In 1973 I was working at the Fender Soundhouse in London, England doing guitar modifications and repair with amp whiz Ron Roka. When I came over from the states I brought several guitars to play and work on. I had an old Telecaster that I made into a “Tele-Gib” and put two humbuckers in it to have a fat humbucker sound with the control of the Telecaster.

I had been doing experimentation with pickups and heard that Jeff was recording the second BBA album at the CBS Recording Studio a few blocks from where I worked. I contacted Ralph Baker who worked with Jeff and he invited me to meet Jeff at the studio. I wanted to make him an instrument that would be quiet in the studio and have the tone of his old Les Paul he used on the “Truth” album. I knew Jeff’s (Truth) Les Paul had the pickups stolen out of it and replaced with late 60s Gibson pickups with covers. I wanted to do something special for him and gave him the “Tele-Gib”, so nicknamed because it was part Telecaster and part Gibson. The bridge prototype pickup was wound and nicknamed the JB because I made it for Jeff and the neck was wound like my Jazz Model Neck.

I experimented with different types of magnets and now use an Alnico 5. I often calibrate the magnets to obtain certain frequencies. You can really hear Jeff using the pickup on the “Blow by Blow” album and song “Cause we’ve ended as lovers”. Jeff manipulates the volume control similar to Roy Buchanan’s crying guitar.