Keith Urban’s guitar, Clarence, has been a core part of the multi-decade career. The 1989 Fender 40th Anniversary Telecaster is now road-worn and battered, but still holds a special place in his heart – and his touring arsenal – because it harks back to a time when Urban, as an aspiring country star, was trying to make it in the States.
“Clarence would have to be the moment that a Telecaster really grabbed my attention,” he tells Fender.
“Clarence came about from my very first trip to America, which was in 1989. My manager at the time and I were coming to Nashville to bring my really crappy demo tape over to anybody who’d listen to it.”
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During this grueling trip, which also required Urban and his manager to attend a music seminar in New York, the guitarist took the opportunity to visit the mecca of guitar stores: Manny’s Music.
The iconic shop on 48th Street was in business for over seven decades and saw its fair share of stars or would-be stars pop in to acquire their dream guitars – including Urban.
“I got in a cab and went to Manny’s. I was hoping to find a really good Tele. That was kind of the goal,” he continues.
“I guess because this [referring to Clarence] had just come out that year, for the 40th anniversary of [the] Tele, it was in a glass case right near the entrance when you walked right in. Talk about getting your attention!”
Urban admits he was immediately “obsessed.” He was already trying to figure out a way to buy it.
“So this guy came over, and he says, ‘Can I help you?’ And I go, ‘Ah, can I play that guitar?’ And he condescendingly looks at me, and he goes, ‘Take your ring off. You got a belt. Take your belt buckle off.’ It was like take off everything that could scratch the Mona Lisa,” he adds with a laugh. “And he pulled it out, and I played it, and it was just like it was butter.”
However, Urban quickly realized that the guitar was way out of his budget – costing a cool 2,300 bucks. But, as luck would have it, Urban had done some production work back in Australia which he hadn’t yet been paid for.
“My manager was managing him [the other artist],” he explains. “I produced the whole album, and I guess my manager was trying to figure out how to pay me for producing the record.
“So he basically went, ‘Oh, what about I give you that guitar for producing the record?’ I went, ‘Perfect.’ So that became my payment for producing this guy’s record. Went back, bought it. The best feeling ever is going back to a snarky sales guy and going, ‘I’ll buy that guitar.’”
And it was definitely worth the investment. As Urban relates, when he was crafting his self-titled debut record the next year, he used Clarence on every single track. However, he wasn’t as keen to take it out on the road with him…
“To me, it was just too beautiful and priceless and gorgeous and expensive,” he says. “I kept this under my bed, and I’d pull it out in a nice tweed case. I’d get the guitar out, and I’d play it and play it and play it, and I’d be like, ‘Oh man, wish I could take this on tour.’
I took it out, and I think within a night or two, it fell off the stand and got a chip somewhere. I was like, ‘Ah, gloves are off, road guitar.’ And it just became my number one
“Then one day I was like, ‘What are you doing? It’s your guitar, man. Just fricking take this one.’ And I took it out, and I think within a night or two, it fell off the stand and got a chip somewhere. I was like, ‘Ah, gloves are off, road guitar.’ And it just became my number one.”
If you’re wondering why he christened it Clarence, well, it’s got nothing to do with Leo Fender, whose full name was Clarence Leonidas Fender.
“The reason I called it Clarence was from It’s a Wonderful Life – the Christmas movie, and there’s a scene where Jimmy Stewart is going to jump off the bridge, and then this angel appears, and the angel’s name is Clarence,” Urban relates.
“In a kind of reverse way of looking at that story, what Clarence says to Jimmy is, ‘I’ll show you what life would have been like if you hadn’t existed,’ and it was just chaos. And I thought, ‘That’s what my life would have been if this guitar hadn’t existed.’”
