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Before he became the latest (and presumably last) lead guitarist for veteran hard rockers Deep Purple, Steve Morse established himself as an astonishingly gifted and versatile picker with the genre-defying instrumental group Dixie Dregs (later shortened to The Dregs).

Throughout most of his career, Morse relied on a Frankenstein Tele which boasted more mods than you can shake a headstock at. The neck is from a ’67 Stratocaster and the body is an early ’60s Tele. It came with a Gibson 335 neck position pickup. From there, it was anything and everything: Morse installed a Strat single-coil pickup, the original Fender chrome neck position pickup that was in the guitar case - and next to that he placed a Fender humbucker (later replaced with DiMarzio 'Steve Morse' model pickups). The man liked to tinker.

A special selector switch was then necessary to allow the guitarist to choose between pickup combinations. A lot of drilling and chiseling? Believe it. By the late ‘80s, Morse collaborated with Ernie Ball/MusicMan for a guitar that would combine all the elements of his one-of-a-kind Tele.