Telecaster Masters

The Telecaster, an iconic electric guitar that has barely changed in design since the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation introduced it in 1951, will be celebrated on Saturday at 8 p.m. at Bay Street Theater when three renowned guitarists will pay tribute to their favored instrument.

“Masters of the Telecaster” will bring together the musicians G.E. Smith, Jim Weider, and Larry Campbell, each associated with the solid-body guitar preferred by innumerable rock ’n’ roll and country players. The musicians are also known for their work with music legends like Bob Dylan, the Band, and Roger Waters.

“It was the guitar that made all the rock ’n’ roll stuff,” Mr. Smith, who typically wielded one of his many Telecasters while serving for a decade as the bandleader on “Saturday Night Live,” said. “It’s kind of the primal electric guitar. So we wanted to do something featuring all the sounds the Telecaster can make.” The Amagansett resident’s affection for the instrument is further evidenced by the G.E. Smith Telecaster, a model offered in Fender’s Artist series.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Weider have long been acquainted and have performed similar tributes to the instrument and guitarists who preferred it, such as the late Roy Buchanan. “He’s a big Roy Buchanan fan,” Mr. Smith said of Mr. Weider. “Roy played the Telecaster, and I have and Jim has.”

“I love playing with G.E. He’s a fantastic musician, and really into Roy and the Tele,” Mr. Weider said. “We were both inspired by players like James Burton, Steve Cropper, Roy Buchanan, and Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds. We had this in common, and we are both roots rock players — him with Dylan, me with the Band. That comes out in our playing.”

Mr. Campbell, who along with Mr. Weider was a longtime collaborator with Levon Helm, the Band’s late drummer and vocalist, is a Grammy Award-winning musician and producer. Like Mr. Smith, he has also performed extensively with Mr. Dylan. “He’s a great musician, plays all kinds of instruments, and brings a lot to a show,” Mr. Smith said. One of the best shows I’ve ever played in my life was with Larry.”

With the arrival of the electric guitar — the Telecaster being the first to gain mass acceptance — rock ’n’ roll soon followed. While countless hopefuls took up the instrument, manufacturers worldwide developed their own iterations of the electric guitar, some revered and lasting, others destined for obscurity. In 1954, Fender introduced the Stratocaster, a sleeker, “space age” evolution that ultimately surpassed its antecedent in popularity. Gibson’s Les Paul is another iconic solid-body model esteemed by professionals worldwide.

But a guitarist’s choice of instrument is a personal one, determined by subjective criteria and, often, the players who influenced him or her. “For me,” said Mr. Smith, who at one time owned some 700 guitars, “the Telecaster is a much more versatile instrument” than its younger brother, the Stratocaster. “It’s a very fat sound and has been on thousands of records.”

The Telecaster, Mr. Weider said, “just sounds bigger and thicker to me. I like ’50s Teles.” In 1971, he found a 1952 Telecaster in California. “I said, ‘This is the only guitar I’m ever going to play,’ and that’s all I ever did play, all over the world.”

The influence of Mr. Buchanan, whose 1988 performance at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett is still talked about in the hamlet and beyond, cannot be overstated, Mr. Weider said. “He could take a Tele, which is a block of wood — you’ve got to kill yourself to get a note out of it — and do feedback and harmonics, and could play psychedelic like Jimi Hendrix. It was all in his volume control and tone.”

As the South Fork settles into autumn, Mr. Smith, a resident since 1981, was also motivated to encourage more cultural events in the off-season, he said. “I wanted to try to get something going in the winter out here, and if we can get a couple hundred people to come to the show, the folks at Bay Street will say, ‘This works,’ and start bringing in other shows. You know how it is in February and March — it’s nice to have something to do.”

Randy Ciarlante, who frequently played with the Band, and Byron Isaacs, of the Levon Helm Band, will accompany the guitarists, who will perform together. Taylor Barton, a musician and Mr. Smith’s wife, will open the show. Ms. Barton’s most recent release, “Everybody Knows,” was featured in The Star in 2013.

Mr. Weider promised a “three-gun salute” on Saturday, “a night of really cool guitar music, everything from Roy Buchanan to blues to rockabilly to country-rock, but all roots-rock, Americana music. We’re gonna shake the shingles off that place.”

Tickets to “Masters of the Telecaster” cost $35 and are available by calling the Bay Street box office in Sag Harbor or at baystreet.org.