1951 Fender Nocaster – The Guitar That Became a Legend

Transcription:

Hi folks, Nathaniel here at Chicago Music Exchange. I'm joined by Daniel Escauriza again. Hello, how are you doing? I'm doing great today. I'm doing really great because this is... this is awesome! Yeah, we're about to do another incredible video here at the shop, and this is arguably one of the best sounding bridge single-coil bridges I've ever come across. Yeah, I've heard you playing it, and I have to agree. It sounds glorious, it really, really does.

So, as you can see, this doesn't say anything on the headstock other than "Fender," and that is because at some point in time, that decal used to say "Fender Broadcaster." And, by the way, this is one of those things that the internet proved me wrong on in the past. Thank you, internet! I am humbled by you, I appreciate it. But I used to always think there was an actual lawsuit involved where Gretsch sued Fender, right? That never happened. You know, Mr. Gretsch contacted Mr. Fender, and they had a friendly, you know, discussion where Mr. Gretsch basically said, "Hey, Mr. Fender, I'm actually already using the name 'Broadcaster' for this line of drums, right? Awesome drums that I make, so please don't use that name." And he said, "You know what? No problem. I will literally cut that off of the decal." Right, so they took scissors, and they took the decals, and they cut the word "Broadcaster" off and then just put "Fender" on it for a little while. So, that's why it just says "Fender."

Leo Fender was, at heart, and before he started making guitars, a radio repair person. He worked on radios, and what do radios do? They receive broadcasts, right? So, the "Broadcaster" to him, the idea of this thing, is broadcasting music, yeah, right? And it's just so cool to think that that's how his brain must have worked. Because just like radios at the time, everything on this guitar is modular. His philosophy was, "If this part goes bad, you unscrew it, put another one on. If this goes bad, you unscrew it, you put another one on." Very modular, like a radio. If an old tube radio goes bad, you used to actually be used to take off the backs, and there used to be instructions on how to service your own stuff back before everybody would just, you know, now people just throw things away and buy another one, and it's delivered to your house before you're done ordering it. But back in the day when you serviced things, that a lot of the philosophy behind these instruments early on really revolved around the fact that he was a radio man, you know.

So, Broadcaster, Telecaster, television becomes a huge thing in, you know, American history. So, that's what kind of those names came from. Is it all original? It is all original. The only thing that has been changed on this guitar is that the neck pickup has been rewound. And it's time for us to normalize rewound pickups, yeah! Because that's right, put in some cheering sounds for rewound pickups! The revolution! Because, you know, when we talked about rewound pickups 10-20 years ago, it was a bad word. But guess what? This pickup on this guitar is now 20 years older. It's not... it didn't stop in time, it didn't get suspended in time. 20 years have passed. So, the idea that a pickup, you know, has to stay, you know, perfectly original, you know, for its perpetuity... it's not possible, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, pickups need to get rewound, and that's okay, people. The magnets are the same. Especially these days, there are people out there who are more scientifically reproducing these things and rewinding these things way more than they originally were in the '50s, you know. So anyway, yes, the neck pickup is rewound, the bridge pickup is original and untouched, and they both sound great.

On that subject though, early Blackguards, the electronics are different. So, that's another thing that people need to consider when you play an early Telecaster, Broadcaster, Nocaster like this. That's not a tone pot, right? That is a blend knob between the two pickups. So, that's why a lot of people plug these in, they think, "Oh man, that sounds..." And the neck pickup is made to sound very muffled for a specific reason. That's what they were going for. This is the lead pickup, and this is, you know, definitely more of a mellow tone. It's supposed to sound like that.

Every time we sit down and talk about an early version of a guitar, we talk about some transitional elements. And this bridge pickup, very early Blackguards, have the bottom plate underneath here is actually made out of zinc, or it's basically like a normal metal, you know, color as opposed to a copper or a brass plate, which is what happened later. Yeah, some people argue that that has, you know, could potentially affect the sound. I think the winding and the magnets and all of those things make more of a difference. But yeah, this has a very early zinc plate under there, which is... when I opened it up, I was like, "Oh wow!" It just kind of places it in a window of time, you know? It's an earlier one of these, whereas by the time you get to the Telecaster realm, most of the time you're going to see... and actually, I happen to... I found it in this book, but you should get it later. By the way, this book obviously is the encyclopedia, the Bible on Telecasters. It's called "The Blackguard Book," a phenomenal book, written by Nacho Banos. And yeah, so you see how like copper or, you know, brass-looking thing, and then zinc.

We could talk about this forever, but the important thing, and I think most of the internet agrees every time I start talking too much, is just shut up and let's hear how it sounds. That's what really matters. Some people care about this stuff too. I do. I like it. I appreciate that. But yeah, it is an awesome guitar. So, I'm glad we had it for a little bit. Already sold, not surprising, because they just don't come around often. Yeah, and we're excited that it's going to find a new home so quickly. I kind of... I'm going to miss it, but I would say we'll go find another one, but that's not necessarily true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm delighted I got to actually play a Nocaster, and yeah, well, we might never see one again. We'll see another one. We'll see another, we'll see another, we'll see you next time. Laters. That's right. Yeah, wow, beautiful. Like and subscribe! Like and subscribe!"