Mason's live gear—which he showed us before his recent gig at Nashville's 3^rd & Lindsley—is simple and cool as hell, but it's not his guitars or amps that've made him a hero. It's his imagination, virtuosic chops, and pure musicality.

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Honky Tonk Excalibur

Mason's battered and highly modified 1967 Telecaster has probably been on more hit country songs than any other guitar. The car-paint re-fin happened before he got it, but most of his mods were done by top Nashville luthier Joe Glaser. His pickups are a neck Seymour Duncan humbucker, a Duncan single-coil in the middle (for the famed Brent Mason pickup mod), and another Duncan single-coil in the bridge.

Top of the Whirl

The headstock on Mason's well-traveled Tele shows its years, and plenty of character accumulated over its storied history. His old paint features locking tuners and a Glaser B-bender.

Not Yer Average Tele

Here's a close-up of that extra pickup. Note the additional speed dial, too. The bridge and neck pickups are controlled by a standard 3-way switch, with a master volume and tone. The middle pickup has its own individual volume control that lets Mason feather in as much or little as he wants, to combine its output with one or both of the other pickups.

Meet the Mason Model

The only other guitar Brent brought to this gig was his new Fender Brent Mason Signature Telecaster. This alder-bodied Tele has basically the same ingredients of his original, but with a lot less wear and tear.

Bend It Like Brent

Here's a close-up of the arm of the Glaser B-bender. It has no screws, no slack, no wobble … but it does have a thumbscrew to fine-tune its destination pitch.

Perfect Strangers Side by Side

Here's the sensei and its student in a side-by-side comparison.

Four-Way Heat

Mason was switching between his 1964 Fender Twin Reverb and this early '70s Fender Super Reverb modded by Jeff Himes. The Super, with Mason's signal running into its no-frills Normal channel, did most of the heavy lifting on this gig.

Chairman of the Board

Mason's never been a big effects player, but his live pedalboard covers a lot of essential territory. It holds a Boss GE-7 Equalizer, a Wampler Ego Compressor, a Wampler Euphoria overdrive, an Xotic BB Preamp, Wampler's Hot Wired V2 distortion/overdrive, a Dunlop volume pedal with a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner connected to its tuner out, a Fender Tre-Verb tremolo/reverb, a Fender Compugilist compressor/distortion, an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man 1100-TT, and a Live Wire ABY Box. It's all powered by a Truetone 1 Spot Pro CS12 with a Dunlop DC Brick for backup.