Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Josh Homme was left grasping for words when he played Goerge Harrison’s Rosewood Telecaster.
A clip of Homme playing the guitar comes from an unlikely source — an iPad app that Harrison’s son, Dhani, made that documents Harrison's Beatles-era guitars. Other historic guitars — from his Rocky Stratocaster to his 1957 Gretsch Duo Jet — can be seen in the background of several shots, but it’s the Tele that the QOTSA man grabs.
Homme is currently gearing up for the release of his group's new live film and album, Alive in the Catacombs, recorded deep in the Paris catacombs to an audience of six million dead people. Here, he's a shadow of his usual self as the larger-than-life rockstar is humbled by the electric guitar.
At one point, between bursts of playing, Homme can be seen puffing out his cheeks, wanting to say something, soaking in the moment. But until he plays another note, silence prevails.
Fender gifted the Beatles plenty of gear at the end of 1968, as the group settled in to make Let It Be. The instruments included a left-handed Jazz Bass for Paul McCartney, a Bass VI that both Harrison and John Lennon used, and blackface Deluxe and Twin Reverb amplifiers. Harrison's Rosewood Telecaster was a more exclusive offering, created as Fender began experimenting with changes for the Telecaster model.
Built by Fender's Roger Rossmeisl and Philip Kubicki, the 1968 prototype was a partner to a rosewood Stratocaster intended for Jimi Hendrix, who died before it made its way to him.
Fender was using the twin prototypes to experiment and introduced a number of changes to the models. The Tele featured a sandwich body style — four slabs of rosewood, with the middle two separated by a thin slice of maple — which Gibson similarly used for some of its Norlin-era Les Pauls.
That accounts for the words Homme finally musters as Alan Rogan, Pete Townshend’s late guitar tech, looks on.
“Oh my god,” he says, feeling the guitar's weight — all 10 pounds of it — in his hands. “Wow.” (In fact Harrison's guitar was chambered even more than the production models that followed it.)
With the six-string still on his lap, Homme manages to gather his thoughts a little.
“Seriously, I think I have to stop playing these things,” he says, a smile breaking his typically serious demeanor. “I’ll tell you, some things you are supposed to touch, and some things you are never supposed to touch.”
Harrison’s Rosewood Tele got a fair amount of exposure on Let It Be. The guitar can be seen in the group's rooftop concert at Apple Corps on January 30, 1969, and it was also used to record other songs on that album.
But the guitarist was clearly not fond of the instrument. He didn't use it for more than a week on Let It Be and never used it again. Harrison reportedly told Rolling Stone the Rosewood Tele was "the worst guitar I have ever played." He gifted it to Delaney Bramlett, of Delaney & Bonnie, in December 1969.
The guitar was later recovered by the Harrison estate in a slightly different state than when Harrison owned it. Bramlett had replaced its original satin finish with gloss, changed out the original tuning machines for Schallers, modified the electronics (which have since been restored) and added an extra string tree.
While his Dad wasn't fond of the Rosewood Tele, Dhani Harrison calls it his favorite of the Harrison guitars.
“Other than the fact that it weighs seven times more than a normal Tele,” he says, “it’s so nice to play.”
Gypsy jazz guitarist Robin Nolan has become the latest player to take some of Harrison's guitars for a spin using several to record his new tribute album to the guitarist, which was recorded at his Friar Park mansion and features a song co-written by Nolan-Harrison. Nolan had used an unused Harrison chord progression as his muse.
