The worlds of country rock and glam metal may seem far removed, but a rare vintage Fender has bridged two stars of the genres.
In the hands of Cindarella’s Tom Keifer, this 1950 Fender “Nocaster” was used and abused. But when a major country player got the chance to buy it, it got a less bruising new life.
“I used to throw it across the stage during the show,” Keifer told Vintage Guitar about his example of Fender's early, transitional solidbody electric guitar.
A Nocaster is one of a small number of '51 Fender Broadcasters that were produced without a name on the headstock. Fender was forced to eliminate the model name when it came into trademark conflict with a Gretsch drumkit known as the Broadkaster. Fender continued to produce the Broadcaster without a name decal until some point in 1951 when the guitar was rebadged the Telecaster. To own one of these rare nameless guitars is to own a rare piece of Fender history.
Not that Keifer handed such a relic with care. Inexplicably, he traded it in to Nashville vintage guitar store, Gruhn's, where serial Grammy winner and Tele-obsessive Keith Urban came across it.
“I don't know why Tom sold it; maybe it served its purpose in his life, as they do, and it was time for someone else to own it,” Urban says in the new print issue of Guitar World. “I was at Gruhn's many, many years ago. I played it, fell in love with it, and bought it.”
Urban professes not to remember the price but says “it wasn’t cheap.” Still, for a man whose favorite guitar is his 1989 Fender 40th Anniversary Telecaster, dubbed Clarence, it was a purchase that made complete sense.
“It's just an unusually great guitar with, hands down, the most ferocious, dynamic pickups I've ever heard in a Telecaster,” he says. “The whole thing is original — well, maybe not the frets — but the electronics, hardware, and everything else. It's amazing.”
It isn’t clear when exactly Kiefer sold the Nocaster, but it's known that he later regretted his decision. He tells Vintage Guitar that he later shelled out on a 1950 Nocaster and paired with a 1972 Marshall Super Lead tube amp for his 2013 solo single, "Solid Ground."
However, he told Guitar World that same year that the Nocaster was his favorite guitar, suggesting it was likely his second model — a fondness perhaps strengthened by the regret of letting go of a guitar that Keith Urban’s paws are now all over.
Elsewhere, former GP cover star Urban has made a suggestive lyric change to one of his hits after announcing his divorce from Nicole Kidman, and it lands his co-guitarist, Maggie Baugh, at the center of the story.
Off stage, he's hard at work with Paul Reed Smith on a signature Tele that can help him “get a bit of a fight out of a guitar designed to give you no fight.” He wants it to be the most versatile T-type guitar in the world, and early signs are promising.
