Townsend always sounded best with his P-90 SGs or mini-humbucker Gibsons through his Hiwatts (his later 70s-era Les Paul Deluxes had those DiMarzio Dual Sounds wired into the middle spot but he always said those were for mostly looks and he rarely engaged them).
The Strat he's been playing now for the better part of the 2000s is an Eric Clapton signature with a stock midrange boost and these guitars pack quite a bit of output for a Strat.
I think he's been playing the EC signature Strats for longer than he ever stuck with any other model.
He relies too much on the whammy bar, I don’t recall him ever using one in the 70s.
That surprises me; the middle pickup is handy.
My Les Paul Custom is the 3-pickup "Black Beauty" similar to Frampton's, and the selector is Rhythm=neck, Treble=bridge, but the center position puts the bridge and middle pickups together to approximate the Strat "quack". Of course humbuckers don't quack exactly like Strat single-coils but it's a great sound of its own. It has lots of body behind the unique tone, so it works well for powerful leads.
> Eric Clapton signature with a stock midrange boost and these guitars pack quite a bit of output for a Strat
Hey, if Pete's gonna play a Strat, it should be a Clapton Strat, right?
I replaced the original single-coil pickups on my Strat with DiMarzio DP-116W stacked (~humbuckers), and while it lost a little top-end shimmer (which I can't hear any more anyway), there's no annoying 60Hz hum in any of the 5 positions, which I consider a worthwhile trade-off.