51 Years Ago Today: Born to Run's $180 Guitar Became as Famous as the Songs

Bruce Springsteen released Born to Run on August 25, 1975, on Columbia Records, and by his own label's patience, it needed to work. Per The Current's account of the album's history, his first two records had been critically praised but sold poorly outside the northeastern US, despite a punishing touring schedule with the E Street Band. Springsteen, manager Mike Appel, and producer Jon Landau spent roughly six months building a deliberately maximalist "Wall of Sound" around the record, and it worked: Born to Run charted well internationally and turned Springsteen from a regional cult act into a global star, eventually going six times platinum in the US.

The instrument on the album's cover has its own story, one Fender itself has documented on its own site. Per Fender's account of the guitar's history, Springsteen's techs date the guitar to 1953 or 1954, a mismatched instrument with a Telecaster body and an Esquire neck. He bought it in 1972, shortly after signing with Columbia, from New Jersey luthier Phil Petillo, for $180. The guitar had already been modified once before it reached him: originally owned by a record company, it carried four pickups wired to separate jacks so session players could bill four times over for one part, which left extra wood routed out beneath the pickguard and made the body noticeably lighter. Petillo added his own hot-wound pickups, his patented triangular Petillo Precision Frets, and a titanium six-saddle bridge.

"I wanted a Telecaster because I had played a Telecaster when I was younger," Springsteen told the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, per Fender's article. "It was a versatile instrument. It was a light instrument. I wasn't playing heavy rock and roll anymore... so I wanted a guitar that could handle the funk and that feeling." He eventually retired it from full-time road duty in favor of exact clones, but he still records with the original and has brought it out for occasions like the Super Bowl XLIII halftime show in 2009.

The image that made the guitar famous almost didn't happen. Per Louder's interview-based account of the shoot, photographer Eric Meola had been booked by Appel for a session Springsteen kept missing, busy in the studio across town, until Meola gave an ultimatum: next time or never. Springsteen showed up the following time and brought E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons along. After a day of posed shots and roughly 900 frames, Springsteen leaned naturally against Clemons in an unplanned moment. "That one just sort of popped," Meola recalled. Springsteen later said the cover alone sold the record: "It was one of those records that you didn't have to hear. When you saw the cover, you said: 'I want that one.'"

Springsteen's own live rig has run considerably heavier gauges over a five-decade touring career than the light strings he described favoring on the Esquire in the 1970s. CYS doesn't have a documented current gauge to cite, so rather than guess, here's the era-appropriate reference point for a light, versatile electric set built for exactly the "soul into rock" tone he described chasing.