[characterzero]

I agree with the telecaster suggestion, especially if you want to be able to nail that country tone. As you know the "country tone" is a thinner twangier sound usually from single-coil pickups. One thing you could look into is a 2 humbucker guitar with the pickups wired to have the ability to parallel two single coils. My guitar does this, and while it's not great for country, it does give a nice funk-oriented tone.

Also one of my friends just wired his Gibson LP Studio to be able to be inverted phase. I found that in that setting, his 2 humbucker guitar has a punchier tone. (That's mostly if you're looking just to mod your current setup instead of buying a new guitar)

Hope this at least gives you a few different ideas...