FENDER ELECTRIC INSTRUMENT COMPANY, FULLERTON, CIRCA 1954

Part of Rodgers' "Tele Phase" in the mid-1980s, this 1950s Telecaster has a "brighter, more resonant sound" that features prominently in Madonna's Like a Virgin album (released in 1984), most specifically on Dress You Up. It provided ample inspiration and features on plenty of Rodgers' partnership works at the time including on Al Jarreau's L is for Lover album and Philip Bailey's Inside Out, both from 1986. The blonde "Tele" can also be heard on Outloud's eponymous album Out Loud! from 1987 and on the soundtrack for the 1984 crime drama Alphabet City, written and produced entirely by Rodgers. Of these influential mid-century Telecasters, Rodgers has said: “They lived, they were alive.”