The "guitar that killed folk" is listed for an asking price of $275,000
The tale of Dylan's "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, thus delivering the final stake through the heart of the folk music movement, is one of the most mythologized moments in rock history.
This moment—second perhaps only to The Beatles' appearance on Ed Sullivan as a contender for 1960s rock's "Big Bang" moment—was recently reenacted on the big screen in "A Complete Unknown," with Timothee Chalamet as a snotty young Bob cradling his own Stratocaster electric guitar, galvanizing the image of Bob Dylan the rock'n'roll rebel in the minds of a whole new generation of fans.
But while it's true that the visual image of Dylan with an electric guitar in hand was surely traumatic to die-hard, blowin'-in-the-wind folkies, it's likely not the sound of Dylan's strums that sent Pete Seeger groping for a nearby axe with which to cut the audio cables with.
That's because standing onstage beside the errant troubadour that day was a young Chicago blues guitarist named Mike Bloomfield, delivering stinging, nasty leads and solos on this:
That, folks, is not just a 1963 Telecaster—that is the 1963 Telecaster that was played "f—ing loud" onstage that fateful day at Newport. The guitar that ripped and snorted through the mix, with the classic biting tone that made Telecasters the weapon of choice in Bakersfield honky-tonks and Mississippi juke joints alike. Puff The Magic Dragon would never work in this town again.
And now this veritable piece of history is up for sale at Reverb. The worn blonde '63 Tele (sporting an unorthodox DIY double-cutaway job—more about that later) is listed by Brooklyn's Retrofret Vintage Guitars, one of the site's premier resellers of rare vintage and historic instruments. And it can be had by one of us mortals for the price of $275,000.
What's the Deal With That Cutaway?
Now, the Newport story alone is enough to lend legendary status to this instrument. "If this guitar had only ever been used for this one performance, that would be historic enough, but that is only one of its tales," states Retrofret's product listing. That's because shortly after the festival in late 1965, Bloomfield traded the guitar for a then-out-of-production '54 Goldtop Les Paul from a Boston country picker named John Nuese, who was then working alongside an up-and-coming Harvard dropout singer/songwriter by the name of Gram Parsons. (Not to mention that Bloomfield had just used the guitar to record "Like a Rolling Stone" shortly before the festival, as well as his contributions to the seminal Butterfield Blues Band's self-titled debut LP.)
The left-handed Nuese strung his new Telecaster upside down and didn't hesitate to carve a cutaway into the body to accommodate his playing preference. Nuese and Parsons' International Submarine Band experienced limited success before disbanding, including a brief appearance (with this guitar) in Roger Corman's psych-sploitation film "The Trip." But as Parsons would soon join the Byrds and move on, Nuese's career would fizzle and fade into obscurity along with his distinctive customized Tele. He never sold the guitar, and upon his death in 2015 it sold at auction.
Cut to today, with the guitar becoming available again courtesy of Retrofret and Reverb. The 1963 Blonde Telecaster comes with a brown tolex hardshell case (not original; Bloomfield bought the guitar without one) as well as extra pickups and switchplate with wiring harness (provenance unclear).
At time of writing, this legendary instrument is in 41 shoppers' carts. The race is on, ladies and gentlemen! Here's to the next chapter of this guitar's fascinating story.
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