“I asked for a cash discount. The shop assistant said, ‘I could phone up Eric Clapton and he’d come and buy it’”: Robert Fripp’s life in three guitars

Few guitarists have shaped progressive and avant-garde music as profoundly as Robert Fripp. With King Crimson, Brian Eno, David Bowie and others, Fripp perpetually reinvented the six-stringed wheel with ease.

He usually did so with a Gibson – or something that looked like a Gibson – in hand. This is why if the building were burning down, Fripp would grab his beloved ’59 Les Paul Custom.

“It’s the one that’s worth the most,” he says with a laugh. “That’s for sure!”

“I’m not a collector,” he adds. “[The guitar you buy] should be the one that’s right for the music you’re playing. So I guess the criteria is, ‘Why might you choose this guitar?’ And all my good instruments have been Gibsons or facsimiles. It’s the right fit. I put it up to my body, and it’s the right fit for my left hand and my right hand.”

With all that in mind, we asked Fripp to select and discuss the three guitars that have “fit” him the best over the past six or so decades.

1962 Gibson ES-345

I bought it in the middle of 1963 when I was 17. Up until then, my first guitar was an appalling instrument called an Egmond Frères that my mother bought me for Christmas in 1957. I still have it. It was appalling. My second guitar was a Rosetti, and that was appalling. My third guitar was a Höfner – a President, I think – which was really a semi-pro instrument.

In England at the time, it was very difficult to get American instruments, and you needed a lot of money. But come the middle of 1963, I needed to move on to a proper instrument and bought a 1962 model. The ES-345 was made the year before, I believe, and I bought it from Eddie Moors Music Shop in Boscombe near Bournemouth.

It was £350. I still have the original case and strap. But I needed to buy it on hire-purchase [lay-away], so I went to my father. Because I was 17, you needed a mature person to sign off on the guarantee for payment. My father refused to sign an authority until I had a £100 deposit. I was earning £5 a week, so £5 a week to get to £100 is a bit of a struggle.

1959 Gibson Les Paul Custom

King Crimson - Live at Central Park, NY (June 25, 1973) - 16mm film (All Available Footage) - YouTube

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On to the 1959 Les Paul Custom! I bought it in November 1968, when Giles, Giles and Fripp were just about to become King Crimson. King Crimson were lent £7,000 by a businessman called Angus Hunking. He took an interest in us, and I believe £2,000 came in cash in a briefcase.

So I went shopping in the West End of London with Michael Giles. We went to a music shop on Shaftesbury Avenue; in the window was this Les Paul for £400. I’m not sure of the exact equivalent of what that might be in today’s cash, but I think it would probably be five-to-seven-and-a-half thousand. I went online today and I found a pristine model the same as mine, advertised at $139,000! And that was an instrument without provenance.

But I went into the shop with Michael Giles with the cash, and I asked for a cash discount. The shop assistant, a young man I disliked because of his attitude, said, “I could phone up Eric Clapton and he’d come and buy it.” And I thought, “Then why haven’t you phoned him already?” So this young man was lying to me, and I didn’t like him. Anyway, I bought the instrument for £380.

This was my main instrument from then onwards. I used it with Crimson and my other work up until 1980. It’s on all the Crimson albums – In the Court, Poseidon, Lizard, Islands, Larks’ Tongues, Starless and Bible Black and Red, and moving on with David Bowie on Scary Monsters and all the Eno albums.

But in early ’78 in New York I bought a second ’59 Les Paul, which I then left in New York, where I was living at the time. I would use it at the New York sessions. Nevertheless, that first 1959 Les Paul was my staple.

2004 Fernandes custom goldtop

My third instrument is the Fernandes, though there are honorable mentions in between. I began using Fernandes, I think, in 1995, when we were in Japan. Fernandes expressed interest in making instruments for Adrian Belew and me.

They made Adrian a couple of red ones, and he cobbled together the best of each, and I bought it from him, probably about 20 years ago. I still play it from time to time. But around 2004, they made me the first goldtop. My contact there was Ken Suiguira, and that was a superb instrument. They made me a second replica goldtop in 2016 as a spare, which is virtually identical to the original from 2004.

But the original 2004 goldtop became my main instrument with King Crimson from 2014 through 2021, and it’s still my main practicing instrument. I’m no longer a touring musician, but I continue to practice as a way of earthing and centering myself, kind of like guitar yoga. [Laughs]

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.