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Lou Reed and Danny Gatton aren’t two names you see mentioned in the same breath as guitarists too often.
But they are united in this beautiful Tele built in Fender’s Custom Shop in the early ’90s. Clad in what Fender dubbed Frost Gold, the instrument is in fact a Gatton signature model – minus the twin-rail Barden pickups the Maryland virtuoso was known for using.
Reed, who doesn’t strike one as a natural Gatton fan, nonetheless enthused about the instrument in a 1993 New York Times interview, in which he described it as “a really great guitar” (he’d just bought it, along with a blonde-finish Gatton Telecaster) and he liked it enough to use it for live performances on his Ecstasy World Tour from March to November 2000.
Dubbed ‘Goldie’, the guitar is accompanied by a hardshell case inscribed with the following words in silver pen: “Gatton Tele Gold / Lou Reed DG0036” and “Lou Reed / Locker #15”, giving (one presumes) his techs an easy time when storing and retrieving the guitar.
This Tele was, until it went under the hammer at Christie’s, part of the late Jim Irsay’s mega-collection of historic instruments. It fetched $330,200 when it was sold in New York in March.
Jamie Dickson is Editor-in-Chief of Guitarist magazine, Britain's best-selling and longest-running monthly for guitar players. He started his career at the Daily Telegraph in London, where his first assignment was interviewing blue-eyed soul legend Robert Palmer, going on to become a full-time author on music, writing for benchmark references such as 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and Dorling Kindersley's How To Play Guitar Step By Step. He joined Guitarist in 2011 and since then it has been his privilege to interview everyone from B.B. King to St. Vincent for Guitarist's readers, while sharing insights into scores of historic guitars, from Rory Gallagher's '61 Strat to the first Martin D-28 ever made.
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