Music and Recording Features

Sidebar 2: JC's Signature Sound

A few years ago, Fender released a limited-edition Jim Campilongo Signature Telecaster. (Other Signature Teles have been created for and signed by Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Andy Summers—and Jimmy Page, who also favored a '59 model. That alone gives an idea of the esteem in which he's held in the guitar world.) And not long ago, Newburgh, NY-based luthier Chihoe Hahn worked with Campilongo to create yet another Tele-based signature model, the Hahn Guitars Model C.

Campilongo's session-work toolkit? "I just bring my Telecaster, maybe my 1958 Gibson ES-225T, and my Fender silverface Princeton amp with a Celestion 10" speaker. Or the Fender Vibro Champ: The small Fender amps have a great vibrato sound."—Ken Micallef