(guitar playing)
- [Dennis] The idea to do this guitar
is give or take at least been 20 years.
As long as I've been here.
We have meetings about Terry's models
and this one always came up
and it was like, er, because it was
a very large mound to climb.
It's finally happened.
(guitar playing)
(guitar playing continues)
So Michelle Kath,
his daughter had just completed a documentary
about her dad
where she was looking for this guitar.
- [Michelle] So this is basically my dad's
signature guitar that he is most famous for playing
throughout his live performances in Chicago.
This moment today is a long time coming.
I had been chasing Fender forever
to remake this guitar
because it is such a fan favorite
but of course, with the documentary made about my dad,
I actually didn't know where the guitar was.
The film almost becomes a hunt for this guitar,
so a spoiler if you haven't seen the film,
I guess it's already a spoiler
if you're watching this anyways.
So the guitar was with my grandfather,
so my dad's dad.
He passed away when I was in my twenties
and so his wife kept it.
So the funny thing to me is he's probably,
when I was little,
pulled this out, I just never clicked as a young girl
and if you look at the case of the guitar,
my grandpa labeled all the guitar cases
and it says, Terry's favorite on the label
and so he, you know, grandmother knew well enough to hide it
in the most, best hiding place she knows to hide it
for herself, which was the back of her closet.
(laughs)
Honestly, it means everything to me to find this guitar.
It feels like having a piece of him
that's so iconic and the fact that it was hidden
all these years and wasn't touched,
you know you can smell the years on it.
God, it's like, I think it means a lot to our family
as well.
(guitar strumming)
- [Dennis] So Michelle brought the guitar down
and it was pretty much exactly what I expected.
(laughs)
You know, it's very heavily modified as you can see.
I mean, he had three sets of tuners on this thing.
He had cut the telly bridge and put in a strat bridge
but he put modern saddles on a vintage plate.
Humbucker obviously, he reversed the control blade around
so we had to rewire that.
So there's just a ton of stuff going on
and it was all pretty much confirmed
when she brought it in.
Immediately, I'm going through my head
how am I going to pull this off.
Something's that covered in stickers
is a little different like,
what came first, the sticker or the name?
So, had to do a lot of back and forth with that.
(guitar playing)
- [Michelle] Wow.
Look at that.
(laughter)
It's pretty awesome.
- [Dennis] It's pretty weird.
- [Michelle] Dennis, I love Dennis.
He nailed it.
And it's like, he's waiting for me to pick it apart
and be like mm no, you knoW,
go back to the drawing board,
and I'm like imagine.
(laughs)
- [Dennis] So now that it's happening
and I know how to do it,
and being a Chicago fan is pretty cool.
You know, when you hear a song
it always puts you in a certain place, you know,
and whenever I hear some of these Chicago songs,
like Saturday in the Park,
I'm immediately in my mom's car
as a little kid
going somewhere and my mom blasting it on the radio,
you know, and so it's just really
another one of those full circle moments
that we've had here
and this one's pretty darn cool.
- [Michelle] Man, I hope, my hope for the replicas
is that they just find really good homes
with people that are just as excited as we are,
really, about them being in the world.
- [Dennis] Not a big fan of wall hangers,
I want it to get out and get played
and hopefully add to the beat up marks
and you know, get used.
(guitar playing)