elvis Costello and, most famously, Elvis Presley (as a key member of Presley’s venerable ’70s-era TCB Band).