Costello started the sessions for his first album, "My Aim Is True", playing a new Telecaster that a drummer friend who worked for Fender had gotten for him with a company discount in California.
Back in the UK, Costello walked past a shop window
that had a Jazzmaster in it. Says Costello: "I'd never seen one before; it kinda
looked like a Strat someone had cut a bit off. I
didn't even know the guitar existed."
So he traded in his new Tele for the
used Jazzmaster.
Costello's new guitar came with a DIY
refinish, a "home furniture varnish like you would have on your auntie's
footstool."
Later
he had it refinished in a "not entirely
attractive grey finish and put my name up the neck 'cos I was always
into country and western-style guitar gimmicks. And I figured no one
would nick it then, it'd be useless to them."
Mid 1970's Jazzmaster - Walnut
