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Fender American Highway 1 Telecaster

 

Review of the Fender Highway 1 Telecaster by The Man in the Jar  

A lovely American Telecaster for well short of £500? Lead on...

Features of the Fender Highway 1 Telecaster

Tuners - Excellent quality Fender branded sealed tuners.

Headstock - Classic Telecaster shape with a rather odd string bush on the first and second strings. Is this a vintage feature or a new innovation? Either way it looks cool and does the job.

Nut - White plastic set-in-slot type.

Neck - A maple neck with a modern C profile. The satin polyurethane finish gives neither the slide of a gloss finish or the dryness of some satin finishes I've tried. It's not a big point but it takes a minute to get used to it. The skunk stripe is a lovely chocolate brown rosewood. The neck joins the body with the standard Tele bolt-on arrangement.

Fretboard - The maple board is so well matched that it's difficult to see the join with the maple neck. The same satin finish covers the fretboard and here it provides a nice smooth surface for bends and slides. Traditional black dot markers complete the picture.

Frets - Medium fat and nicely polished.

Action - Lovely straight from the box. Fitted with a set of 9's as standard this guitar is easy and satisfying to play from the get-go.

Body - This is the classic Telecaster slab body that has yet to be beaten in open combat. Alder instructs the classic Tele tones whilst through-body stringing ensures there is no waste of string energy. 

Bridge - Full-blown vintage style ashtray bridge with only three saddles, one for each pair of strings. This means that the strings must be intoned in pairs rather than individually. I checked the intonation on the model I tried and it was spot on. 
Being used to a modern Telecaster bridge that doesn't have the dish-like up-stand around the edge I was worried that the vintage style might cramp my playing. In reality it took about five seconds to get used to it and after five minutes I was actually using the raised lip on the lower part of the bridge to anchor my pinky during picking runs.  

Pickups - Vintage style single coil pickups with alnico magnets arranged in the time-honoured Telecaster format. 

Controls - One volume and one tone with a three-way selector switch. No Nonsense. 

Pickguard - Classic Tele shape in a thin and stylish white/black/white plastic. One thing about this style of plate is it can be removed without de-stringing (or even de-tuning) the instrument. This is useful if you want to adjust the height of the neck pickup which is mounted on the body rather than on the pickguard.

Strap-buttons - Medium buttons, fine with a new strap but watch out with worn or stretched straps.

Output Jack - On the lower edge in the trademark Telecaster bucket.

Finish - The honey blonde finish on this model is a thing of classic loveliness. Close up the grain of the alder is just visible , adding a touch of extra character.

 

Sound of the Highway 1 Fender Telecaster

With the bridge pickup engaged the guitar produced diamond-cut Telecaster treble tones that threaten to scalp the front row of the audience. Crystal glass highs are here in spades and rolling back the tone control reduces the sharpness of the edge and offers another bagful of useful tones.

The Telecaster neck pickup is an electric guitar fashion statement that has remained un-copied. But a good Tele pickup in this position is an immensely useful tone reservoir for the creative player. The depth and timbre of this example is lovely. Playing Rock 'n' Roll and Blues in this position is one of the pure and simple joys that guitar playing has to offer.

So with two great-sounding pickups, guess what happens when you put them together! Sublime rock tones that, when carefully overdriven, usher you quickly away to Keef-land. Once there you may never come back.

 

Overall Impressions of the Fender Highway 1 Telecaster

A Telecaster will always be a Telecaster, it's just that it will be a good one or a not-so-good one. If you like the noise Telecasters make in general then you will love this particular model. The debate rages on about American made instruments versus their Far Eastern production counter-parts. I still think there is something special about American guitars. Maybe it's as simple as the difference between building a cultural icon and assembling a bunch of parts that arrived on a lorry. Whatever it is, real or psychological, it's why American guitars persist in our marketplace. In any event, if you want a good Tele you'll likely be spending as much as you can afford. If you want an American Telecaster, this is a really excellent example for its price.  

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