Guitar company Fender has painstakingly replicated the Telecaster George Harrison played both in the sessions for Let It Be and in the Beatles'
farewell concert atop the roof of Apple Records headquarters. It has
made 100 limited-edition copies of the guitar, reproduced down to minute
details, which are available now.
The original guitar can be seen prominently during the Beatles'
performance of "Get Back" during the rooftop concert. Fender had
custom-made two copies of the model and sent one to Harrison and Jimi
Hendrix, with hopes they'd play them live. Hendrix died before he was
able to play his, according to the Beatle's son, Dhani Harrison.
The suggested retail price for one of the replica guitars is a hefty
$12,500, but it is meant to reflect the level of attention to detail put
into the instrument. Harrison's family granted Fender Custom Shop
Master Builder Paul Waller access to the Beatle's instrument, a 1968
Rosewood Telecaster, and allowed him to examine, dismantle and
effectively reverse-engineer it.
Returning the guitar to its native state proved to be more difficult
than Waller had expected. Harrison had given the instrument to his
friend, Delaney and Bonnie songwriter and producer Delaney Bramlett, who
made a series of modifications to it. Bramlett later sold the guitar at
auction for nearly half a million dollars, and it eventually found its
way back to the Harrison family. Fender describes the restoration
process as meticulous.
Beyond
merely replicating a factory-ready Telecaster from 1968, though, Fender
made a guitar from a point in time; a period in Harrison's life. The
company gave it a lighter than usual finish, to approximate the
condition it would have been in if it had been used in a single
recording a session and played during only one concert. Even the
instrument's headstock reflects Fender's "spaghetti logo," which it was
using at the time. The Harrison family, the company stated, wanted it
made with the utmost authenticity.
Harrison's son, Dhani, said in a 2012 interview with Guitar Aficionado
that the Telecaster was his favorite of his father's guitars. "Other
than the fact that it weighs seven times more than a normal Tele, it's
so nice to play," he said. "It's like having a golden AK-47 or
something. It's something that you know so well and you wouldn't be
afraid to beat up, but this one is like the golden gun."
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