I have always been intrigued by the colorful acoustic guitar played by Pat Smear during the Nirvana MTV Unplugged In New York concert.
After doing a bit of research, the colorful guitar is actually owned by Krist Novoselic. Here’s a photo of Krist playing his guitar…
The guitar is a Buck Owens American manufactured by Harmony. This is essentially a dressed up version of the small body H1203 Sovereign known as the Western Special. Buck played the famous Red White and Blue guitar on the TV series Hee Haw.
CMI (Chicago Musical Instruments) offered to license the model and sell it through Sears for $99. Here is a few of the Sears Catalog advertisements for the guitar.
The “Buck Owens American Guitar” was also played on Nirvana MTV Unplugged by The Meat Puppets Curt Kirkwood during the songs Plateau, Oh, Me and Lake of Fire.
Here’s a great photo of Smear showing the back of the guitar during the Nirvana Unplugged concert.
This is the only other non MTV Unplugged photo I can find of Smear playing Novoselic’s Buck Owens acoustic while on tour with Nirvana.
The guitar is currently on display at the Nirvana: Taking Punk To The Masses exhibit at the EMP Museum in Seattle.
These guitars now sell for about $3,000 in good condition. Ryan Adams also has a Buck Owens American…
Cheap guitars rock…