In this video by Fender, blues guitarist Christone "Kingfish" Ingram discusses the origins, inspirations, and features of his Signature Telecaster Deluxe guitar.

What's going on, y'all? This is Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram, and I'm here to showcase my new Fender Signature Telly Deluxe.

I got my start in a town called Clarksdale, Mississippi—that's my hometown. It's a town that's very significant for the blues and has a lot of rich blues history. I started learning in the Delta Blues Museum Arts and Education Program under the tutelage of two nationally known bluesmen: Bill Howl-N-Madd Perry and Daddy Rich. Mr. Perry was the one that actually gave me the name Kingfish. So, from that class, I learned all about the blues and how to play guitar. Bass guitar was actually my first instrument, and from there I went on to start playing for different local blues bands in the area, ended up on guitar, and I have my own thing now.

My inspiration for different players—I'd say the old school acoustic guys like Robert Johnson and Son House, to the guys who electrified it like B.B. King and Muddy Waters, and Albert King, and Freddie King, and Magic Sam. The list goes on and on. Then, to the guys who like modernized it a little bit, like Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Gary Moore, and even guys of the day like Eric Gales, Eric Johnson... a whole bunch of players I listen to.

What I love about the Telecaster shape is that it’s comfortable for me. It’s always been comfortable for me; it gives me a kind of like a hollow body type of feel. Not only that, I've always been into the humbucker sound, so that's kind of the reason why I chose the Tele Deluxe. It definitely fits me because the humbuckers are there, and it gives me that like really overdriven, hard rock, bluesy sound.

The inspiration behind the finish, 'Mississippi Night,' is when it gets dark back home in Mississippi or the South—we have a term, it gets like 'blue-black.' I wanted to intertwine that along with my favorite color of purple. For me, Prince was the goat. That was one of the reasons why I went purple—one of the two reasons why I went purple. So I think the guys understood exactly what I meant. When the light hits it, you can see the purple, and when the dark hits it, it looks like night. So for sure, most definitely, Mississippi Night.

I'd describe the custom pickups—I think they sound like that '50s sound,' the sound that I was always used to, as far as, kind of like, Hooker. Taking inspiration off of Gary Moore, who is one of my favorite LP players, I wanted to have that sound that I can emulate. The pickups are definitely hard and edgy, but you can dial them back a little bit and they clean up very nicely. When you roll the volume back, it gives you more of a smooth sound, for sure.

The pickups will definitely be available for anyone who's just looking to achieve my sound or create a sound of their own. You can put them in a Strat, a Tele, or whatever you choose to modify and make your sound. The pickup will be available, for sure.

What makes it unique as well is the hardtail bridge. That came from me having the inspiration from the Troublemaker Tele that Fender made, and all of that just playing a whole lot of hollow bodies and other style guitars over the years that I was used to. So I want to bring it over to here, and it's definitely giving me that same sustain that I would get in another style guitar as well.

I had a Custom Shop Strat that master builder Carlos Lopez pretty much made for me, and that was the neck that I chose: the V-neck. It was very comfortable, so I just want to pretty much emulate that when I was making my signature, just so I could be comfortable. I've always had a thing for the large '70s headstock, and if you notice, I have the vintage-style tuners up here rather than the modernized one. For these, I just think they're more comfortable, and I think for me, that's easier.

I would say the significance represents Kingfish. It’s a Kingfish guitar, so I want that stamp to be all over the guitar.

If you notice, we have the three-way switch here. We're currently on the neck position—we have a volume and tone control simply for the neck. You can go to the bridge position here; we have a volume control for the bridge and a tone control. If you go into the middle spot—this is actually my favorite spot to play rhythm in, because it’s a very warm sweet spot. You pretty much have both the controls, so you can pretty much control it, but you can get an array of tones with it, for sure.

This guitar has definitely gotten me through the entire show. I really don't rely on much as far as dynamics. I play really loud on my solos, but there are times when I pretty much scale it back. It's pretty much black and white, so this guitar is there to pretty much do that for me. You know, when I need to go loud and go hard, it's there. I can just turn the volume knob up and just hit heavy. But when I want to be sweet, I can dial it back and be clean and be more melodic and more soulful, for sure. It does that for me. I've definitely held my own with this guitar on stage.