Robben Ford has looked back on the time he worked with Fender on designing the Esprit Ultra – the Big F's answer to a legacy Gibson guitar.

Across his career, Ford has lent his chops to George Harrison, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Little Feat, Kiss and more. Playing alongside different artists has meant that he's had to tweak his rig and upgrade his guitar arsenal over the years – and that lead to a collaboration with Fender on an oft-forgotten custom model.

“It was the Robben Ford custom model, the Esprit Ultra,” Ford tells Guitarist in the latest issue.

“It wasn’t initially called that – I was the only guy playing that guitar. It was their version of a semi-hollow, which it wasn’t, but it had sound cavities in it, and the woods were very bright. Somehow, I was comfortable with that guitar. It just sort of worked.

“I was a part of the choice of woods and design and everything, and I had this inclination to go towards solidbody instruments instead of the 335, which I’d been using really up until that point. Fender approached me about making something, so we did, and I used that guitar a ton.”

Ford reveals he employed that guitar extensively on his 1988 opus Talk to Your Daughter, and admits he “used one guitar exclusively for a few years.” Turns out, his commitment to the model meant that people started noticing that it was one of a kind.

He says, “They started asking Fender about it, and they [Fender] decided to make it a Custom Shop Robben Ford model.”

Now discontinued, the 24.75” scale Custom Shop model was built around Fender’s Esprit/Flame platform and aimed to deliver the quintessential blues-jazz fusion tone associated with Ford. Initially produced in Japan between 1987 and 1993, production moved to the US Custom Shop in 1994, with the last models built in 2002.

In more recent news, Ford divulged how Jeff Beck got him back to playing the Strat – and why he was never bored in his role as Joni Mitchell’s sideman.

For more from Ford, plus new interviews with Kim Gordon and the latest scoop on the historic Jim Irsay collection and auction, pick up issue 535 of Guitarist from Magazines Direct.

NAMM 2026: Gibson is celebrating 50-plus years of building electric guitars out of its Nashville, Tennessee headquarters with its 2026 roster, while simultaneously honoring “the blood, sweat, and tears” that have gone into their creation.

Founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1894, the firm relocated to Music City in 1975, and it says it's arrived at NAMM 2026 with “a powerful statement of innovation, craftsmanship, and artist-driven purpose.”

That translates into brand-new acoustic and electric models, a glut of signature guitars of all shapes and sizes, and cut-price access to one of its most celebrated pickup designs.

’50s- and ’60s-inspired Gibson Custom

It’s a three-pronged launch for Gibson Custom, as ES-330 reissues, ’50s- and ’60s-inspired ES-330s, and Les Paul Studio Double Trouble models rear their headstocks.

The ES-330, a thinline hollow-body electric guitar with twin f-holes, makes its Gibson Custom return after eight years in the dark. Saddled with P-90 pickups, which are having a bit of a glow-up right now, there are 1959 and 1962 ES-330 reissues, both of which are handcrafted by Gibson’s Nashville-based artisans, with “two distinct flavors in vintage-inspired colorways.”

Its center-block-loaded brother, the ES-335, also gets a look in, with these versatile guitars built using the same ES laminate press as the '50s and '60s originals they're inspired by. Again, vintage-inspired colorways feature, alongside a host of period-correct details, including their plastics, neck shapes, and pickups.

Both the ES models will be released in summer 2026.

Gibson Les Paul Studio Double Trouble 

After Gibson brought the Les Paul Standard ‘50 and ‘60s Double Trouble models to market last year, to much excitement, they’re now getting a Gibson Studio reimagining.

They’re based on the streamlined Les Paul Studio platform, but still feature Double Classic White Burstbucker Pro pickups with coil taps pre-loaded for snappier sounds. That’s a move that brings the celebrated pups to a record-low price point of $1,599, which is pretty big news.

The Double Troubles are coming in spring.

New signature guitars for vintage virtuosos and next-gen magicians

Gibson’s signature guitar range across 2026 is as much about honoring established legends as it is about celebrating those taking the electric guitar into the future.

That one-two is perfectly exemplified by a meticulously recreated Mick Ronson 1968 Les Paul Custom, for David Bowie’s late great foil, and a “soulful” new Gibson Custom ES‑355 for the Eric Clapton-approved Gary Clark Jr. It will be a limited edition run of the guitar he had custom-made for him six years ago, and a cheaper Epiphone model will follow.

As was teased by the former UFO and Scorpions man last year, there’s a reissue of the Michael Schenker 1971 Flying V, and yes, it’s got his trademark Black and White, Beetlejuice-esque Medalion colorway.

And at long last, a signature LP for Lamb of God’s Mark Morton is on the way. The Les Paul Modern Quilt has been thoroughly road-tested by the riff monster for several years now.

Legacy acoustics

For its new acoustic guitars, we’re headed 100 years into the past. The Gibson Century Collection serves up “a sound you can feel in your bones,” in light of the 100th anniversary of its flat-tops.

The guitars harken right back to then, with the no-frills 12-fret instruments “channeling the minimalist elegance of early 20th century design,” and an intimate playing experience. They’re expected in spring.

There’s also the return of the Gibson L-1, which was first introduced in 1902 and reinvented as a flat-top in 1926. An instrument that “has an indelible link to the blues,” it is limited to a 100-strong run and arrives with a Cremona Burst lacquer finish.

Its thermally aged red spruce top is partnered with mahogany back and sides – another historic 12-fret construction – and a 25” scaling, a bound ebony fingerboard, and a mother-of-pearl script headstock logo.

Honoring the craft

In 2026, Gibson says it wants to celebrate the people behind its guitars as much as the instruments themselves.

“We want to tell the handcrafted element of this, which is all of the work, the blood, sweat, and tears that go into these guitars,” Gibson's Mat Koehler tells Guitar World at NAMM 2026. “These are not guitars that go into machines that spit out guitars; they start as trees, and are finely crafted instruments.

“There are so many great stories within our crafteries, and that's going to be a huge focus for us this year – to finally start telling not only the stories of how the guitars are made, but the people behind them.”

There’s a lot of information to take in, then, but there’s also a lot to celebrate. With Gibson making inroads in Reverb’s best-selling guitars list of 2025, could this new collection improve its footing further still?

• Correction: January 24, 2026 – This article was updated as it initially incorrectly listed the Double Trouble Les Pauls as Gibson Custom, not Studio line, products.

A 1960 Gibson ES-355 that was “smashed up” by Liam Gallagher on the night the band split in 2009 is heading for auction alongside the Takamine FP460SC acoustic guitar used to track Wonderwall.

The two guitars symbolize the highs and lows of Manchester’s biggest band. They’re part of a 150-strong collection of Oasis items set to be sold as part of a Propstore auction.

The Cherry Red, Bigsby-appointed ES-355 tells a tale of the fractious side of the Gallagher brothers’ relationship. There was no brotherly love lost on that fateful night in Paris, and it all came to a head just before they were due to step out on stage at the Rock en Seine festival.

“It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight,” Noel Gallagher wrote on the band’s website that night. “People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”

In 2011, Noel had claimed his brother had wanted free advertising spaces in the band’s programs to promote his Pretty Green clothing brand as the straw that, slowly but surely, broke the camel’s back. In truth, things hadn’t been harmonious in the Oasis camp for some time. This was the inevitable final outburst.

“He was quite violent,” Noel said of his brotherly bust-up. “He storms out of the dressing room and picks up a plum. He threw it across the dressing room and it smashed against the wall. I kind of wish it had ended like that because it would have made a great headline, ‘plum throws plum and finishes Oasis,’” but it didn’t end like that.

“He goes to his own dressing room and picks up a guitar [the ES-355], comes back and starts throwing it around like an axe. He’s swinging this guitar around and he nearly took my face off with it. It ended up on the floor and I put it out of its misery.

“There were people who were in the band, not saying anything. We were all involved in it and nobody was saying anything. So I thought, ‘I’m fucking out of here.’’

The guitar’s history, even if tainted, means it is expected to sell for £500,000 (approx $671,000).

The Wonderwall acoustic, which was gifted to one of the band’s sound engineers after another guitar-smashing argument between Noel and Liam saw his Fender obliterated, is also headed to the auction block, with an estimate of £200,000 - £400,000.

For more information, head to Propstore.

Oasis made their long-awaited comeback this summer, with the Gallaghers expected to pocket £400m for burying the hatchet.

Noel Gallagher has already revealed what’s on his Oasis pedalboard and has worked with Gibson for a Murphy Lab-aged Les Paul, which is getting a very limited run.

Dave Grohl’s very own Gibson DG-335 signature guitar prototype has surfaced – and it has been listed on Reverb for $300,000.

Listed by Skylight Guitars out of Bakersfield, California, as a consignment for its current owner (one of Grohl's old guitar techs) this is the first prototype that was made for the Foo Fighters' bandleader.

It was built in Gibson's Custom Shop in Nashville and featured heavily on stage and in the studio between 2005 and 2007.

“This Prototype was played on Echoes, Silence, Patience, Grace as well as toured from 2005 until the first production guitars were delivered in 2007,” says Grohl’s then guitar tech. The instrument subsequently retired, but notably also featured at Live Earth at Wembley Stadium in July 2007.

The semi-hollow electric guitar is in “near-perfect shape” and features a maple body with a Pelham Blue finish, a set mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard, and twin humbuckers. Letting go of the axe hasn't been an easy decision for its owner.

“The selling of this guitar is an emotional endeavor, as it was given to me by the best boss and one of the most wonderful human beings I have ever known,” they say. “This is the most valuable thing I own in terms of emotional attachment.

“This is the original, hand-made at the Nashville Gibson Custom Shop, prototype DG 335. It is inspired by Dave's favorite guitar: the Trini Lopez '67’s signature ES-335.

“My part in the manifestation of this guitar is partly in the design, neck shape, pickups, and choosing a more road-worthy tailpiece than the original Trini's trapeze, even at Dave's protestations,” they continue. “I started this project in 2001 after Dave expressed an interest in his own signature guitar.

“It wasn't until 2005 that we finally got this prototype for him to play and approve for the first limited production run of 300 guitars. [It was] a very slow process that nearly dissolved several times.”

For whoever is willing to part with $300K for this one-of-a-kind guitar, it comes with a fitted Anvil hard case. Its current owner says the case is “pretty much bulletproof” and, just to sweeten the deal, he “will also include the disgusting, dried sweat-soaked guitar strap that was used from 2005 to 2007.”

Head to Reverb for more.

“I recently acquired a 1960 Gibson ES-335 and discovered something interesting that I’ve never seen before. Even after all these years collecting and selling vintage guitars, I learned it’s always possible to teach an old dog new tricks.

“When I got the guitar everything appeared completely original besides one of the control knobs, which had a late-’60s-style deep reflector rather than the shallow style that is correct for the year. I wasn’t concerned because I knew I had some genuine vintage knobs, but when I pulled the knob off to replace it, I discovered the potentiometer shaft was nylon, rather than metal.

“As soon as I saw it my heart jumped into my throat because I’d bought it from a trusted guy and I couldn’t imagine that he would have done something improper. Then I pulled off the other knobs and found exactly the same thing.

“I started having a bit of a meltdown because I was kicking myself for not giving the guitar a thorough examination. I felt I should have known better and realised that the wiring harness must have been modified or replaced.

“My tech and I decided to pull out the harness and we discovered that nothing had ever been unsoldered or altered in any way. The potentiometers were odd looking, but the date codes indicated the 48th week of 1959. The manufacturer code was 235, which indicated the pots were made by Mallory, a company more closely associated with electrical components and batteries.

“I had never seen these before, but I was ready to bet my bottom dollar that they were original to the guitar. I started phoning around a few old timers, guys even older than me, to ask if they had ever seen potentiometers like this in a Gibson, but none of them had. Then I did a deep dive on the internet and after a few clicks I found a colleague of mine talking about a 1960 ES-335 that he found that had exactly the same pots.

“He had bought the guitar from its original owner in 2021 and it was quite intact. When he sent me some pictures I felt like I was looking at two identical guitars. Then we discovered the serial numbers were only two apart and both had FONs (factory order numbers) that corresponded to late 1960 and serial numbers that were very early 1961. With that slight discrepancy, you could call these guitars 1960s or 1961s.

“So I learned something new. And later on, I talked to another friend who’d had a 1960 Les Paul Special with Mallory pots. My theory is that Gibson bought a load of these pots, probably from a local electronics store, and they used them when they couldn’t get stock from their usual supplier to keep the production line moving. The Mallory pots are totally silent in operation and really good quality.

“One of the pickups had an opened cover, but there’s no evidence of repairs having been carried out. That one is a ‘zebra’ and the other is a double black. Sometimes people take the covers off hoping to find double white bobbins, but all you really need to do is remove the bobbin screws and use a flashlight. It had the dot fretboard markers, and the non-wired bridge has brass saddles, rather than the later nylon ones.”

“It has the slim taper neck that’s typical for late 1960 and someone has refretted it at some point. It plays great and really rips if you plug it into a good tube amp. That’s why they’re called ‘’burst killers’. It has a lot of play wear and it’s not too heavy. Sonically, it’s big, like most of them are, because that hollow body with the solid plank in the middle adds a sympathetic tone that solid guitars don’t have.

“When I finally established that the guitar was correct, I felt humbled. It proved to me once again that however many vintage guitars you may encounter in life, one day you’re going to get a surprise that will knock you over. This one just got me and I had no clue. I went from thinking that I’d got a raw deal, but it worked out fine and I know that for me the knowledge I gained was ‘the deal’.

“People who have been in the vintage world for some time occasionally get a little bored because they think they’ve seen it all. It’s important to understand that there are always anomalies, and features that are not widely documented can sometimes turn out to be original after all.”

• Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

What is it?

Under the considerable shadow of the finely crafted acoustics that have been Lowden’s calling card for the past 50 years, a lone electric model – the single-cutaway GL-10, which launched some six years ago – could well have been a minor footnote.

Instead, there was a variant, the GL-10c, which added chambering and, with it, weight reduction. And here we have the third Lowden electric guitar, the double-cut GL-J.

Lifting the GL-J from its classy GWW guitar case, we can’t help but smile. The new design adheres to the timeless, individual craft style that we’re more than familiar with from Lowden, the natural colours and textures of the woods given centre stage; there’s no glitzy, gaudy colour stains or opulent inlays here. But this is far from rustic craft. Fine detailing abounds, while the finish (originally oil) is now the hand-burnished super-smooth satin that’s used on the acoustic instruments.

The symmetrical double-cut outline, with its pair of f-holes, obviously nods to the style of the ES-335 by design, but it’s considerably downsized here. It measures 356mm (14 inches) across the lower bouts, slightly wider than the 348mm (13.7-inch) single-cut GL-10 we previously evaluated.

Construction is pretty similar with a one-piece mahogany back, approximately 22mm thick, topped with a AAAA-grade Tasmanian blackwood, centre-joined top (walnut, koa and ebony are also offered); a decorative veneer is sandwiched in between that’s spec’d as pau ferro but looks more like maple.

It seems the central section is solid, but the ‘wings’ are hollowed and the top is relieved in depth, or “scalloped” as Lowden calls it. Overall depth is pretty much 42mm.

There’s a light doming from the bass to treble side, and the top slopes down more noticeably past the bridge, reducing the rim depth at the base of the guitar to approximately 32mm.

The three-way toggle pickup selector still sits on the bass-side upper bout and yet the individual pickup volumes and master tone of the GL-10 are slimmed to just an overall master volume with the same master tone.

Typical of the super-detailed build, the three controls all sit in perfectly machined recesses in the top, while the 4mm-thick walnut rear covers are perfectly inlaid into the back wood like pieces of elegant marquetry.

The GL series instruments all feature the same neck that’s based on Lowden’s 630mm (24.8-inch) scale length. Three pieces of finely grained mahogany form the bulk, with a pair of rosewood stringers, and the headstock is capped front and back with ebony, also used for the fingerboard, which is ebony-bound with a thin, lighter wood coach line.

It’s seamlessly glued into a long sloping and square-sided body extension, and at around the 16th fret the neck itself has a small heel; we presume this gives the neck a similar stiffness to the single-cut GL-10, despite the double cutaway. Of course, a natural finish such as this leaves nowhere to hide – and the joinery is exceptionally crisp.

As with the GL-10, the Gotoh tune-o-matic bridge is recessed into the top, while the strings pass through finely machined slots and then small brass tubes before anchoring at the back into an inset brass sustain plate.

You’ll notice two small ‘ears’ either side of the humbuckers. These are not for height adjustment; they simply cover the tips of the pickup legs, which screw directly to the body with what feels like hard foam to allow height adjustment.

Playability and sounds

We could sum this up with two words: ‘exceptional’ and ‘extraordinary’. Firstly, the weight is excellent at 3.45kg (7.59lb), and it’s way more compact than a big ol’ ES-335 – it feels it, too, seated or on a strap.

That heel platform is relatively bulky, less so than a Les Paul, of course. It takes a little adjustment, but when your thumb snuggles into the small heel, access to the top frets feels perfectly good – great for slide players, too. Although there’s so much to suggest this guitar isn’t about high-position pyrotechnics.

With a nut width of 43.5mm (and string spread of 36mm), it feels far from cramped. Thanks to a slope-shouldered C profile, the beautifully smooth-backed neck doesn’t feel anywhere as big as its depth dimensions (22.3mm at the 1st fret, 23.7mm by the 12th) might suggest.

The larger fret gauge suits the style: it’s 2.6mm wide with a good but not excessive height of approximately 1.2mm. Oh, and if you can’t get on without face position markers, you can order any GL electric with mother-of-pearl dots.

The GL-J is far from the construction of an acoustic guitar, but it rings like a bell and you really notice – and certainly feel – a vibrant sustain, almost like you have an acoustic compressor in there.

Plugged in, the word ‘regal’ springs to mind when describing what we hear. There’s an almost chocolatey darkness to the voicing with the neck pickup selected; it’s smooth but not unclear.

There’s obviously more bite at the bridge, with a ‘lower-wound late-50s Gibson pickup style’ of sound, making the both-on position nicely textured, classically bouncy and percussive.

Three quite distinct voices, then, as it should be. There’s nothing hot or overwound about what we hear, but likewise no thinness or sharpness – it’s a balanced, mature voice with surprising depth.

Verdict

The GL-J may be loosely inspired by the ES-335, but that’s where any similarity ends. It’s all-solid wood for starters, and while it retains a solid centre section, the internal chambering – top and back – not only keeps the weight in check but no doubt adds to what we hear. Which is exceptional.

There’s a wonderful depth and inherent sustain that’s perfectly captured by the detailed Lollar Imperials, just like great microphones picking up a beautiful, rich and musical voice.

From defined jazz cleans on the neck pickup to a classic Patent Applied For-like clarity and bite at the bridge, it’s a superb journeyman guitar that almost plays itself, not least with the slightly bigger frets used here.

Of course, the craft level is supremely high, and this is an almost timeless design from the hands and ears of one of the greats.

Guitar World verdict: Lowden may first and foremost be an acoustic guitar company, but these are special guitars that celebrate their ingredients and yet not at the expense of sound or playability.

Specs

PRICE: From £3,950 (approx. $4,899) inc case
ORIGIN: Northern Ireland
TYPE: Double-cutaway solidbody electric
BODY: 1-piece mahogany with scalloped AAAA Tasmanian blackwood centre-joined top
NECK: 5-piece mahogany w/ rosewood splices, ‘C’ profile, glued-in
SCALE LENGTH: 630mm (24.8”)
NUT/WIDTH: Bone/43.2mm
FINGERBOARD: Bound ebony, 305mm (12”) radius
FRETS: 22, medium
HARDWARE: Gotoh GE103B-T bridge w/ through body stringing, Gotoh 510 tuners w/ ebony buttons – gold-plated
STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51.5mm
ELECTRICS: 2x Lollar Imperial humbuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, master volume and master tone control
WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.45/7.59
OPTIONS: With walnut top (£3,950), Tasmanian blackwood (as reviewed, £4,200), koa (£4,450) and ebony (£5,035). Figured maple neck adds £300. Mother-of-pearl fretboard dot markers, shallow neck carve, medium or modern jumbo frets, hardware plating (chrome, cosmo black) and Lollar P-90s (all n/c)
RANGE OPTIONS: The GL-10 (from £3,650) is the original Lowden electric, also available as the GL-10c with internal micro-chambers to reduce weight
LEFT-HANDERS: No extra, to order
FINISHES: Natural – hand-finished acrylic satin lacquer
CONTACT: Lowden Guitars

• “Delivers a stunning sound with bags of sustain and a complex tonal profile”: Sheeran by Lowden W05 review

Over the years, Gibson has been responsible for masterminding some of the most enduring and popular guitars of all time, from the solid body Les Paul, SG, Explorer and Firebird all the way to the ES-335 and beyond.

One of its most unsung innovations, though, is the Victory – a distinct double-cutaway creation from the 1980s that, after a short time in the limelight in the era of hair and heavy metal music, was quietly discontinued.

The Victory slipped into obscurity thereafter, but its firm popularity among certain circles never wavered, with the guitar developing something of a cult status over the past few decades.

Now, in response to intense fan demand for the guitars’ revival, Gibson has reissued the Victory in not one, but two, distinct formats that elevate the template to greater heights.

As per the original Victory, both models offer that unique double-cut body, which promotes excellent upper-fret access. This time, the basic template has been further refined with additional contours and improved weight balance to ensure a more comfortable playing experience.

Elsewhere, a compound radius ebony fretboard for speedy shredding, comfortable chording, and seamless transitions between the two, while a pair of 80s Tribute humbuckers are wired to push/pull master volume, to coil split, and tone pots, inner/outer coil select switching, for a wide range of tones from minimal controls.

Other core components include a SlimTaper mahogany neck, 25.5” scale length, and a Tune-O-Matic and Stop Bar tailpiece combo, with an Explorer-style headstock also making the cut.

As mentioned, two variants are available: the Victory Figured, which flaunts an AA figured maple cap and a gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish, and the regular Victory, which instead sticks to the natural grain of its mahogany body and a satin nitro lacquer treatment. Each comes with a Gibson hardshell case.

“The Victory, originally released in the 1980s, has long been a cult favorite among guitarists who appreciate its distinctive double cutaway design which delivers excellent upper-fret access,” explains Gibson. “Now it’s back and better than ever, with refined body contours, improved weight and balance, and an updated headstock shape based on the popular Gibson Explorer.”

The Victory and Victory Figured are both available now for $1,999 and $2,499, respectively.

Learn more over at Gibson.com.

NAMM 2025: Last November, Warren Haynes – he of Gov't Mule and formerly the Allman Brothers Band – revealed that he had two new Gibson signature models in the works.

The most notable aspect of said models, Haynes said, were their P-90 pickups.

“I have always played humbuckers for the most part, but whenever I pick up a guitar with P-90s in it I get some inspiration from it,” he explained in an interview with American Musical Supply. “[Haynes and Gibson] have been talking about it for a long time.”

Now, the first of the two models, a Cherry-finished Les Paul, has arrived.

Now, details of the guitar are quite scarce, but what we do know is that the guitar boasts a mahogany body with a plain maple cap and that aforementioned 60s Cherry finish, which is modeled after that found on his beloved 1961 ES-335.

The mahogany neck with a chunkier 50s vintage profile, in turn, takes after Haynes' favorite Les Pauls.

Aside from the P-90s, the Haynes Les Paul is also notably fitted with a toggleable on-board clean boost.

In addition to the Les Paul, Haynes said last year that a rare triple P-90 Firebird was also in the works. (“I am about to delve into P-90 world pretty hard,” he said, to be exact).

“They had made me a Custom Shop Firebird one time with three P-90s in it, and I had never played a three-pickup Firebird before,” Haynes explained last year.

“It took some getting used to with the middle pickup, but once I got used to that, the tonal options were great. You could get so many different sounds, and so I loved experimenting with all the different possibilities.

“I am looking for new inspiration, something to change the way that I play at any given moment,” he continued. “I love the fact that I have settled into a great sound with my Les Pauls through the years, but it is nice to challenge yourself sometimes – it creates a new spark that takes you into some new direction.”

We'll keep our eyes out for more info on the guitar as it becomes available, but for now visit Gibson to see the company's other new-for-2025 offerings.

Think of the late, great B.B. King and a picture of his famous ‘Lucille’-model Gibson with its ES Artist-type sealed body will likely come to mind, although these didn’t actually appear in Standard and Custom versions until 1980.

Before then, B.B. had long plied his high-profile trade, invariably with a standard ES model and typically the 355. Currently, Gibson Custom has a Lucille Legacy and ‘Live at the Regal’ ES-335 in the catalogue, and now this latest historic homage from 1974 has joined the ranks.

The ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ pulls in another couple of heavyweights, George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, unquestionably rockstars of their day, and a mega-profile boxing match in Kinshasa, Zaire on 30 October 1974, known as one of the greatest sporting events of the 20th century.

The fight was scheduled to happen on 25 September at the end of Zaire 74, a three-day music festival, but it was delayed due to Foreman injuring himself in a sparring session.

The festival went ahead as planned, featuring B.B. King, James Brown, Miriam Makeba, Bill Withers, The Crusaders and more, and is documented in 2008’s Soul Power, plus B.B.’s Live In Africa film. It’s the guitar B.B. King was playing back then that’s replicated here.

As we very carefully pull this model from its accompanying case, you’d almost believe it was 50 years old with its light ageing.

There are plenty of cracks to the body lacquer, which has an old-looking amber tint; this turns the edge binding nicotine yellow with the notable exception of the white binding around the tortoiseshell pickguard. There’s also a little patina and ageing to the gold hardware.

These are big guitars, though this one is attractively manageable, with its relatively slim neck. It’s not over-wide in lower positions, but it really fills out to quite a full-shouldered girth by the 12th fret. The light rolling to the ’board edge binding adds to the feeling of age, too.

Despite the ‘Stereo’ truss rod cover, thankfully the output is mono here, and we have the additional five flavours of the Varitone, which get a little thinner and almost phasey-sounding as you play through them.

The pickups seem only lightly potted (you get plenty of pick ‘clonk’ if you hit the covers), but these hybrid T-Types sound extremely sweet and yet have good articulation and quite widely contrasting voices between the bite at the bridge and the smoother, clear neck voice.

You might want to play on the cleaner side of the tracks, but try cranking it up a little – it damn-near takes off!

• Priced $9,999/£8,999, the B.B. King 'Rumble in the Jungle' 1974 ES-355 is available now. See Gibson for more details.

What are they?

Trying to keep up with Gibson’s avalanche of new releases is becoming a full-time job: blink and you might miss something.

For example, hot on the heels of the Les Paul Modern Studio released earlier in 2024 is this new Studio, and a third Studio variant, the Studio Session, landed in December 2024.

After the success of the US-made Epiphone Casino reissue from 2023, it was almost inevitable that Gibson would follow up with its own branded version of essentially the same guitar.

It’s great to have the ES-330 return at a time when its charms might be better appreciated than back in those blues-rock salad days. Let’s take a closer look…

ES-330

Gibson ES-330: ★★★★1/2

What compromised the ES-330’s popularity was that – due to it being a fully hollow construction, with no centre block as in the ES-335 – it was a feedback nightmare through big, loud amplifiers.

And since its neck sat further into the body than its semi-solid sister models, top-fret forays were off the agenda. But with today’s move towards smaller amps, in-ear monitors and less of a desire for dusty end widdle-fests, these woes pale against the instrument’s super-light weight, ultra-comfy neck, effortless playability and seriously cool vibe.

Checking the guitar over reveals a beautifully built instrument in the period-correct shade of see-through cherry red, the thin-skin nitro lacquer expertly applied and buffed to a perfect gloss. The body’s arched top and back are the result of the maple-poplar-maple laminate being pressed into shape, with internal spruce bracing supporting the top.

A one-piece mahogany neck is topped off by a block-inlaid dark rosewood fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets. Gibson sculpts the neck binding to create ‘nibs’ that cover the fret ends; when done well, as here, it’s a sophisticated solution to the age-old problem of sharp tips snagging the fingers or catching strings.

The black plasticware looks classy, offset as it is by cream binding all round save for the headstock. Hardware comprises white-button classic Kluson-style tuners, nickel-plated tune-o-matic bridge, diamond embossed trapeze tailpiece, and slightly larger than vintage‑style aluminium strap buttons.

Electrics-wise, we get a pair of Gibson dog-ear P-90 pickups mated to twin volume and tone controls with black top-hat knobs, 500kohms pots and Orange Drop capacitors.

Strapping on the ES-330 reveals why it was a favourite with rhythm players (along with its sister, the Epiphone Casino) or those who majored in riffy, rock ’n’ roll style soloing.

With the neck being three frets further into the body, open chords are easy to reach, while barre shapes are a doddle up to the 12th fret. The guitar’s ultra-light weight makes it supremely comfortable, too, especially when worn a little higher on the strap.

With its rounded ‘C’ profile, the neck is incredibly comfortable, and the 10-gauge strings fitted as standard feel slack and bendy.

Where some new guitars are hard and uninviting to play, this one lets you right in, to the point where you almost feel at one with the thing. No, you can’t blaze pentatonics at the 17th fret, but virtually anything else you could desire is right here at your fingertips.

Plugging into a Boogie Mark I reissue combo reveals a versatile set of tones that would suit almost any genre of popular music. Jazz, blues, pop or light-to-medium rock are all dutifully served.

Even when played clean, P-90s have a slight rasp that makes for an organic tone that, when turned right down to 2 or 3, can sound almost acoustic in nature. And with the amp set so there’s a healthy dose of drive on tap, one can go from clean to gnarly with no more than a twist of a control.

With the neck pickup on about 6 and some tone rolled off, we go from straight jazz to vintage blues, with both knobs cranked a notch or two. And flipping to the bridge pickup on about 8, with the tone all but full up, is rock ’n’ roll heaven.

Given that both B.B. King and Chuck Berry had ES-330 phases, this should come as no surprise. Both P-90s on is a fabulous choice, as balancing the controls provides an immense array of sounds.

Of course, such is the model’s and its Epiphone E-230 cousin’s association with 60s British beat music that all manner of Stones, Beatles and Kinks tones are on tap, too. And when we cranked the Boogie to gigging volume, the ES-330 didn’t feed back unless the guitar was pushed up close to the speaker. It’s quite a piece!

Gibson Les Paul Studio

Gibson Les Paul Studio: ★★★★½

If you thought the Modern Studio was a bit too modern for your tastes with its satin finishes, compound radius ebony fingerboard, contoured heel and those new-fangled pull-switch controls, not only is this new Studio less expensive, it comes in a pretty old-school style.

It still features Gibson’s Ultra-Modern weight relief and pull-switch volumes (not tones) for the so-called ‘coil-tap’ option for both humbuckers, which here are covered Burstbucker Pros. The Modern Studio employs a covered 490R in the neck position and a 498T at the bridge.

Pulling the new less-modern Studio from its very gig-ready soft-shell guitar case, that weight relief is clearly playing its part: at 3.71kg (8.16lb), it’s the lightest Les Paul we’ve hand in our hands recently, with the exception of the thinner-bodied, all-mahogany Modern Lite at 3.03kg (6.67lb); the Modern Studio was a little heavier at 3.85kg (8.47lb).

Speaking of body thickness, like the Modern Studio at just a shade over 57mm (47mm at the rim), this Studio is fractionally thinner than the full-fat Les Paul, like our reference 2019 Classic, which measures 61mm overall (50mm at the rim).

Like the Studio of old, there’s no body-edge binding, the plain top is centre-joined maple with a pretty subtle ’burst, while the mahogany back is two-piece with an offset join that’s pretty hard to see through the translucent cherry red back.

A big change, however, is the classic fingerboard binding. While the Modern Studio actually has near-invisible black plastic binding around the ebony ’board, the cream binding here, along with the classic dark rosewood fingerboard and those acrylic trapezoid inlays, not only imparts a more classic Les Paul look but also subtly alters the feel – which we’ll get to in a moment.

Let’s not forget, though, that the new Studio is half the price of the ES-330, and while there are obvious cost-cutting elements here, side by side with our Les Paul Classic – which currently costs $/£800 more – we’re not feeling short-changed.

Visually, of course, the Studio’s no-body binding style won’t satisfy everyone, but from the player’s perspective you don’t notice that. You do notice the neck, of course, and with the binding here it looks and feels like a pukka ’Paul, even though there’s a slight ridge where the colour coat has presumably been scraped away during the finish process.

Along with the excellent weight, our Studio is very well set up with none of the tuning issues that have plagued some previous review samples. Typically, the frets stop at the binding, the ‘ends’ formed by the binding, and while, as we’ve said before, a slightly bigger and higher fretwire wire gauge would be preferable, it feels just like a good Gibson Les Paul should.

The similarity with the Classic is shared by the same ’60s-style SlimTaper neck, which is pretty much identical (with a nut width just a shade over 43mm, and a depth of 20.5mm at the 1st fret and 23.2mm by the 12th) and a very similar relatively full-shouldered shallow ‘C’ profile.

No surprises, then, that it sounds like a good Les Paul should, too! There’s a little more solidarity to the overall voices compared with the retrofitted Burstbucker 1 and 2 of our Classic – which also has a different nine-hole weight relief to the body – and there’s a little more clarity compared with the Studio. But it’s not chalk and cheese and, to be honest, for general rock use the Studio might have the edge for those thicker, creamier voices.

If you’re used to vintage-style wiring, the modern-wired setup here is less versatile, without those thinner, cleaner voices as you pull back the volume and tone: here, it’s simply quieter and a little darker. But for the aim, and price point, you really shouldn’t feel you’re missing anything.

The coil-taps? Well, that’s another thing to either ignore or get used to. No, they don’t sound like simple coil-splits, but pulling up the bridge volume immediately softens the mid-forward honk for much more of a single-coil-like voice albeit with a softer high-end but without the volume drop of a typical coil-split.

At the neck, the coil-tap almost sounds a little too ‘tone control rolled off’, but again it pulls back that stridency. Listening to the Classic’s coil-taps, well, they sound different, too – a little honkier. So, while the bridge coil-tap here is definitely usable, the neck is less obviously so, not least that with the volume control pulled back, which loses a little clarity, as we said.

Verdict

We love it when Gibson gets it right, given how we’ve had cause to criticise quality control over the years, and both of these diverse pieces are very well set up with no tuning issues.

The ES-330 certainly deserves another shot at the spotlight; it’s just such a usable instrument. It plays like butter and is packed with a fabulous range of recognisable tones.

True, flat out through a 100-watt Marshall stack is not particularly feasible with an all-hollow guitar, but open your mind and heart to this delightful instrument and you’ll discover a faithful musical pal for almost any occasion.

But if the ES-330 is more about restoring a classic into the catalogue, this new Studio is front-line infantry: a guitar purpose-designed to compete with the plethora of other brands’ ‘inspired by’ or copycats. Its classic big and thick voicing is archetypal Les Paul in anyone’s book, and along with a great weight there’s little to complain about.

Those coil-taps won’t be to everyone’s taste – to our ears, the bridge coil-tap has more legs than the neck – and although we don’t get the refined body binding of the upper-market models, that’s offset by the lower cost. All in, of the recent lower-end ’Pauls we’ve played, this new Studio is very hard to argue with.

Specs

Gibson ES-330

Launch price: $3,499/£3,099
Origin: USA
Type: Double-cutaway, Hollowbody electric guitar
Body: Fully hollow, cream bound maple/poplar/maple laminate top, back and sides
Neck: Mahogany, ‘rounded C’, glued-in
Scale length: 629mm (24.75”)
Nut/Width: GraphTech/ 43.1mm
Fingerboard: Bound Indian rosewood with small acrylic block inlays, 305mm (12”) radius
Frets: 22, medium
Hardware: Gibson ABR-1 tune-o-matic bridge, diamond embossed trapeze tailpiece, white-button vintage-style tuners – nickel-plated
String spacing, bridge: 51.5mm
Electrics: Gibson ‘dog-ear’ P90 neck and bridge single coils, 3-way toggle pickup selector, volume and tone for each pickup
Weight (kg/lb): 2.75/6.05
Left-handers: No
FInish: Sixties Cherry (as reviewed), Tobacco Sunburst, Antique Natural, Ebony (online only) – gloss nitrocellulose

Gibson Les Paul Studio

Launch price: $/£1,599
Origin: USA
Type: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric
Body: 2-piece mahogany with unbound carved maple top and Ultra-Modern weight relief
Neck: 1-piece mahogany, SlimTaper profile, glued-in
Scale length: 629mm (24.75”)
Nut/Width: Graph Tech/43.3mm
Fingerboard: Cream bound Indian rosewood, acrylic trapezoid inlays, 305mm (12”) radius
Frets: 22, medium
Hardware: Nashville tune-o-matic bridge, aluminium stopbar tailpiece, Vintage Deluxe tuners w/ keystone buttons – chrome/nickel-plated
String spacing, bridge: 51.5mm
Electrics: Covered Gibson Burstbucker Pro humbuckers (neck and bridge), 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, volume and tone for each pickup with pull-switches on volume controls for ‘coil-tap’
Weight (kg/lb): 3.71/8.16
Options: None
Left-handers: Not this model
Finishes: Cherry Sunburst (as reviewed), Wine Red, Blueberry Burst, Ebony – gloss nitrocellulose
Contact: Gibson

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• Gibson Les Paul Modern Lite review

When I see dark green ES-335, adorned with a Bigsby, there is only one artist I think of, Chris Cornell! In the latter stage of his career, the Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman was rarely seen without his beloved Gibson signature model, and it has gone on to develop somewhat of a cult following. 

Now, as Gibson doesn't make the model anymore, the second-hand prices have gone through the roof. But fear not, I've found the perfect alternative that won't break the bank. The stunning Epiphone ES-335 Bigsby in Olive Drab is available at Guitar Center for only $679, a saving of $120! Now, that's a Cyber Monday deal that makes me want to break my rusty cage and run to Guitar Center. 

While this isn't an exact replica of Cornell's model, it's a high-quality alternative that won't disappoint. For under $700, you're getting a guitar with a layered maple top, back, and sides, a solid maple tone block, a C neck profile with 12" radius laurel fingerboard, and a set of Alnico Classic PRO humbucking pickups. The guitar is then finished off with an authentic Bigsby tremolo bridge, ensuring you can nail all your favorite Soundgarden riffs.

I love the resonance of a semi-hollow guitar, and I'd argue that there aren't many as versatile as the ES-335. Rock, blues, jazz, funk, and even grunge, the humble ES-335 can do it all - throw in a Bigsby, and things get even more versatile.

Now, we're coming to the end of the Cyber Weekend, and that means the deals will be ending soon. So, to ensure you don't miss out on stellar discounts, be sure to keep it locked to our Cyber Monday guitar deals page, where we'll be showcasing the very best deals from across the internet. 

Gibson ES Supreme: What is it?

Eddie Van Halen’s favorite guitar during the mid-’70s was a Gibson ES-335, but he stopped playing it on stage because his bandmates said that it made him look like Roy Orbison.

While good old Roy revived his cool status in the late ’80s about the same time that vintage guitars entered a new era of hip, the original ES-335 in sunburst, cherry red or blonde has sometimes had a bit of an admittedly stodgy, traditionalist image over the years.

Gibson’s new ES Supreme semi-hollow electric guitars give the timeless ES design a flashy makeover thanks to their AAA figured maple tops, brighter, bolder finish options, gold-plated hardware, Super Split Block mother-of-pearl fingerboard inlays and new six-segment modified “diamond” headstock inlay.

The beauty of the ES Supreme is more than skin deep however, thanks to its pair of Burstbucker Pro humbucking pickups with coil tapping, Grover locking Keystone tuners, thinly applied gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish, 22 medium jumbo frets and aluminum Tuneomatic bridge and stop bar tailpiece.

Compared to the original ES-335, the ES Supreme is like a super-modified high-performance street rod compared to a stock factory car.

The ES Supreme is available with three standard finish options: Bourbon Burst, Seafoam Green and Blueberry Burst. The body’s top, back and sides are made from a three-ply laminate with AAA figured maple on the outer layer, poplar in the center and maple for the inner layer, and the transparent stained colors complement and show off the tiger-stripe/flame grain patterns of the figured maple nicely.

Other tonewood components include a maple center block, mahogany neck and ebony fingerboard. Five-ply binding surrounds the body and headstock, while single-ply binding surrounds the fretboard.

Gibson sent us three examples in each of the finish options to examine. While the specs note a rounded “C” shape profile, we noticed a bit of variation in the thickness and “chunkiness” of each neck from relatively flat and slim to noticeably round and beefy, a sign that the necks are handcrafted and not shaped solely by CNC machines, if at all.

Gibson ES Supreme: Specs

Launch price: $/£/€
Type: Semi-hollow electric guitar
Body: Three-ply AAA figured maple/poplar/maple semi-hollow with arched top and back
Neck: Mahogany glued set
Fingerboard: Ebony, compound radius
Neck Profile: Rounded “C”
Scale Length: 24.75-inch
Frets: 22, medium jumbo
Nut Width: 1.695" / 57.404 mm
Pickups: Gibson Burstbucker Lead and Rhythm Pro humbucking
Controls: Bridge Volume (pull coil-tap), Neck Volume (pull coil-tap), Bridge Tone, Neck Tone, three-way toggle pickup selector
Hardware: Aluminum Nashville Tuneomatic bridge with aluminum stop bar tailpiece, Grover Locking Keystone
Contact: Gibson

Gibson ES Supreme: Playability and sounds

Because of the variation, we recommend buying an ES Supreme from a dealer where you can try out the guitar you want to take home with you instead of blindly rolling the dice with a mail-order purchase.

The Burstbucker Lead and Rhythm Pro pickups deliver classic Gibson PAF-style dynamics and articulation with well-defined midrange and chunky bite. The coil tapping function for each pickup is engaged by pulling up its corresponding volume knob.

The coil-tapped tones have a funky, hollow midrange quack similar to a Strat’s “in between” (i.e. bridge/middle, neck/middle) settings and are slightly fatter than typical straight-up single-coil tones. This provides a greater expanded range of textures and tones than the typical ES bridge/middle/neck settings.

The bridge and neck humbucker each sound bold and powerful from clean to overdrive up through high-gain distortion and never get murky or muddy.

The hardware choices enhance the ES Supreme’s performance and dynamics. The Grover Keystone locking tuners ensure accurate, solid tuning, and the aluminum bridge and stop tailpiece maximize the transference of string vibration to the top and tone block to provide touch-sensitive response and full-bodied sustain.

Gibson ES Supreme: Verdict

Construction details from the high-gloss finish to the fine feel of the fretwork is immaculate, as one would expect for a Gibson in the ES Supreme’s price range.

These models may be on the more expensive side of the spectrum, but they’re worth it if you are discriminating about refined tone, expressive dynamics, luxurious craftsmanship and eye-catching looks.

This is not your grandad’s ES guitar, but it’s still a semi-hollow electric for the ages that will provide decades of playing and performance enjoyment.

The ES Supreme is indeed a supreme upgrade of the classic ES-335 design, with exceptionally more versatile tonal options and striking upscale appearance.

Gibson ES Supreme: Hands-on videos

Gibson

Guitar World

The Trogly's Guitar Show

The Gibson ES-335 has established itself as the most versatile of all of the hallowed builders’ iconic shapes.

Yes, the mighty Les Paul is the most popular (and most copied), while the SG remains the ultimate utilitarian rocker, but neither of them can hold a candle to their semi-hollow sibling when it comes to handling just about any music style you can throw at it.

Blues greats, jazz talents, rock icons, hip hop, soul, and funk players have all picked up ES-335s and made them sing.

Earlier this year, Gibson unveiled its ultimate take on a contemporary ES build, in the form of the ES Supreme – offering a classy contemporary take on the iconic semi-hollow shape, with a wealth of aesthetic flourishes and high-end appointments, alongside new electronics.

As you can see from the video above, Guitar World’s Paul Riario had the pleasant job of trying out three of them to see just what the Supreme build looks, feels, and sounds like up close.

Paul’s demo trio includes the eye-catching Seafoam Green, Blueberry Burst and Bourbon Burst finish options. The bright colorways really draw attention to the AAA maple figured tops, which – in a first for the Supreme line – is continued around the backs and sides of the guitars. And it’s all double-bound to give it the full tuxedo treatment.

The three-ply body is constructed of maple, poplar and maple, then there’s the usual centerblock, a mahogany neck with a highly playable rounded C profile (“bound of course”, notes Paul), plus a stealthy modern convenience with a compound radius ebony fretboard.

Up at the headstock, there’s a Gibson logo in mother of pearl, alongside a stunning Supreme chandelier inlay (a 1940s design rescued from the firm’s archives), plus locking Grover Keystone tuners.

Pickup duties are ably handled by a pair of Gibson’s top-of-the-line Burstbucker Pro humbuckers and, as if the ES-335 was not versatile enough, we’ve now got the option of coil-tapping via two push/pull volume pots.

In the clip, Paul takes us through a whole host of available tones, from crystalline jazz, to vintage Cream-style hot-rodded blues and even shreddy, high-gain scenarios. He also shows what you can do with the flexibility of those coil-splits, as you edge into notched wah-style territory.

One thing that stands out – aside from the finishes – is the tonal variety of these three identical models – all built in the firm’s Nashville, TN ‘craftory’ – with each of the three instruments offering its own lively, organic voice.

“All three of these guitars have their own sonic character; all of them great,” concludes Paul. “It’s just a matter of preference. Try as many as you can – and find the one that speaks to you.”

The Gibson ES Supreme is priced at $4,299. For more information, head to Gibson.

What is it?

It’s tough for brands like Gibson and Fender, who hit bullseye with models such as the Les Paul, ES-335, Stratocaster and Telecaster, to bring something new to the table. Witness Fender’s Coronado and Starcaster semis, which had neither the operational brilliance of the ES-335 nor the ‘cool kitsch’ of Gretsch’s offerings.

Then we had Gibson’s late-70s missteps with the RD, Marauder and more. But many of these past failures have seen something of a resurgence, usually when picked up by some cool new player or by a guitar builder who twists old designs into something fresh.

Yet, however hard Gibson tried to promote the original Victory models, they were dropped after less than three years. Perhaps the world just wasn’t ready yet. But look at PRS’s recently revamped Vela, with its offset styling and chamfered edges, and you’ll see that the Victory’s style is alive, well and very much in vogue.

The very last design to come out of Gibson’s 225 Parsons Street, Kalamazoo home as the combined effort of designer Chuck Burge and pickup guru Tim Shaw, 1981’s Victory MVII was intended to take on Fender’s country mainstay the Telecaster, while the three-pickup Victory MVX offered a Strat-alike option.

It originally came with an all-maple construction – unlike today’s, which uses the company’s more traditional mahogany on the base model and adds an AA maple cap on the Figured Top version, as here.

Specs

PRICE: $1,999/£2,199/€1,999
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Double-cutaway, solidbody electric
BODY: Mahogany with 2-piece AA figured
maple top
NECK: Mahogany, SlimTaper profile
SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”)
NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech /43mm
FINGERBOARD: Bound ebony, acrylic dot markers, compound 254-406mm (10-16”) radius
FRETS: 24, medium jumbo
HARDWARE: Gibson ‘Nashville’ tune-o-matic bridge and aluminium stud bar tailpiece, 6-in-a-line Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners; chrome plated
STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51.56mm
ELECTRICS: Gibson 80s Tribute neck and bridge humbuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, master volume with push/pull coil-split, master tone with push/pull for inner/outer coil selection
WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3/6.61
OPTIONS: N/A
RANGE OPTIONS: The base-model Victory (£1,749) is all-mahogany with solid Dark Green, Dark Walnut or Gold Mist satin finishes; Victory Figured Top Exclusive (£2,199, online only) in Translucent Ebony Burst
LEFT-HANDERS: N/A
FINISH: Smokehouse Burst (as reviewed),
Red Wine Burst, Iguana Burst
CONTACT: Gibson

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆ (half stars indicated with ½)

It has to be said that the grain on ours isn’t amazing, and the two halves aren’t very well matched, but we did spot some spectacular lookers online. Nevertheless, it’s still rather tasty in this Smokehouse Burst, gloss nitro finish.

The 1981 Victory retained Gibson’s traditional set neck but aped the Tele’s control layout, albeit with a coil-split to elicit some spankier tones from its twin humbuckers. Rather than retaining the early Victory’s vaguely Firebird-ish headstock, the new guitar has Gibson’s Concorde-nosed Explorer peghead, with six-a-side Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners.

Other tweaks include refined body contours, a deep neck heel carve, improved weight and balance, a shift from Gibson’s 639mm (24.75 inches) to a more Fender-like 648mm (25.5-inch) scale length, and pickups mounted directly into the body, unlike the previous model’s, which sat within the pickguard itself.

We like the white binding and acrylic dot markers mounted along the fingerboard’s top edge, with double dots at the 12th and 24th frets, since the instrument now boasts a full two octaves’ worth of medium jumbo wires which are well fitted and finished.

Perhaps to enhance its rockier vibe, the ’board also features a compound radius that flattens out from 254mm (10 inches) to 406mm (16 inches) to make fretting out a thing of the past.

Typical Gibson hardware abounds, with tune-o-matic bridge and stud tailpiece, as well as a nicely cut Graph Tech nut, five-ply black and white pickguard, and aluminium strap buttons.

The electronics played an important role in what Gibson hoped would be the original Victory MVII’s success. Here, too, we find a plethora of humbucking and single-coil tones, all accessed by a simple control and switching setup.

Like the earlier version, its twin open-topped humbuckers (these 80s Tribute pickups are said to evoke the fat, powerful sounds of the era) are controlled by master volume and tone pots.

Both offer a pull-switch facility, and while pulling up the volume pot splits both pickups’ coils, the tone knob selects either inner or outer coils when in split mode. However, a smooth, tapered knob is about the worst shape to pull up in the heat of the moment, especially with sweaty fingers holding a pick. So we’d replace these with something grippier.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★1/2

With its sleeker, more slender body, just 38mm in depth, and SlimTaper neck, the Victory beckons you to pick it up and play it. All two octaves on each string are accessible by the digitally adventurous, although a tone bend at the 24th fret is something of an achievement.

It’s an easy guitar to become friends with, too; it doesn’t fight back, instead the finely honed neck allows whatever chops you have to flow effortlessly.

We did keep wanting to reach for a non-existent whammy bar, though (the original Victory MVX had one), so perhaps this could be something for further down the line.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★☆

A Boss Katana-50 Gen 3 50-watt combo was our test rig here, as at its heart it’s a simple and great-sounding amp. Using the Katana’s clean and lead settings revealed just how versatile the new Victory is.

With no push-pulls engaged we discover a typical solidbody Gibson voice, but whether it’s the 80s Tribute pickups (voiced for rhythm and lead positions), the mahogany/maple build or indeed both, there’s a harder edge here than you’d find on, say, an SG.

But this suits the guitar’s more aggressive stance and comes into its own when dialling in the gain, when things become smooth, sustaining and vocally articulate.

Coil-split mode does not take us straight to Fender world. These aren’t Strat or Tele tones, they’re much more ‘Gibson-lite’, again due to the guitar’s construction and the fact that a Fender single coil is a totally different animal from half of a Gibson humbucker.

Things do become sweeter, though, and whether clean or dirty there’s a ton of versatility here before we even encounter push-pull number two. Essentially, with this pot in its usual resting place the outer (white) coils sound, but when pulled it flips to the inner two.

The tones aren’t markedly different, but with both pickups together we get an almost ‘piezo acoustic’ tone, the bridge becomes a tad more nasal, and the neck offers the least noticeable change. It certainly covers a lot more sonic ground than its almost Jackson Dinky looks might suggest.

Verdict

Put Les Pauls and SGs to the back of your mind. The Victory Figured Top pretends to be neither of these Gibson stalwarts but ploughs its own furrow in this comprehensively upgraded guise.

Company boss Cesar Gueikian had hinted at the model’s re-emergence on Instagram, and even by playing one on stage. Gueikian clearly sees merit in giving the Victory a second crack of the whip, and we feel the improvements wrought in its styling, build and switching options send it close to the top of the leaderboard in this hotly contested quarter.

Notwithstanding our model’s unremarkable maple cap, the Victory Figured Top is a handsome and versatile instrument that deserves its second chance. Truth is, there’s almost nothing of the original left.

Final Verdict: While this reviewer can’t pretend to have been the old Victory’s biggest fan, Gibson has definitely won him over with this latest and much-improved incarnation of the model.

At around two grand (and a couple of hundred less for the uncapped, satin-finished base model) it’s fairly priced, too, but we can’t wait to see what the almost inevitable Epiphone version brings.

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• For more information, head to Gibson.

If there's one thing you can set you watch by, it's that there will be deals to be had on Epiphone and Gibson models come Black Friday. But I wasn't banking on so many landing this year, and so early! The early Guitar Center Black Friday sale launched last week and is fully loaded with Black Friday-worthy deals, but a standout for me is their up to $150 Epiphone discounts and, in particular, the four models I've hand-picked below.

In my opinion, Epiphone’s current collection offers a compelling blend of timeless designs and contemporary features, from expertly crafted replicas of iconic Gibson models to innovative new additions. For those starting their musical journey, there are also excellent options tailored for beginners.

Amongst the 11 Epiphone models up for grabs, the Guitar Center Black Friday sale features four distinct guitars that cater to everyone from first-time players looking for something affordable, to seasoned axe slingers looking to expand their collection with a limited edition guitar. New to Epiphone? You’ll find incredible value in their iconic, Gibson-inspired designs, too.

For beginners, you won’t find a better guitar to start with than the SG Special-I. An already affordable option, it’s even more tempting now with $50 off the price tag. This isn’t just a great guitar for kids. The SG Special-I is full-sized, making it ideal for adults looking to learn something new. With humbuckers, it naturally leans toward heavier music styles, so budding rockers act fast since stock is unlikely to hang about.

Moving on, let’s turn our attention to another iconic guitar, the Les Paul – specifically, the Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro IV, which is now $150 off at Guitar Center. As a Pro model, this Les Paul has some impressive features under the hood, including coil-splits and a treble bleed circuit. It’s also equipped with locking tuners, a notable upgrade over the Standard version. This model is available in four limited-edition finishes – Worn Metallic Gold, Worn Ebony, Worn Wine Red, and Worn Pacific Blue. If you’re ready to step up from a beginner model, this guitar might just be the perfect choice.

Finally, there are two very impressive ES-335s on sale. First up, in what I’d argue is the sweetest finish – olive drab – this ES-335 with a Bigsby has $120 off. We love the resonance of a semi-hollow guitar, and there aren’t much more comfortable or versatile than the 335; chuck in a Bigsby tremolo, and you’re laughing. There’s no hiding its beauty, and the Bigsby adds even more expressive flair, making this model a real standout.

The other 335 is equally as impressive. In the classic Cherry finish, this model – reduced by $130 – is loaded with Gibson USA humbuckers. That’s right, an ES-335 with USA Gibson humbuckers for under $720? It’s almost too good to be true. There’s a real spirit of Kalamazoo in this model, and with your eyes closed, you’d be hard-pressed to tell it apart from a guitar four times the price.

Shop more early Black Friday deals

• Sweetwater: Save up to 60% on guitar gear
• Musician's Friend: Up to 50% off Holiday Kick-off
• Fender: Shop 23 guitars up to 20% off
• Positive Grid: Major Black November Spark savings

Warren Haynes has revealed he’s got two Gibson signature guitars in the works – both of which will see the Allman Brothers Band legend lean into his new-found affinity for P-90s.

Haynes is no stranger to Gibsons and humbuckers, having almost exclusively played Les Pauls, Firebirds, and other Gibson guitars throughout his career. He’s also had a few signatures already in the past, including a Les Paul Standard in 2007 and an ES-335 in 2014.

P-90 electric guitars, though, are another story altogether, and as the Southern rock heavyweight explains in a new American Musical Supply interview, he’s planning to make the switch for his next run of signatures.

“I am working on some prototypes with Gibson, an upcoming Les Paul with P-90s and an upcoming Firebird with three P-90s,” he said. “I am about to delve into P-90 world pretty hard.”

As for why he’s decided to defect pickup ranks after all this time, Haynes explains that, although he’s familiar with humbuckers, he finds P-90s to be especially inspiring. It’s a feeling that can be traced back to a Custom Shop Firebird that Gibson once gifted him, which unusually came loaded with three P-90s.

“I have always played humbuckers for the most part but whenever I pick up a guitar with P-90s in it I get some inspiration from it,” he continues. “We’ve been talking about it for a long time.

“When I first brought up that I wanted to do another signature model Les Paul, P-90s became the obvious choice, and they had made me a Custom Shop Firebird one time with three P-90s in it, and I had never played a three-pickup Firebird before.

“It took some getting used to with the middle pickup, but once I got used to that, the tonal options were great. You could get so many different sounds, and so I loved experimenting with all the different possibilities.”

Haynes enjoyed his quirky Firebird so much that he’s used it as inspiration for his forthcoming signature drop.

“I am looking for new inspiration, something to change the way that I play at any given moment,” he reflects. “I love the fact that I have settled into a great sound with my Les Pauls through the years, but it is nice to challenge yourself sometimes – it creates a new spark that takes you into some new direction.”

It's worth noting that triple P-90 Firebirds aren't entirely unheard of, though they are rather rare. In the mid-1960s, a run of Firebird II Non-Reverse models – which have been reissued a number of times – were introduced.

These, naturally, aren't the same as regular Firebirds, and you'd be hard pressed to find examples of those out there that come stocked with a trio of P-90s.

Depending on what form it takes, Haynes' upcoming signature could plug that gap. Either way, it will make for one very cool signature guitar.

Haynes’ guitars have yet to be officially announced, and since it seems they’re both still in the development stages, we imagine we won’t hear anything more concrete until next year.

Head over to Gibson in the meantime.

For Luck and Strange, his fifth solo album, Pink Floyd legend David Gilmour leaned on both the familiar and the new, gear-wise. For instance, though he's known primarily as a Fender man – his Black Strat being the most expensive Stratocaster ever sold – Gilmour found himself falling for a Gibson ES-335 during the album's recording.

“I've not got a huge history with Gibson guitars, but this one [the ES-335] is one I've bought comparatively recently to have a different tone, a different thing,” Gilmour explained recently on his YouTube channel. “This is a very, very different sort of guitar to what I'm used to.”

For home demos, though, things were a bit more familiar.

“I will be using physical heads and cabinets on the tour – but at home I have this thing that’s now 30 years old called a Zoom,” Gilmour explained to Guitar World.

“It’s a tiny little gray box, and I use that most of the time when I’m working on the early version of songs. Because I know how to work it – it’s got lots of good sounds and I know how to adjust them.”

Below is a full list of the gear David Gilmour used to record Luck and Strange. You can thank Phil Taylor, who has been Gilmour’s guitar tech since 1974, not to mention Pink Floyd’s warehouse and studios manager.

Taylor also oversaw Fender’s 2008 introduction of the David Gilmour Signature Strat and is the author of The Black Strat: A History of David Gilmour’s Black Fender Stratocaster (2008).

Guitars, lap steels, and ukes

• 2008 Fender DG6 NOS Black Cat Strat
• 1958 Gretsch Duo Jet 
• 1956 Gibson Les Paul 
• 1961 Gibson ES-335
• 1930s Rickenbacker A-22 “frying pan” lap steel  
• 1930s Martin ukulele

• 1945 Martin D-18
• 2021 Martin DG D-35
• 2021 Martin DG D-35 12-string      
• 2019 Cordoba C10 Crossover 
• 1978 Zemaitis 3/4 acoustic 
• 1977 Ovation 1619-4 “high-strung”

Amps

• Hiwatt Custom 50 SA212
• Alessandro Redbone Special
• Fender Bandmaster
• Fender Tweed Twin
• Yamaha RA-200
• Lazy J 20

Effects

• Origin Effects Cali76 compressor
• Effectrode compressor
• Demeter Compulator compressor
• BK Butler Tube Driver
• Electro-Harmonix Big Muff
• Free the Tone Future Factory FY-1 (phase modulation delay)

• Binson Echorec 2 (echo/reverb)
• Dawner Prince Boonar (echo/delay)
• Source Audio EQ2
• Boss CE-2 Chorus
• Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress (flanger/chorus)
• Zoom 9030 (guitar multi-effects processor)

Luck & Strange is out now via Legacy. You can read all about the making of the album in Guitar World's interview with David Gilmour.

Before Marshall Amplification, there was Jim Marshall, his business acumen, and his small music shop at 76 Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, just a few miles away from The Ealing Club – the birthplace of The Rolling Stones and British rhythm and blues, and a hot spot for musicians.

“Jim was a very affable kind of guy,” recalls Blackmore in an interview at his tavern in the States. “He knew nothing about amplifiers, yet it's funny to see today, every band has got a Marshall amplifier, and that was built in the beginning by someone who knew nothing about amplifiers.”

“He was a drum teacher. I always find that slightly amusing!” he quips.

Ritchie Blackmore was one of Marshall’s early customers who later made a name for themselves. Recently, he recalled how the amp pioneer persuaded him to buy a Gibson ES-335 when he was around 16. This guitar accompanied him throughout the '60s, from The Outlaws to Deep Purple’s 1970 breakthrough album, In Rock.

“I went there with the intention of buying a Gretsch Jet Firebird. After half an hour of a sales pitch, he said, ‘Forget the Gretsch. That’s a toy compared to the 335.’ I went, ‘But I want the Gretsch. I love the Jet Firebird.’ He said, ‘You'll appreciate the 335 Gibson much more later in life.’ [So] I walked out with a Gibson!”

Blackmore goes on to say he paid 30 shillings – which was significant money at the time – for the guitar, plus another 30 shillings for an amp, on hire purchase, putting a dent in his wallet. “So I was left with next for nothing to live on for the week!”

In a classic 1991 Guitar World interview, the former Deep Purple guitarist explained why it was so difficult to eventually switch from Gibsons to Fenders between the band’s In Rock and Fireball eras.

“It's much easier to flow across the strings on a Gibson. Fenders have more tension, so you have to fight them a little bit. I had a hell of a time. But I stuck with the Fenders because I was so taken with their sound, especially when they were paired with a wah-wah.”

In recent Deep Purple news, Simon McBride pinpointed the Ritchie Blackmore lick he found most difficult to learn.

Look up any footage of Yungblud playing live on YouTube and there’s a strong chance you will see Adam Warrington on stage right.

The Scottish-born 28-year-old guitarist has been on almost every tour with the band, including landmark performances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals, various awards ceremony events and television appearances, including The Graham Norton Show. You’ll also spot his face in a lot of the music videos and see his name credited on a handful of tracks from the last two studio albums.

Back in November 2020, Yungblud decided to introduce Warrington to fans on his BBC Sounds podcast “because of how important he is in my life and in my career,” going on to describe him as a guitar player who always makes people turn their heads wherever he goes. High praise, indeed…

“I met Adam on Phil Taggart’s Slacker night in Old Street in East London,” Yungblud recalled. “I was like, I needed a guitar player. I kind of needed someone who would be the Sid Vicious to my Johnny Rotten, or the Carl Barât to my Pete Doherty or whatever. I remember we were both wearing Harringtons and you came up to me and passed me a beer. It was that doppelgänger thing and I was like, ‘Ah, hello!’”

Within two weeks of meeting, the pair were living together and playing in the same band. In the same podcast, Yungblud revealed how these early years playing together helped him transition from Dom Harrison Music to the pseudonym he’d go on to take over the world with – the relationship and chemistry fuelled by their shared love for Joy Division, gin and port.

The effervescent frontman praised Warrington’s well-roundedness and passion for the guitar but also championed his ability to not overthink it all. “He’s great at scales but he’s not going to be like, ‘Hey man, B minor diminished blah blah blah!’” grinned Yungblud. “He’ll just have a couple of beers and play you something amazing.”

Before working in his current role, Warrington was performing alongside chart-topping Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi, who remains one of his oldest friends and biggest supporters.

“Adam is one of my oldest pals from back home,” Capaldi once revealed. “We started off together playing shows out and about in tiny venues in Scotland. He’s an incredible guitar player and is usually off playing around the world with Yungblud now! It’s nice to have someone you grew up with going on to do amazing things.”

For live shows, Warrington tends to rely on his Gibson guitars – with models like his 2018 SG Standard, 2001 Les Paul Standard and Custom Shop ES-335 covering most of the set.

On the rack, you’re also likely to find a Gretsch G6128T-89VS Vintage Select ’89 Duo Jet with Bigsby and Fender Classic Player Jazzmaster Special, with whichever he picks up running in stereo via a Hiwatt Custom 20 and Marshall 1962 Bluesbreaker reissue.

The latter was demonstrated on Marshall’s YouTube channel as part of its Artist Spotlight series, in which Warrington explained how it was the John Mayall’s Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton connection that led him to the amp, citing it as his main workhorse. “It’s called a Bluesbreaker for a reason,” he smiled, highlighting its ability to sing and cut through with a “really amazing middle presence”.

As for pedals, there’s an entire universe of tonal options coming from the high-performance Boss 500 series – namely the RV-500 reverb, the DD-500 delay and MD-500 modulation. For standalone stompboxes, he favours the Ibanez WH10V3 wah, Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, DigiTech Whammy, Z.Vex Super Hard On boost and Dunlop Echoplex delay pedal.

And there’s no shortage of fuzz options coming from a JHS Crayon, which recreates the sound of plugging direct into a preamp; a JHS Muffuletta, which packs five classic Big Muffs into one unit; and a Fulltone ’70 BC-108C – famously reverse-engineered from Eric Johnson’s original blue Fuzz Face, which made history on the Strat virtuoso’s early studio albums.

Of his first studio solo release for nine years, and his fourth since Pink Floyd split, David Gilmour says: “The album’s called Luck And Strange. It’s the ‘luck’ of the very strange moment that me, and baby boomers in general, have lived through,” he says. “To have had such a fortunate moment, so many positive ideas that one thought were moving us forward.”

For guitar lovers, the album is a showcase for fabulous instruments of all stripes, from Fender Stratocasters (of course) to vintage Gibson Les Paul Goldtop and ES-335 dot neck, Gretsch Duo-Jet, classic Martin acoustics and ukuleles, and of course David’s ancient Rickenbacker lap steel ‘frying pan’ that features throughout.

Produced by Mercury Music Prize winner Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with Alt-J, Gilmour admires Andrew’s lack of reverence for both him and his musical history. “He’s quite bossy and doesn’t have any great preconceptions about what I do, or what Pink Floyd has done,” laughs David. “He just tells us what he wants us to get on with, and we get on with it. The result is extremely pleasing to me.”

“David’s been very receptive to my bossiness,” says Charlie.

With few budget restraints, the album brims with instruments, players and voices, including orchestrations by Will Gardner, and boasting the choir of Ely Cathedral (the ‘ship of the fens’ featured on the cover of Floyd’s Division Bell album). The orchestrations are “break-your-heart beautiful,” says David’s wife and lyricist Polly Samson. Gilmour agrees: “He’s a real genius.”

David Gilmour is one of those musicians held in almost universal reverence by players and music fans alike. “David Gilmour is an outstanding Strat player,” says arch-melodist
Hank Marvin. “He always gets a variety of great tones, uses finger vibrato and the bar, has super feel, creates beautifully constructed bluesy solos and is not afraid to let a phrase really
speak. Wonderful!”

“I’ve changed my whole thinking about guitar,” says Toto’s Steve Lukather. “I’d rather be more like David Gilmour than anybody else.”

Gilmour joined Pink Floyd as the group’s founder and guitarist Syd Barrett drifted from the band due to mental health issues. Since then, he has enjoyed a stellar career and his compositions, vocals, and huge soaring solos have featured on several of the world’s greatest-selling albums. The Dark Side Of The Moon became the fourth best-selling album of all time.

Wish You Were Here is another monster, full of epic tracks including Shine On You Crazy Diamond, while The Wall features the Gilmour and Roger Waters composition Comfortably Numb – in 2022 Total Guitar readers voted it the third-best solo of all time, after Van Halen’s Eruption and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

When Pink Floyd finally imploded, Gilmour released solo albums like the eponymous debut, plus On An Island and Rattle That Lock, where he enlisted the help of fellow legends David Crosby, Graham Nash, Phil Manzanera, Jools Holland, Roger Eno, Floyd’s Rick Wright and others, to create finely-sculpted and highly-regarded works.

Gilmour’s playing is ever-tasteful, always in service of the song, and offers a range of techniques including string bends (with the infamous compound bend) and vibrato, both finger and whammy style. His compositions are thoughtful and musical, with arrangements that blend rock, pop, prog and blues to create dreamy musical soundscapes.

All of this is in evidence on Luck And Strange. But there’s a sense within the Gilmour camp that this one is something special. “I started off in a pop group,” says Gilmour, “and I found myself eventually leading that group, never a position I wanted. Same with being a solo artist – not something I really asked for.

“This album feels much closer to that than I’ve had all these years, with a group of people very collaborative, very positive, and pushing in everything they can to what we’re doing. It’s the best album I’ve made since The Dark Side Of The Moon in 1973.”

1. Black Cat

At just a minute and a half, the album’s instrumental opener features just Gilmour on guitar and piano, plus ambient genius Roger Eno on synthesiser. Black Cat features a replacement for the infamous black Strat that David sold at auction in 2019 for over £3,000,000.

A typically simple piece in C minor, the playing could be no-one else. It’s beautiful, tasteful and although mainly minor pentatonic-based, is laced with colour tones, glorious bends, and subtle vibrato, not to mention that echo-laden ‘fingerprint’ Stratocaster tone.

2. Luck and Strange

“Luck And Strange comes from a jam that we did in 2007 while Rick Wright was still alive,” Gilmour explains. “I wrote choruses and bridges for it and Polly wrote these great words. From the first second you hear Rick playing his electric piano, you just know there’s something about it that no one else could do.”

Introduced by Gilmour’s black Gretsch Duo Jet, it’s as close as he ever gets to a foot-tapper. The changes are very Floyd-y, too, especially the Em-C in the bridge, followed by the very Dark Side-ish G-Gdim5-C move. Packed with gorgeous bluesy fills and another monster solo, Gilmour’s vocals are relaxed and confident. A great track that harks back across the decades, both lyrically and musically.

3. The Piper’s Call

The album’s first single was written on David’s old Martin ukulele and begins with uke and acoustic guitar licks. “It’s a song about the Faustian pact – that deal with the devil,” David explains. “It could be with using up the planet,” says Polly Samson, “it could be with hedonism.”

The powerful fills and huge solo are played on possibly the same 1955 Les Paul Goldtop used on Another Brick In The Wall Part 2. Lyrically the song is almost Roger Waters-like in its social commentary: the dismissal of materialism (“ the spoils of fame”) and treachery (“but you reap what you sow, as I found long ago”).

But is the ‘piper’ The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (Floyd’s debut album on which Gilmour didn’t play but which he performed live after Barrett left the band), or perhaps the Pied Piper of Hamelin? Whatever its meaning, the track’s simple beauty belies the insidious darkness behind it.

4. Between Two Points

“Polly always asks who my favourite drummer is,” states David. “Steve Gadd of course!” This song from The Montgolfier Brothers, a ’90s dream-pop duo featuring Mark Tranmer and Roger Quigley, had been on Gilmour’s personal playlist for years.

“I made a backing track and realised the lyrics weren’t naturally a thing I’d sing,” expresses David. So he asked daughter Romany to provide vocals. Gilmour says the guitar solo is a rare moment.

“I was so into that moment, it was like being stoned but I wasn’t – not separated from the guitar and what I was playing at that particular moment, which is rare. It was joyful.”

5. A Single Spark

Featuring Romany, Daniel and David Gilmour on ethereal backing vocals, with the man himself singing raspy lead, this cool track’s Cmaj7-Dm7-G7 verse is propelled by Adam Betts’ lovely loping drums. As for the solo, it’s about as melodic as a player can get, following the chords and targeting notes like major 7th, 9th and 5th so musically.

6. Vita Brevis

If Black Cat represents the tasty pre-dinner nibbles then this 46-second snippet is the sorbet break in our 9-course feast. Featuring daughter Romany on delicate harp, and David playing swooping slide guitar it’s a pretty and easy-to-digest respite from the weightier pieces here.

Played as an entire album rather than cherry-picking tracks, Vita Brevis (life is short) works perfectly in the context of the overall offering.

7. Dark And Velvet Nights

Featuring A-list session drummer Steve Gadd and long-time collaborator on bass, Guy Pratt, Dark And Velvet Nights is one of the album’s highlights.

“The music sprang out of me one day,” exclaims David, although the lyrics were pure happenstance. “Polly had given me a poem for our wedding anniversary and it happened to be sitting on my desk next to me. I just picked up the paper and sang these words.”

Gilmour played it to Polly, she loved it, added some further lyrics… “and there it was. Serendipitous, really.” With possibly the most soaring, anthemic solo on the album - played on David’s recently acquired dot-neck Gibson ES-335 (“I don’t know why I didn’t discover one of these a long time ago”) it’s a joyous yet melancholy piece.

8. Sings

Again, there’s no mistaking the writing and playing here. Featuring David’s two-year-old son Joe imploring him to “sing daddy, sing”, the track’s chorus was originally written 25 years ago.

Perhaps more of a grower than an instantaneous album ‘hit’ it does finish with a tasty, dare we say Roger Waters-ish, repeating bass guitar run (possibly from Gilmour himself).

9. Scattered

Lyrically credited to Samson, and both David and son Charlie Gilmour, Scattered is a classic E minor ballad, but with a few surprises. It starts in atmospheric style with a synth-borne descending Em-D-Cmaj7 sequence that builds to a darkly diminished piano breakdown from Eno and Rob Gentry.

Light relief comes with Gilmour’s acoustic guitar solo. But it’s the calm before the storm as his distortion-laden guitar takes off like a rocket to the pentatonic Strat-osphere. If there’s a Comfortably Numb moment on the album, then this is it!

10. Yes, I Have Ghosts

Another short and sparsely instrumented number, …Ghosts boasts only Gilmour on acoustic guitar, with daughter Romany on backing vocals, string programming and harp.

The instruments and vocals weave elegantly around one another, before David’s acoustic outro solo dances around Polly’s programmed violin before the song fades out. Somewhat Elizabethan in nature it’s an interesting left turn from the album’s more symphonic tracks.

11. Luck And Strange (original Barn Jam)

A spontaneous jam in Gilmour’s freezing barn with the late Rick Wright playing unmistakable electric piano (with Guy Pratt on bass and Steve DiStanislao on drums), there are nevertheless epic Gilmour moments here. He’s as cool (sic) as ever, never drops a note, and this could well be the original black Strat.

Joe Perry has one of the most epic guitar collections on the planet, and we’re not just talking just primo vintage unicorns, ’59 Gibson Les Paul Standards, ’62 Stratocasters, and all that collector’s gold. He’s got all kinds of weird guitars.

He likes oddball electric guitars, strange shapes with reverse headstocks, finishes that look like they’ve been recovered from the ocean.

There are custom builds and stock Strats, too. And as he reveals in this edition of Bought & Sold – your monthly repository of gear stories from guitar’s best and brightest – Perry even has a serious crush on the post-war European guitars, and he has a particular liking of one very special (and inexpensive) Harmony hollowbody that has got riffs in it and lots of them.

What was the first serious guitar that you bought with your own money?

“I got a Guild Starfire IV. It was the one that didn’t have the master volume knob, but it was good. It had the two smaller humbucker-style pickups and it pretty much had that classic ES-335 shape, you know – the double‑cutaway with the holes. It was Guild’s version of that.

“I always wanted a Gibson, like that vibe, but I didn’t have the money and that one was hanging on the wall. So that’s what I got. That served me pretty well until I really got rolling.”

What was the last guitar you bought and why?

“I haven’t gotten it yet, but I put an order in for the six-string basses that Fender is reissuing. I had an original six‑string bass that I wrote Back In The Saddle with; I played that on stage in the ’70s. It had four toggle switches on it and was stolen in the late ’80s. I was really bummed about that, of course, and I was on the road. I was scrambling for another six-string bass and the only thing I could find was a three-toggle version.

“It was okay, but I talked to the guys at Music Man and they made me a six-string bass, which has a shorter scale length and a little wider neck. They put a Floyd Rose on it because I liked that vibrato for six-string bass chords.

“When you play that, you get a little bit of that movement with the bar and it sounds amazing. So that’s what I’ve been using live for the last 20 years; it’s a little easier to play and a little easier on my fingers when we do Back In The Saddle. But I saw that Fender is reissuing some of these, and they’re probably as good as they were made back then. So I’ve got an order in for one of those.

“The other guitar I shelled money out for was a Strat that somebody showed me from Fender. It’s kind of a purple that has been distressed and it just looks beautiful. The thing is, they are only sold through Sweetwater and I had to have it, so I bought it from Sweetwater. I used that quite a bit on the recent Hollywood Vampires tour.”

What’s the most incredible find or bargain you’ve ever had when buying guitars?

“I have to say, they all feel like bargains when you get them in your hands, you know? There’s a reason – there’s something about every one of those, whether it’s a late-’50s [Les Paul] Junior with one P-90, a hollowbody Harmony, or whatever. If you pick it up and you can play it… there are no bad tones, no wrong tones. It’s just what it inspires you to do.

“You may pick up a guitar, and there’s something that’s harmonically a little different and it may inspire you to write a riff that you might not have if you picked up your old standard whatever-it-is. So that’s why when I’m buying guitars some of my favourites are the European guitars from the ’50s and ’60s. That’s some incredible stuff. They’re not what’s on the cover of Guitar World this month, but there’s something about them.

“I’ve written some riffs that have ended up being on some of my favourite songs with this old Harmony hollowbody. It has like an old piezo in it; it’s just got this great feel. I’ve written some riffs that I probably wouldn’t have written if I hadn’t picked that guitar up. That’s why my guitar collection is probably half oddballs, Airlines, and those kinds of guitars.”

Have you ever experienced buyer’s remorse after acquiring a guitar?

“Not really. I’m terrible about getting rid of stuff to make room for something else [laughs]. It’s like when you have a workshop and you’ve got scrap metal or wood; you put it away because you never know when that will come in handy. And that increases my vocabulary for when I’m in the studio.

“You don’t know what’s going to work; there aren’t horrible guitar sounds. Obviously, if it’s unplayable, or – well, I can’t even say that because there are some guitars on which you might only get three strings working and that might just be the sound you need for an overdub. You never know. So it’s tough to say that I have any regrets about buying guitars. Though it does lead me to the question that I know is coming…”

Have you ever sold a guitar that you now intensely regret letting go?

“I have to say that I’ve probably had an equal number of guitars stolen from me as what I’ve sold. I had a Junior, which was a single-cutaway with a P-90 and just a flat body. It was my main guitar back in the ’70s, and it got stolen. I miss that one.

“But with selling, I’ve got a story. In the ’90s, when we had a place up on Lake Sunapee [in New Hampshire], on 4 July they would have fireworks out in the harbour. Every year, we would get out on the boat and there were hundreds of boats all parked out in the harbour to watch the fireworks.

“Back then, it was kind of hard to find amplifiers that worked off batteries, but there were a couple of things. I think Fender had these things that looked like a can, had a battery in them and were very loud. I got a transformer hooked up to the battery on the boat, and I got a couple of amps working; it was loud enough and the sound travels pretty well across water.

“It was one of those quiet nights before the fireworks went off. Families were out on the boats, and I had this guitar that I found out on the road somewhere – it was a red Hofner copy of a Strat that sounded a little Strat-y. So I knew the fireworks were going to start at 8pm, so at about 7.30 I turned all the amps on and I played The Star‑Spangled Banner and it echoed across the water.

“Nobody really knew who was playing or where it came from, but it was fun. Families were in the boats and people were clapping. So I did that for a couple of years with that particular guitar, and as the years went on the guitar ended up getting back with my main collection.

“I was kinda in one of those moods at the end of the tour, and I had like 400 of these guitars that I never played. I said, ‘I gotta get rid of some of these things. It’s time to clean house a little bit.’ I earmarked a few guitars to go and somehow that guitar got on the list. And like three or four months later, I found out that it was gone and was like, ‘Next time, I gotta pay more attention to this. I’m not getting rid of anything else for a while.’”

“A couple of years later, we’re on the bullet train in Japan, and as the bullet train is pulling out 30 or 40 people follow us up there. As the train was moving along, I saw a kid holding that guitar out for me to sign it. But the train was already moving, slowly pulling out, and the kid was holding it out with a Magic Marker. I’m thinking, ‘Man, I gotta get the kid’s number to see if I could buy it back or trade it for something else,’ because it did have some sentimental value, you know?

“But we were off to the next city, and at that point I didn’t have any ideas about how to get in touch with the guy. I suppose I could have tracked him down through the fan club and tried to figure out who it was, but it was lost. That’s one guitar I would like to try and buy back because it had sentimental value to me during those times up on the lake.”

Hopefully, someone reading this will find a way to get the guitar back to you.

“I’ll buy it back. I’ll trade it for something else, you know? It would be fun to get that back. And again, that was one of those off-the-wall, not exactly the hippest guitar of the month. But it sounded pretty cool and it had a really good neck. It was more about the sentimental things. I regret having lost that.”

What’s your best guitar-buying tip?

“Spend a little time with it. If it’s in the guitar store, plug it in and close your eyes and if it’s right, you’ll know. You can generally tell if a guitar is going to be a good one by how it sounds when it’s not plugged in. A lot of it is how the wood and the metal react, how it sustains and how it feels; that’s the most important thing.

“It can even be a $120 guitar, but if it feels right to you, that’s what you gotta go by. So much of it has to do with how it feels in your hands and how it hits your ears. I’ve found very often that sometimes you have to try things that don’t go by the book or don’t follow the rules.”

“I remember doing the solo for Janie’s Got A Gun, and I wanted something that sounded really angry and really, really nasty because it was that kind of a song. I plugged in – I had a Gibson Chet Atkins, and they can sound harsh if you turn them up too much because they’re meant to sound like a loud acoustic guitar.

“I had it plugged into a 15-watt Marshall transistor practice amp, and I turned the volume all the way up. I played it for Bruce Fairbairn, the producer, and he said, ‘It sounds like shit,’ and it kind of did [laughs].

“It was pretty crazy and nasty. It had that mid top-end that you can get with a transistor amp, especially those early ones. They have their place in the sound spectrum. But overall, well, it was definitely nasty. But I said, ‘Well, let’s just give it a try.’ It had that bite and it worked for me. For something else, it would be totally wrong, but for that, it worked great.”

When was the last time you stopped and looked in a guitar shop window or browsed online and what were you looking at?

“I’m thinking of maybe buying another organ. I love the old Hammond B-3s, and I’d like to buy another B-3 so that the keyboard player in Aerosmith can have the real thing. Lately, I’ve been rummaging around, but there are a lot of factors involved.

“Ultimately, I’d like one that’s chopped down, so it’s not huge. I had an old B-3, but I think it came out of a church. It was like this gigantic piece of furniture and it took up half the room, for Christ’s sake [laughs]. But anyway, I was online a couple of nights ago looking around just to see what they’re going for.

“Other than that, I get the magazines – I get them all, just to see what the latest and hottest stuff is. I’ve been experimenting with old speakers, and my last big dig was going on eBay looking for old speakers, like late-’30s and ’40s. Some of them sound amazing, you know?”

If you could only use humbuckers or single coil pickups for the rest of your career, which would it be and why?

“That’s funny because Seymour Duncan makes a pickup with a P-90 and a single-coil Strat kind of pickup [the P-Rails]. It sits in a humbucker slot and that’s on my beat-up ‘Burned Strat’ that I’ve been playing since we put it together in 2001. It was already a Frankenstein; I’m always tweaking it and adding odd bits and pieces here and there to make it better.

“But anyway, they make this pickup that I’m surprised nobody mentions in the magazines. It’s great because you can have it be the centre kind of pickup, the P-90, or both together, and then you basically get a humbucker out of it. I would choose that pickup to go to a desert island with because you can get a huge kick and great tone out of it.

“It’s really amazing. Each has a three-way switch, so you don’t have to use a separate switch in the pickups. There’s a little toggle where you can switch it back and forth if you want, and it drops right into the humbucker hole. It’s really a cool pickup – you can be playing along and accidentally flip the switch, and you’ll get a different tone, but it’ll be just as cool as the one you’re playing. So it’s a lot of fun to mess around with. It’s like a good Strat, with the five-way toggle, just doubled.”

• Sweetzerland Manifesto MKII is available now on Roman Records

Joe Bonamassa has recalled the origins of his relationship with Epiphone, saying their partnership first started “out of complete and utter spite”.

The prestigious bluesman and guitar nerd has been working with Epiphone for over a decade and has just dropped his 12th Epi signature guitar in the form of a Copper Iridescent 1955 Les Paul Standard. Now he’s lifted the lid on how their fruitful partnership came to be.

The pair's previous collaborations have included the 'Lazarus' 1959 Les Paul Standard and a 1962 ES-335, with Bonamassa eager to bring more affordable vintage-inspired guitars to the market.

“I was in the UK at a guitar shop, which is standard behavior for myself, and I noticed that there was an import model called Vintage,” he told Gibson Gear Guide host Dinesh Lekhraj in a new video. “They do knockoff Les Pauls, and they had two of them: one that clearly had the pickup turned around and it was a Peter Green clone, and they called it something clever.

“And they had a jazz and blues model, which was gold, and it had mismatched knobs,” he continues. “I bought it. It was £300. I stuck it in a gig bag and I brought it to this location [in Nashville] and showed it to the then-CEO of Epiphone, Jim Rosenberg. I said, 'These guys over in the UK are having a lot of fun, and I want in.'”

The rest, as they say, is history, with the collaboration quickly producing a Goldtop Les Paul in 2013. A raft of eye-catching builds, including a 1963 SG Custom, have since followed.

Their latest creation sees the return of a highly obscure Gibson colorway. It's also the first of their builds to feature P-90s.

Bonamassa says the pickup choice was “long overdue”, after he made a strong case for fitting P-90s into Les Pauls last year.

For the uninitiated, British luthier Vintage started in 1995 in the North of England with an ethos of making classic instruments “for the working musician”.

Bonamassa clearly saw an opening for some Epiphone-driven heritage hat tipping and has since become a tour-de-force in bringing vintage icons to lower price points.

Speaking to Total Guitar earlier this year, he furthered the viability of affordable alternatives by saying “some of the greatest sounds were created on junk!”

Gibson has revived its ES-330 hollowbody electric guitar for the first time in years.

It’s a rather notable release from Gibson, and will especially pique the interests of ES fans. Namely, the arrival of the Original Series ES-330 marks the first time Gibson has had a ES-330 proper on its books for what could be as long as half a decade.

Indeed, a brief browse of Gibson’s catalog (prior to today’s launch, of course) will reveal a range of ES-335s, a smattering of ES-345s, the ES Supreme and even the ES-339 across its Artist, Custom and Murphy Lab families… but no ES-330.

Given the impressive history of the 330, it’s a welcome return for one of Gibson’s most known models.

First unveiled in 1959, the ES-330 distinguished itself from the similarly shaped ES-335 with a pair of Dogear P-90s, the absence of a wood center block, and a Trapeze tailpiece, though arguably arrived in the shadow of its dual PAF-loaded sibling, which was launched a year before.

There were also some ergonomic and dimensional differences, with original 330s flashing a shorter neck that was in some way responsible for its faltering popularity.

Owing to its electrics and hollowbody design, the ES-330 – a distant cousin of the revered Epiphone Casino – offered a completely different tonal palette compared to semi-hollow ES alternatives.

The first production run lasted until the early 1970s, and the guitar was more recently reissued for a run between 2012 and 2019. Since then, ES-330s have been highly elusive and hard to come by.

To faithfully tap into the original ES-330 vibe, this new model features a fully hollow thinline three-ply body composed from maple and poplar, as well as a Rounded C mahogany neck with a 12” radius rosewood fingerboard.

The ’board also has 22 medium jumbo frets and small block inlays in a nod to the change that took place in 1962, when blocks were swapped in for dot inlays. Vintage Deluxe tuners with White Buttons – again, which were used on original models – can also be found.

As mentioned, there’s a Trapeze tailpiece, as well as an ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge, Black Top Hat control knobs and a pair of black-covered Dogear P-90s. Sixties Cherry, Tobacco Sunburst, Antique Natural and a Gibson-exclusive Ebony are available as finish options.

“The ES-330 is not only a fantastic-sounding electric guitar for stage and studio use but is also equally enjoyable as a songwriting tool and is considered by many to be the ideal 'couch guitar' since it can be enjoyed just as well when unplugged and played acoustically,” Gibson writes.

“We’re proud to bring the ES-330 back to the Gibson catalog so players can once again have the opportunity to discover the magic of this distinctive-sounding, vintage-inspired classic.”

The ES-330 is available now for $3,499.

Visit Gibson to find out more.

Joe Bonamassa and Epiphone have reunited for their annual signature guitar drop with the release of a new electric guitar inspired by the blues rock heavyweight’s own 1955 Les Paul Standard.

Bonamassa’s 12th signature Epi to date, the guitar is also notably his first Artist Series Epiphone to feature a pair of P-90s, with previous examples – such as the 1959 'Lazarus' Les Paul, Black Beauty Custom and 1962 ES-335 – all favoring humbuckers.

Unorthodox pickup choices aside, there’s perhaps a bigger selling point with this particular model: it features an especially rare oddball colorway that you’ll struggle to find anywhere else.

As Bonamassa explains in a video on the Gibson Gear Guide, the Copper Iridescent finish that his new model offers was a standardized option, with Epiphone noting it was first created for display at the 1955 NAMM Show.

However, it is exceedingly rare: only three 1955 Les Paul Standards with this finish are known to exist – and Bonamassa owns two of them. Not only that, Epiphone had to track down the original paint color to revive it.

And what a finish it is: similar to the flip-flopping hues of more contemporary sheens, Copper Iridescent has a very subtle metallic vibe, which seems to change the guitar’s appearance depending on the light.

In some cases, it looks deep black. In others, it has a neat light brown shade to it. Dare we say this is the nicest finish of any Bonamassa Epiphone we’ve seen over the past decade?

“This is based on two 1955 Copper Iridescent Les Pauls that I own,” Bonamassa explains. “It was a standardized color, there just weren’t many of them.

“I was talking to Mat Koehler, and I said, ‘We’ve never done a P-90 guitar.’ I’m known as a humbucker player, but the P-90s are always great. That little spark on top, the humbucking pickup doesn’t do that.

In fact, Bonamassa is so impressed with his new model, he admits, “I can already tell you this sounds better than one of my original ’55s” – owing to the fact that one of his 1955 models still has the factory strings on.

The guitar is a standard Epi at heart with some signature twists, featuring a bound maple-topped mahogany body, Custom ’59 Rounded C mahogany neck, and bound laurel fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets.

Other notable specs that hark back to the source material include Pearloid Trapezoid inlays, a Long Tenon set neck glued in neck joint, and those Epiphone P-90 PRO Soapbar P-90s.

As for hardware, there are Epiphone Deluxe tuners, a LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge / Stop Bar tailpiece combo, and color-matched Copper Iridescent Speed control knobs.

“I’m happy we’ve done a P-90 guitar because it was long overdue. We’ve done Flying Vs, 335s we did the SG last year… I’ve lost track of how many we’ve done,” says Bonamassa.

Bonamassa’s latest signature Les Paul is available now for $849.

Visit Epiphone to find out more.

Gibson has released its latest B.B. King tribute electric guitar – and it’s a recreation of his famed 1974 ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ ES-355.

Though the blues great is most commonly associated with his pristine Ebony-finished semi-hollow models, King was also well-known for playing a huge array of extended ES variations throughout his career.

Those include his ‘Live at The Regal’ ES-335 – which Gibson revived back in February 2023 – and, of course, his legendary Lucille, which the firm reimagined and treated to a fancy figured maple finish in 2022 as the ‘Lucille Legacy’.

Now, Gibson has brought back another high-profile King six-string, shining the spotlight on the Walnut-finished 1974 ES-355 that was heavily used in the latter half of the 1970s.

Specifically, King most notably played his original model at a music festival that promoted the famous ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ heavyweight boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali in Zaire 1974.

Along with the likes of Live at the Regal and Live in Japan, King’s Rumble in the Jungle concert is considered one of his greatest live outings, and saw the blues great solo through tracks such as The Thrill is Gone, I Like to Live the Love, Sweet Sixteen, Ain’t Nobody Home and more.

At the core of the performance was the 1974 ES-355 model in question, which, according to Gibson, ended up serving as King’s main guitar for six years. The model that replaced it? The official Gibson Lucille, which the firm released in 1980.

“B.B. King’s performance at the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ was not just a concert – it was a defining cultural moment,” comments Vassal Benford, CEO and Chairman of the B.B. King Music Company. “We are honored to collaborate with Gibson to create a guitar that captures both the artistry and spirit of B.B. King’s legendary performance.

“This instrument is more than a tribute – it’s a continuation of his enduring legacy, ensuring that future generations of musicians can connect with the heart and soul of the blues.”

Gibson has sought to faithfully revive the original Rumble in the Jungle model, with this limited-edition repro offering touches such as the Maestro Vibrola tailpiece, a Varitone switch, Kluson Waffleback tuners, lashings of aged gold hardware and a stunning Walnut colorway.

Other aesthetic specs include a five-ply tortoise pickguard, block inlays, headstock binding and an engraved ‘Stereo’ truss rod.

Build-wise, a body comprising laminated maple top, back and sides houses a red spruce binding, and is joined by an ebony-topped three-piece mahogany neck. To give it a retro 1974 vibe, a light Murphy Lab Aging finish treatment has been applied.

As for tones, a pair of T-Type Custombucker Alnico 5 pickups are joined by Gibson’s classic two volume/two tone combo, as well as the six-position Mono Varitone, which serves as a notch filter control.

Only 100 will be made, with each coming in at $9,999.

Visit Gibson to find out more.

Harley Benton has spent the past few weeks bolstering its amp modeling multi-effects range – thanks to the $82 DNAfx GiT Core – as well as its DIY guitar kit offerings, but now the champion of cheap gear has returned its attention to its core electric guitar and bass guitar ranges.

To that end, Harley Benton has unveiled a new-look version of arguably its most popular semi-hollow model – the sub–$350 HB-35Plus Tremolo electric – which has been joined by two all-new HB-50 basses.

Now, the four-strings look nice and everything – you can’t go wrong with Cherry Red and Vintage Orange, after all – but it’s that electric guitar that has really piqued our interests.

The 335-a-like has been treated to an Olive Drab finish – a colorway, you might recall, that was previously issued to Gibson’s very own electric guitar range as part of the firm’s Exclusives Collection.

Even before then, Gibson’s Olive Drab finish has been one of the company’s most desirable – and also most exclusive – colorways, cropping up for a range of Flying Vs, Les Pauls and SGs across the decades.

More recently, Olive Drab was made available as an Epiphone finish, as part of a limited run of SGs and the Casino range.

Included in that Gibson drop back in 2021 was a Dot ES-335 that carried a rather premium price tag: if you wanted an Olive Drab 335, you’d have to pay close to $3k. And, even if you wanted to spend that much now, you wouldn’t be able to: it’s been discontinued.

Harley Benton’s effort, by comparison, is very much available to buy, and will only set you back $335. Not only that, this version arrives with a Bigsby-style tremolo – the first in the HB-35 range to do so, no less – which helps add to its artificial vintage charm.

Desirable finish and hardware aside, the HB-35Plus Tremolo offers a standard Harley Benton spec sheet comprising a maple body and C-shape nato neck, as well as a 22-fret, block-inlaid laurel fingerboard.

Other appointments include a graphite nut, DLX Kluson-style tuners, a TOM-style bridge and a pair of Roswell LAF humbuckers that are wired to a faithful two volume/two tone/three-way toggle switch control circuit.

It’s a spec sheet you’d expect from a guitar that costs $335, but probably not a finish.

As mentioned, it’s joined by two semi-hollow basses, which are equally Gibson-inspired in their provenance. The HB-50, which is priced at $268, takes cues from the EB-2 bass, and offers a maple body, maple neck, amaranth fingerboard and an Artec MMC4 Vintage Alnico 5 humbucker.

Head over to Harley Benton to find out more.

Gibson had used the ‘Electric Spanish’ or ‘ES’ designation since the launch of its first electric guitar, the ES-150, in 1936, but it would later become synonymous with the thinline double-cutaway ‘semi-acoustic’ ES-335T, which first appeared on the back cover of Gibson’s spring catalogue in 1958 (along with the initially short-lived Flying V).

A quick word on ES nomenclature before we continue: T stands for thinline, so applies to all models; D is for double-pickup, redundant for all but the 330; N is for Natural, C for Cherry and W for Walnut); S for stereo; and V for Vari-tone. Some now call the later, longer variant a 330L, but that was never official.

Back to the ES-335, then, and this model had a pair of Gibson’s new and improved noise-cancelling ‘humbucking’ pickups, four controls and a switch, dot fretboard markers and a stop tailpiece, while also launching with new, bigger frets, which would soon feature across all models.

Sunburst was the standard finish at $267.50, with Natural blonde an optional $15 upcharge. A radical design, it proved successful and has been in production ever since, almost matching Gibson’s long-running ES-175 jazzbox, which was produced for 70 years, from 1949 to 2019.

Like the early Les Pauls from 1952, the neck angle of the first 335 models was too shallow. This required the bridge and stoptail to be ground thinner and thereby made more fragile to get a good playing action. This issue was fixed by 1959 when neck binding was also added.

That same year, Gibson jumped to extend the range with the fancier ES-345, featuring stereo output (sending each pickup to a separate amp) and Vari-tone circuitry, and the even posher ES-355 (introduced in a very small number in 1958 before its official introduction in ’59) added multi-ply binding, gold hardware and Les Paul Custom neck appointments.

Single Minded

The runt of the litter was the ES-330T – the single-pickup sibling to the 330TD and the main focus of this feature – which joined the ranks in 1959, replacing the ES-225, along with its fellow new double-cutaway thinlines, the 335, 345 and 355. Not much cheaper at $230 (in Sunburst), it was a more showy proposition than entry-level ‘student’ models such as the Les Paul Junior.

The 330’s construction was surprisingly different. The neck joined the body three frets earlier (at the 16th fret, rather than the 19th of the 335), reducing higher register access.

And whereas the rest have a solid maple block under the top to anchor the pickups, bridge and tailpiece, the 330 is fully hollow. It therefore has a trapeze tailpiece to anchor the strings, which wasn’t fitted to other ES models until several years later – and in turn was removed by many players.

330s are a great transition guitar for acoustic players who often play cleaner and are used to dealing with feedback, while the hollow construction confers a certain familiar snap to the action.

Unlike their fancier siblings, 330s had Gibson’s earlier single-coil P-90 pickups under dog-ear covers – black plastic until ’62, then nickel-plated until turning to chrome in ’65. Bigsby and Gibson vibratos were offered across the ES range and all models’ features evolved along the typical Gibson path over time.

Knobs started as ‘bonnets’ and became metal cap ‘reflectors’ in 1960, before changing again to ‘witch hats’ by ’67. Switch tips lightened over the years as plastics improved, but they often darken to a nice amber with age.

The 330 necks had a chunky C profile in ’58, flattening slightly to a D in ’59, and got much skinnier in 1960, fattening again by ’63. Many feel the fatter necks have a bigger tone – just witness Clapton’s famous ’64 Cherry ES-335. By ’65, however, necks were narrower at the nut, compromising playability and desirability. Meanwhile, rectangular pearl blocks replaced the original dot fret markers in ’62.

As ever, there are transitional examples, such as the mid-’62 330s with plastic pickup covers and block fret markers (Guitarist contributor Huw Price has a great example). To many, the plastic covers sound better and their combination with the great-playing dot necks explains why these earlier examples are the most sought after.

Another quirk is that some 330s seem to have left the factory with two knurled thumb wheels on each bridge post. One adjusts bridge height and action, while the other rests on the body, arguably helping tone transfer and certainly stabilising the posts, which can lean and skew intonation.

Taking Shape

Body shapes also evolved, the earliest having very rounded corners and nicknamed ‘Mickey Mouse ears’; these became more pointed by ’63. Body thickness was quite variable, too, and the earliest ES models had thinner tops (4.4mm versus the later 5.6mm), making them even more responsive – and indeed desirable.

This writer discovered this via a fellow UK collector who sourced many of his beautiful ES guitars from world-leading expert Charlie Gelber of OK Guitars in Kent, Connecticut. Charlie has handled hundreds of golden-age ESes, including unique custom orders. Most of his personal favourites have these thin tops and come from a specific serial number and date range in 1959.

The finish colours of 330 models followed that of the 335: three-tone Sunburst was standard, with Natural blonde an option in ’59 and ’60, succeeded by Cherry in ’60 (though Gelber has so far unearthed 19 Cherry-finished 335es from ’59). A two-tone yellow to sepia sunburst, Argentine Gray, also surfaces occasionally.

The first Sunburst Les Pauls show Gibson’s red pigment was famously unstable until early to mid-1960. The earliest Cherry ESes also fade to a much sought-after ‘watermelon’ shade, and a Sunburst that often ages to an attractive ‘teaburst’ was offered by ’65. This writer had one with chrome pickup covers – a very pretty but uninspiring player.

By ’68, the 330’s neck length was brought into line with the 335s and Walnut and Sparkling Burgundy finishes had appeared. A very few Gibsons of the time were custom-ordered in black. Super-rare and highly desired by collectors, solid black is easier to fake than transparent finish, so buyers need rock-solid provenance – and/or a steady nerve!

Next mention must go to Epiphone, which Gibson acquired for $20k in 1957 and had integrated into production ready to be shipped from the Kalamazoo factory in 1959. Made alongside Gibsons, models share craftsmanship but retain distinctive features: New York and then mini-humbucking pickups, headstocks, tailpieces, pickguards and fret markers.

The ES-330-equivalent E230 Casino debuted in 1961, in both double and rarer single-pickup variants; standard finish was Royal Tan, a paler orangey sunburst. By 1962, Casinos had acquired a mother-of-pearl headstock legend, but a few earlier examples (see image 6, above) exist with Epiphone’s previous enamelled metal plate ‘bikini’ logo and dot fret markers.

Unsung Hero

Surprisingly few big-name players are associated with 330s. The great jazzer Grant Green and bluesman Slim Harpo are the most notable, and it was Emily Remler’s main squeeze, too.

B.B. King and Chuck Berry played them in the early days, JJ Cale and Terry Smith (’60s award-winning British jazz player who later founded early fusion band If) also picked up the model, and – perhaps unlikeliest of all – wall-of-fuzzers The Jesus and Mary Chain used them, too.

Likely because of affordability and suitability for rhythm, the ES-330 is quite common in pictures from the early ’60s British scene; influential Animals’ guitarist Hilton Valentine sported one, as did The Stones’ Brian Jones. Latterly, John Mayer has used one to great effect.

The sibling Epiphone Casino had better fortunes as it was taken up by The Beatles, an association that ensured its success and a unique position among Epiphones as the only model that consistently commands higher vintage prices than its Gibson equivalent. Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher and Gary Clark Jr keep the flame alive.

Even at today’s soaring prices, then, 330s are relatively affordable because their fully hollow body means they’re prone to feedback, so they don’t suit higher gain styles. This writer was in Dallas in September 2019, teching for the late Alan Darby when he rejoined Eric Clapton’s band for the Crossroads Festival fundraiser’s finale.

Gary Clark Jr was playing the show and he shared a little of how he managed his signature Casinos at volume. He’d started with the old bluesmen’s’ trick of stuffing socks/rags/t-shirts into the f-holes but had recently found a clever new way: inserting the long thin balloons that kids’ party entertainers twist into animal shapes and, once inside, inflating them to break up body resonances.

Pictured in this feature are this writer’s 1960 Gibson ES-330TN, 1961 Gibson ES-330TC and 1961 Epiphone E230T. All three are in excellent condition, though there is some checking on the blonde model, and a previous owner was careless with a tuning peg winder on the sides of the Cherry model’s headstock.

The Epi is very clean and has never had a neck-heel strap button, so it’s a sitting-down guitar – not a problem, though, as these are the ultimate couch guitars.

But why are the single-pickup models of particular interest? Well, they really can sound better. Consider how Les Paul Juniors tend to fetch more than Specials, despite being less fancy, for example.

Some say the second pickup’s magnetic pull and ‘phantom’ circuit loading both influence tone; the neck pickups on many 330TDs can be quite boomy, while the bridge unit can be contrastingly thin. But the ES-330T’s single pickup is mounted in the middle – the ‘Goldilocks’ spot – meaning the early dot-neck 330T is definitely up there as a must-have guitar.

Page, Green, Gibbons, Marsden: the names tied to the coveted ’59 Les Paul are nothing short of legendary. Thought of by many as Gibson’s greatest achievement, an original ’Burst will set you back at least six figures – and that’s if you can even find one in the wild.

It is highly likely that most of us will go our entire playing careers without ever getting our hands on an original example, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get close to this sought-after tone.

That’s where the Epiphone Inspired By Gibson Custom series comes in. After successfully recreating the ’58 Korina Explorer, ’59 ES-355, and ’63 Firebird, Epiphone is now turning its attention to the most fabled electric model to leave its stable – but can Epi do it justice?

Taking a look at the body, and as you’d expect, Epiphone sticks to the original recipe of rich mahogany and a maple top. However, this replica’s flames come courtesy of a AAA-flamed veneer that crowns a thicker maple cap.

Not that you’d be able to tell – this guitar looks fantastic. Our review model doesn’t have the most pronounced figuring, but we actually quite like that – in some ways, it makes it look more authentic.

The finishing is on point, too. The dark perimeter of the Tobacco Burst perfectly complements this guitar’s iconic outline, while the subtle VOS treatment feels incredibly smooth under our fingers.

Making our way to the neck, and we’re instantly reminded why we love ’59 reissues. Not too big, not too small, you’ll understand immediately why this is considered by many to be the ultimate neck profile.

Whether it’s 1st-position chords or more demanding lead work, the guitar never feels like it gets in our way. Combine this stellar neck with perfect fretwork, a well-cut nut, and a nice setup out of the box and you get one of the most playable Epiphone guitars we’ve tried.

Okay, it has the look and feel, but it needs to have the sound to match. Thankfully, the tonal heart of this Les Paul is a duo of Gibson Custombucker pickups, which most definitely don’t let the side down. A creamy neck pickup paired with a fierce bridge position and days of sustain locked away inside make this guitar genuinely inspiring to play – and it seals the deal for us.

Is this the most authentic R9 out there? No, of course not. It may not be an exact replica of a golden-age Gibson guitar, but we didn’t expect it to be. This is a fabulous guitar that more than evokes the spirit of the original while delivering a tone and feel that is sure to get the best out of your playing, and we can’t ask for more than that.

Specs

• PRICE: $1,299 / £1,199
• BODY: Mahogany with maple top and AAA flame maple veneer
• NECK: Mahogany
• FINGERBOARD: Laurel
• FRETS: 22 Medium Jumbo
• PICKUPS: Gibson Custombuckers
• CONTROLS: 2 volume, 2 tone; CTS potentiometers, mallory capacitors, ’50s wiring
• HARDWARE: ABR-1 bridge, Gibson historic reissue stop bar, Epiphone Deluxe tuners
• FINISH: Tobacco Burst (as reviewed), Factory Burst, Iced Tea Burst, Washed Cherry Sunburst
• CASE: Hardshell with brown exterior, pink interior, and Inspired by Gibson custom graphics
• CONTACT: Epiphone

For a guitar that was specifically created and aimed at beginners, the Gibson Les Paul Junior has been embraced by many professionals since it first saw the light of day in 1954. Gibson had no idea it had created a rock ’n’ roll benchmark that would still provide inspiration for players – and guitar makers – everywhere some 70 years on.

Later in that decade, Gibson changed the Junior’s ‘dress’ with a new double-cutaway version, which certainly has its fans and, as on the ES-335, that extra cutaway gave full access to the fingerboard, as well as increasing the unsupported length of the neck, of course.

It was exactly at this period that the Coronet was born, the first solidbody Epiphone (along with the two-pickup Crestwood) and the first one designed by Gibson since it had purchased the brand in 1957. It was initially called the ‘Moderne Black’, but that name was appropriated for Gibson’s near-mythical modernist design that appeared in 1958 alongside the V and Explorer; the Coronet name goes at least back to a pre-war Epiphone archtop.

Clearly, this was a pretty fertile time for Gibson’s design department. Not only had the Les Paul Standard grown into its classic style, there was the revolutionary ES-335, those modernist models, that double-cut Junior and Special, and now someone had to create new designs under the Epiphone brand.

Perhaps the diligent designers ran out of steam because the Coronet could be seen, outline-wise, as a symmetrical double-cut version of the Fender Telecaster or, more accurately, the single-pickup Esquire.

Gibson Charlie Starr Les Paul Junior

At the starting point of Gibson USA’s models, the standard Tobacco Burst Junior will cost you $1,599/£1,499.

This signature guitar (limited to 250 in each of its two colours) is a tweaked version of that, reflecting the mods Charlie’s 1956 Junior has gone through: there’s the Grover tuners, the six-saddle Leo Quan-style wrapover bridge with locking posts, a chromed metal output jack plate, and an overwound dog-ear P-90. More esoteric alterations are those amber speed knobs without any numbers.

There’s a signature squiggle on the truss rod cover, too, and the guitar comes in what Gibson calls a “historic Les Paul Junior ‘Gator Skin’ hardshell case”, which includes a some case candy in the form of the Charlie’s rather good signature ceramic slide and a ‘Hey Ya’ll’ sticker that replicates the DIY artwork on the back of his original.

The standard 45mm thick slab body with its small edge radius is two-piece centre-joined mahogany, the mismatched grain clearly visible under the translucent satin nitro Dark Walnut finish.

As ever, the neck is also mahogany, glued into the body with the typical Junior lip in the treble cutaway. To style, there’s no fingerboard binding and just simple dot inlays.

The mounting of the pickup – which has a ‘P90 Dogear OW’ logo on the back – is standard for the dog-ear style. Two lips extend from the ends of the baseplate and rest on the body top (here with a single spacer to raise the height) and it’s all held in place by the screws that also hold the plastic cover in place.

While there are some nice touches, those locking studs for one and the metal output jack plate, the classic black-plastic single-ply pickguard’s edges are left sharp and look – and feel – pretty cheap.

While we’re shouting out the cons, the heel finishing looks a little scrappy, plus there’s an area on the body by the base side of the fingerboard that hasn’t been properly grain-filled.

Epiphone Coronet (USA Collection)

Pulling this new USA-made Coronet from its attractive blue-plush-lined rectangular hard case, it comes across as the more expensive piece. The body is thinner and more SG-like at 34mm, and under the fetching translucent cherry colour it seems more attention has gone into the diagonally grain-matched two-piece centre-joined body. The gloss finish just seems more expensive than Charlie’s oh so utilitarian Junior, too.

Removing the white scratchplate we notice those sharp edges again as well as sharp points on the bass side, and the screws aren’t fully countersunk, which lets the craft down. Nevertheless, you see the neck extends into the body some 58mm, although it’s not full width like the post-’58 double-cut Les Paul Junior, for example.

Like our Junior, here there’s no fingerboard edge binding and you get those same dot inlays, while that ‘bikini’ badge that displays the headstock logo is a rather budget-looking plastic affair.

The tuners are single-unit Kluson style with white plastic buttons but with modern securing nuts on the front, not vintage-style bushings. More vintage is the same Advanced Plating lightweight wrapover bridge that you’ll see on Gibson’s standard Junior – ours looks aged, although that’s not mentioned on the spec sheet.

The soapbar P-90 – a ‘Lead P90 soapbar’, according to its rear label – is chosen over the rectangular New York single coil that would have graced the early Coronets. It direct-mounts to the body and is height adjustable.

That said, it seems quite loose and could probably do with firmer supports, and on closer inspection the two fixing ‘screws’ are actually bolts (as used to hold a humbucker into its mounting ring) that thread into a metal baseplate that’s screwed to the body under the pickup. The pickup is suspended with humbucking-like springs… so, direct-mounted to the body? No, not really.

Those funky ‘carousel’ control knobs look pretty cool, but again the pointer extension on each is very sharp. Along with that pickguard, we’d be tempted to smooth and round some of the edges and sharp points here.

Feel & Sounds

At 3.72kg (8.18lb), the Junior isn’t overweight but feels pretty substantial, which can’t be said for the Coronet; at 3.06kg (6.73lb), it feels featherweight in comparison and also a little more delicate.

Strapped on, they do hang slightly differently: the Junior feels very centred; the Coronet feels a little wider and sits a little lower using the same strap thanks to that bass-side horn strap-button position.

There’s little difference in the width of the necks and both have the same 20.8mm depth at the 1st fret. The Junior fills out a bit more by the 12th to 24.2mm; the Coronet is marginally slimmer at 23.5mm. There’s less difference than you might initially think, with both having quite full‑shouldered ‘C’ profiles.

The similarity continues with the relatively small fretwire (approximately 2.3mm wide by 1mm high) and you can’t help thinking a bigger wire on Charlie’s Junior would suit its modded vibe – his own original has apparently been refretted three times since the early ’90s when he bought it. As is, the chosen wire gives both guitars quite a vintage vibe, but the fret height is pretty low.

We expect nicely fettled frets these days and here the work is okay, although the Coronet’s frets do feel a little smoother on both the crowns and the ends. The fingerboard edges are very square on both, too, with no incurve; there’s some light edge rolling on the Junior, less, if any, on the Coronet.

Setup wise, both are pretty good – there’s a slightly sticky D string nut slot on the Junior and the Coronet’s nut grooves are a little high but not excessively so.

Neither guitar disgraces the single-pickup style and the Charlie Starr comes close to our real ’57 Junior with that almost cocked-wah throaty midrange push. No, it doesn’t quite match the wallop of the real thing – the top string response is a little thinner and brighter – but that archetypal Gibson grind is here in spades.

The Coronet’s different construction and slightly lower-output pickup lightens up that lower midrange grind a tad, but its slightly clearer voice has plenty of appeal. It’s not a million miles away in the heat department, either, with plenty of juicy punch and slightly more clarity, or twang, on the lower strings.

The missing ingredient on both, however, is a more flexible control setup. If you play with everything full up, that’s not a problem.

But whereas the original Junior has considerable contrast and shade from its controls – going from an almost acoustic-like clean response with the volume and tone pulled back to that full roar – both review models are a little more ordinary. That’s a pretty quick DIY fix, though.

Verdict

From a sound and, to a certain extent, playability perspective, both of these ‘Juniors’ hit the spot. But it’s at the expense of the finer details that many makers simply wouldn’t allow.

That said, for those who need the Gibson logo and embrace the Junior style, Charlie’s model has got something going on: it comes across as a real giggers’ delight, far from precious and with a very strong, full-fat P-90 roar.

To be fair, the Coronet isn’t far behind and any good boost or overdrive would even up the slightly lower output here. And there’s something very appealing about the slightly less-thick voice, not to mention the resonant lightweight platform and superb finish.

Specs

Gibson Charlie Starr Les Paul Junior

• PRICE: $1,999/£1,769 (inc case)
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Single-cutaway, single-pickup solidbody
• BODY: 2-piece mahogany
• NECK: 1-piece mahogany, ‘Artist Spec 50s’ profile, glued-in
• SCALE LENGTH: 624mm (24.57”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech/43.7mm
• FINGERBOARD: Indian rosewood, acrylic dot inlays, 305mm (12”) radius
• FRETS: 22, medium
• HARDWARE: Adjustable wrapover with locking studs, Grover Rotomatic tuners with kidney buttons – nickel-plating
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51.5mm
• ELECTRICS: Overwound Dogear P-90, volume and tone controls with numberless speed knobs
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.72/8.18
• LEFT-HANDERS: No
• FINISH: Dark Walnut (as reviewed), ebony – satin nitrocellulose
• CONTACT: Gibson

Epiphone Coronet (USA Collection)

• PRICE: $1,699/£1,599 (inc case)
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Double-cutaway, single-pickup solidbody
• BODY: 2-piece mahogany
• NECK: 1-piece mahogany, ‘SlimTaper’ profile, glued-in
• SCALE LENGTH: 624mm (24.57”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech/43.3mm
• FINGERBOARD: Indian rosewood, acrylic dot inlays, 305mm (12”) radius
• FRETS: 22, medium
• HARDWARE: Wrapover bridge, with locking studs, vintage-style ‘Gibson Deluxe’ tuners with white plastic buttons – nickel-plated
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 50mm
• ELECTRICS: Soapbar P-90, volume and tone controls with ‘carousel’ knobs
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.06/6.73
• LEFT-HANDERS: No
• FINISH: Vintage Cherry (as reviewed), Ebony, TV Yellow (Epiphone.com exclusive only) – gloss nitrocellulose
• CONTACT: Epiphone

Dave Mustaine is continuing to build on his relationship with Gibson, as the Megadeth founder has confirmed that a signature Les Paul is definitely in the works.

“I love what’s going on with my Gibson relationship. I look at a lot of that stuff,” he says in the latest Guitarist issue.

“We’re doing some models, like the Flying V with 24 frets, and we’ve talked about a couple of others and are making them perfect. One of those is the Dave Mustaine Les Paul. It will play like a beast, be a 24-fret guitar, and have the heel shaved down.”

Mustaine previously teased the release of the Les Paul in a 2022 interview with Songfacts, saying, “We're working on the Explorer, and we have a 24-fret Les Paul I finished creating, but this is something for next year, maybe the year after.”

His guitar tech, Bryan Jones, also hinted at a signature Les Paul, posting a photo of what we can only assume is this guitar on social media in November 2022. The post has since been removed.

The guitar, pictured above, has similar black hardware and inlays to Mustaine's signature Flying Vs, with added witch-hat knobs. It sports 24 frets, his signature Seymour Duncan pickups, and a black finish.

So far, the Dave Mustaine collection includes the flagship Flying V EXP model with Seymour Duncan Thrash Factor pickups, the limited-edition and higher-end Flying V EXP Rust in Peace (currently sold out online), and the Songwriter, the first-ever Gibson acoustic with a 24-fret fingerboard.

In addition to these Gibson models, Mustaine has a more affordable line of signature guitars with Epiphone and Kramer: the Epiphone Dave Mustaine Flying V Prophecy, the Custom, and the Kramer Dave Mustaine Vanguard. These models were released last year after being initially announced back in February 2021.

In other Dave Mustaine news, Gibson recently released signature electric guitar strings with the Megadeth leader. The top-heavy set promises to “bring out the best in his signature Gibson guitars” and was unveiled alongside a signature guitar strap.

David Gilmour will be perpetually synonymous with a Fender Stratocaster, but on his latest single, he’s enjoying a new love affair with a Gibson ES-335.

The British prog luminary will release Luck and Strange, his first new solo album in nine years, on September 6 – a record he believes is his best since The Dark Side of the Moon, which in turn is considered one of the greatest guitar albums of all time.

Much of Luck and Strange's magic – besides pairing with a producer who had a “wonderful lack of respect” for Gilmour’s prestigious past – comes from the plethora of guitars the Pink Floyd legend has employed across its 10 new tracks.

Many of the guitars he couldn’t bear to sell at auction star alongside some new acquisitions, with a Gibson ES-335 seducing the seasoned songsmith on his newest single.

“I've not got a huge history with Gibson guitars, but this one is one I've bought comparatively recently to have a different tone, a different thing,” Gilmour explains via his YouTube channel.

“This is a very, very different sort of guitar to what I'm used to,” he adds, and he’s not wrong. The classic Gilmour sound hinges heavily on the snappy bite of a Strat – in particular his iconic black Strat, which shattered records when it was sold at auction in 2019, and was later played by Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

Yet Gilmour professes a little regret for not playing one sooner: “I don't know why I didn't discover one of these a long time ago,” he says.

“Every time you play a nice guitar you're not used to, it gives you something. Sometimes it just gives you a song. This one is a real beauty.”

The song the semi-hollow electric guitar has gifted the Pink Floyd man is Dark and Velvet Nights, which lives up to its name by representing the most shadowy and (dare we say it) Floydian track released thus far.

The Gibson is used for a classic Gilmour solo that feels thicker and warmer as a result of humbuckers here usurping Gilmour’s preferred single-coil setup.

The track follows lead single Piper’s Call, which boasted a one-and-a-half minute solo, and Between Two Points, which features a guest spot from his daughter, Romany Gilmour.

Luck and Strange is out on September 6 and is available to pre-order now.

The Hentor Sportscaster made an unlikely comeback when Alex Lifeson announced that his own gear brand, Lerxst, had reanimated it as the Limelight and was making them in partnership with Godin. But what became of the original Sportscasters, like that fire engine red model that Lifeson was cradling on the cover of Guitar World’s November 1981 issue?

Truth be told, it’s a little bit of a sorry tale. But as Lifeson tells us, in this interview to commemorate 70 years of the Strat, the Hentor Sportscaster did more than enough to etch its way into the annals of rock history. With a different electric guitar, the solo to Limelight would just not have been the same…

How and where did you acquire this Strat?

“The story begins in 1978 when I modified a Fender Stratocaster that I purchased new. I replaced the bridge single coil [pickup] with a Gibson humbucker, reversed the input jack for easier access and added a Floyd Rose tremolo to replace the Fender tremolo. I used this guitar as a spare primarily and started using it increasingly for the Floyd Rose.

“It was renamed ‘the Hentor Porkflapsocaster.’ Shortly after, I commissioned Veneman Music to build a replica incorporating a shark neck, Floyd Rose and Bill Lawrence L500 pickup. This was the Hentor Sportscaster. This became the model for the Lerxst Limelight [Lifeson’s new signature guitar with Godin].”

What initially led you to choose this Strat over the semi-hollowbodied Gibson guitars you’d been playing with Rush?

“Although I was known primarily as a Gibson player, I did own several Fenders and liked the difference. I owned a 1956 Strat in 1973 as a backup to the [Gibson] ES-335. It made me think and play differently. I was becoming more enamored with the use of the tremolo bar, and the Floyd Rose made that very effective – and it sounded great.”

Did you use this Strat on any notable recordings?

“From [Rush’s] Moving Pictures on, I used the Hentor on a lot of recordings and particularly liked it for soloing. One standout recording is the solo from Limelight. It was the perfect selection to create the soulful, elastic and unstable character for the solo of that song.”

What made this Strat special beyond the modifications?

“The neck was bare wood, so I felt an immediate connection to that neck. I stripped a [Fender] Tele neck a few years later, and that guitar became my go-to for writing. I must have used that guitar for writing 75 percent of Rush’s material.”

Why did you choose this Strat for your 1981 GW cover shoot?

“I used the third Hentor [overall] and the second one built by Veneman Music for that shoot to match my red jacket and tie. I was so fashion-conscious!”

Do you still own this guitar? If not, what happened to it?

“No, I think I gave it to a tennis pro friend years ago. That was a mistake, as he’s left-handed! The Hentor Sportscaster was sold at auction two years ago, and the original black Hentor is in a museum in Ottawa, Canada. They’re gone now, but their spirit lives on in the Lerxst guitar series. Those are faithful replicas of the originals.”

We’ve already had the Les Paul Supreme and SG Supreme and now Gibson has announced the arrival of the ES Supreme – completing the triumvirate of the firm’s best-selling electric guitars.

The current Supreme range sits under Gibson’s Modern (as opposed to Traditional) Collection and stretches the classic formulas, by offering luxurious aesthetic touches, AAA maple tops and advanced electronic circuitry.

As such, like its predecessors, the ES Supreme has a AAA figured maple top, a pair of USA Burstbuckers (the Rhythm Pro and Lead Pros) and the option to coil-tap each humbucker via the pair of push-pull volume pots.

Again, as on the SG and LP Supremes, Gibson has pulled out all of the stops when it comes to the upgraded aesthetics – including gold hardware, Super Split block mother of pearl inlays and the Supreme ‘chandelier’ headstock inlay (based on a 1940s design rediscovered in the Gibson archive).

Similarly, there’s an array of contemporary yet seriously eye-catching finishes, most notably Seafoam Green and Blueberry Burst options, alongside the more conservative Bourbon Burst.

However, the ES stands apart from its fellow Supremes by continuing that finish onto the rear of the guitar, too, marking it apart from the plain-backed SG and LP.

In terms of construction materials, the AAA figured maple is combined in a three-ply laminate with poplar and maple for the top, back and sides. Then there’s maple centerblock, spruce bracing and a mahogany neck.

Meanwhile, the hardware includes an Aluminum Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge, stop bar, and Grover Locking Keystone tuners.

In addition to the usual spec, Gibson has also unveiled a three-pickup Ebony-finished option (available exclusively from its own site), which adds a Burstbucker Mid Pro in the central position and – when paired with the colorway and gold hardware – evokes an ES Black Beauty vibe.

The Gibson ES-335 has long been prized for its flexibility – finding its home in everything from heavy rock to jazz, blues and funk – but the new coil-tap options of the Supreme will broaden its horizons still further.

As Gibson’s Dinesh Lekhraj puts it: “the world’s most versatile guitar just became even more versatile.”

All of the new ES Supreme models are priced at $4,299. For more information, head to Gibson.

When it comes to impressive-looking guitars, it’s hard to imagine anything more sensational looking (save perhaps for Gretsch’s White Falcon) than a three-pickup, white Gibson SG Custom with Vibrola, and a Cherry Red ES-355.

When released, both instruments sat at the top of their respective family trees and boasted pretty much every flashy element that Gibson had at its disposal. Thus it was ebony rather than rosewood fingerboards, gold instead of nickel plating, and real mother-of-pearl over the swirly celluloid found on SG Standard and ES-335 models.

In the SG’s case, it also added a third pickup and when finished in white and with a big gold vibrato (did they pinch the idea from Gretsch?) looked spectacular. In line with its recent collaborations with the Gibson Custom Shop, Epiphone has released its own take on these illustrious models. So let’s dive in…

As you’d imagine, these guitars are as close as possible to the original spec, given today’s production methods, availability of materials and so on.

Hence in the SG’s case we see a centre-joined spread of mahogany for the body (not a single slab as on the originals), a one-piece long-tenon mahogany neck that joins at the 22nd fret, and a single-bound ebony fingerboard with real mother-of-pearl block markers. The headstock bears the striking ‘split H’ inlay of all Les Paul Customs and features the usual multiple edge binding.

In the ES-355’s case, it’s a laminated maple and poplar body with solid spruce centre block, and again a one-piece mahogany neck (20th-fret join this time), plus bound ebony ’board. At first we thought Epiphone had chosen pearloid for the 355’s inlays, as it looked less reflective. However, further investigation revealed it to be the real thing.

One thing that is a little bemusing about this pair is Epiphone’s choice of VOS polyurethane finish. VOS stands for ‘vintage original sheen’, but vintage guitars don’t go matt in this way, neither were they satin lacquered at creation. So we’d have preferred the no-nonsense gloss.

While in critical mode (and that’s very unusual for Epiphones these days), the ES-355’s heel is lopsided, the left corner being nicely rounded but the right definitely more pointed. We’ve looked online and the heels on all the other guitars have been correct, in other words symmetrical. Clearly, this is an aberration, but not one we expect from the Qingdao facility.

On a much more positive note, pickups, hardware and innards are all first grade, with triple Gibson USA Custombucker pickups on the SG, a pair of the same on the ES-355, Grover 18:1 ‘kidney bean’ Rotomatic tuners on both, with CTS pots, Mallory capacitors and Switchcraft jacks all round.

Both instruments carry 22 medium jumbo frets and Graph Tech nuts, and while the ES-355 has the expected ABR-1-style tune-o-matic bridge with aluminium stud tailpiece, the SG goes full bling with its huge gold, Epiphone-stamped Maestro Vibrola.

Feel & Sounds

There’s another criticism we have to level, this time only at the SG. On any guitar where the colour is sprayed all over then scraped away from binding and so on, or even previously masked up, a ridge is inevitably formed.

This is usually filled in by multiple coats of clear lacquer then sanded flush. It’s a common criticism on Gibsons where nitrocellulose shrinks back to reveal this ridge. But here on the Epiphone SG Custom’s neck it’s pretty prominent and really shouldn’t be given that these are finished in polyurethane.

The temptation is to gently sand it back with ultra-fine wet-or-dry paper, but the danger is always to sand through (so don’t try it, folks!), and on satin finishes it’s all but impossible to exactly replicate the factory sheen.

Other than that it’s positivity all the way. Although Epiphone describes it as ‘SlimTaper’, our SG Custom’s neck is a healthy handful and the action, although not overly low, suits the 305mm (12-inch) fingerboard radius and medium jumbo frets well.

Fretboard access is total, and while you do have to get used to everything about a three-humbucker SG with a big vibrato system, a little rejigging of your playing position soon reveals a guitar that’s great fun to play (especially standing up, looking in a mirror!). The Vibrola happily handles gentle wobbles or even quite manic wanging without question.

Moving onto the ES-355, its medium rounded 50s neck profile is again a friendly place to be. We felt instantly at home, and while those top frets aren’t quite so available, it’s no struggle to play shape 1 A minor pentatonic at the 17th fret. Everything that applies to the SG does here, too, except that standing up to play is a far more familiar experience.

Sonically, while both instruments bear Gibson’s brilliant Custombuckers, their size, weight and construction reveal markedly different voices. Where the SG is a straight-down-the-line grunt machine, the ES-355 offers a tad more subtlety. While the solidbody is dark, the thinline is lighter, with noticeably more treble on hand. Not to say it won’t spit fire when required.

Both clean up superbly in their slightly different ways, and each responds superbly to the gain channel of our Laney Lionheart 20. Again, the SG packs the less subtle punch, and the ES-355’s charms respond to tone, pickup selection and volume settings to reveal a brilliantly usable set of tones.

A note about the SG’s centre toggle switch position. While the resulting sound of bridge and middle pickup together is sometimes incorrectly described as ‘out of phase’, in fact it’s merely the proximity of one ’bucker to the other that supplies the slightly nasal tone. Both necks will respond to personal playing preferences with a tweak here and there so either of these would make a super playing companion, depending on your taste and style.

Verdict

It’s extremely rare these days that we take Epiphone to task over build quality or attention to detail. And while the niggles we’ve uncovered will surely be ironed out as production progresses, they did take us a little by surprise.

However, behind this lie two guitars that are immensely rewarding to play, with characters that shine through both visually and from a sound perspective. And while we’re not keen on the VOS finish, nevertheless these instruments still make an incredibly bold visual statement.

Plus their use of the highest quality pickups and wiring means they deliver proper, grown-up tones that wouldn’t disappoint even the most critical ear. And look at those SRPs: that’s a ton of guitar (niggles notwithstanding) for the price.

Specs

Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Custom 1963 Les Paul SG Custom

• PRICE: $1,499/£1,379 (inc case)
• ORIGIN: China
• TYPE: Double-cutaway, solidbody electric
• BODY: 2-piece mahogany with chamfered edges
• NECK: 1-piece slim-taper mahogany
• SCALE LENGTH: 629mm (24.75”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech/43mm
• FINGERBOARD: Single-bound ebony, mother-of-pearl block inlays, 305mm (12”) radius
• FRETS: 22, medium jumbo
• HARDWARE: Epiphone tune-o-matic bridge and Epiphone branded Maestro Vibrola vibrato/tailpiece, Grover Rotomatic ‘kidney bean’ tuners, gold finish
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51.5mm
• ELECTRICS: 3x Gibson Custombuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch (centre position bridge and middle pickups together), 2x volume and tone controls
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.8/8.7
• OPTIONS: None
• RANGE OPTIONS: None
• LEFT-HANDERS: No
• FINISHES: Classic White

Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Custom 1959 ES-355

• PRICE: $1,299/£1,199 (inc case)
• ORIGIN: China
• TYPE: Double-cutaway, thinline semi-solid electric
• BODY: Maple and poplar laminate with solid spruce centre block
• NECK: 1-piece slim-taper mahogany
• SCALE LENGTH: 629mm (24.75”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech/43mm
• FINGERBOARD: Single-bound ebony, mother-of-pearl block inlays, 304.8mm (12”) radius
• FRETS: 22, medium jumbo
• HARDWARE: Gibson tune-o-matic bridge, aluminium stud tailpiece, Grover Rotomatic ‘kidney bean’ tuners, gold
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51.5mm
• ELECTRICS: 2x Gibson Custombuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, volume and tone for each pickup (no Varitone control)
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.8/8.6
• OPTIONS: None
• RANGE OPTIONS: None
• LEFT-HANDERS: No
• FINISHES: Cherry (as reviewed), Classic White, Ebony VOS
• CONTACT: Epiphone

It’s an age-old conundrum. Do you heed the voice of reason in your head, or give in to those ceaseless impassioned cries from your heart? 

On the surface, choosing a cheap instrument over a more expensive model is the most sensible route into guitar ownership. You may decide early on that playing the guitar isn’t for you after all, so you’ll want to cut your losses.  

Then there’s imposter syndrome, an anxiousness that, as a beginner, you’re not deserving enough to own a decent instrument. It will be wasted on you.

But on the other hand, your inspiration for playing the guitar is probably rooted in the iconic instruments you’ve seen planted in the hands of your favorite artists. The Fender Strat and Tele, Gibson’s Les Paul or ES 335, the Martin D28. Surely, these are the instruments for you, so why settle for less? Buy once, buy well, right?

For many of us, the best solution will lie somewhere between these two extremes. If you’re well on your way to making your second billion then heck, spend whatever you want, knock yourself out. Or, if money is tight, take comfort from the fact that you can buy a very good beginner electric guitar for less than a couple of hundred bucks.

That said, stretching your budget a little further can give you some impressive gains, especially if you’re an acoustic player. Read on to discover when it’s worth spending that little bit more.

• Learn more in the PRS guide to buying your first guitar

1. The joy of ownership

+ Your dream guitar may cost a little more
+ Mid-level acoustics are noticeably better than entry-level
+ It will inspire you to keep playing
- Some entry-level electrics are excellent. Why pay more?
- Expensive guitars are wasted on young children who show no interest in playing

Is a high-end guitar wasted on a beginner? No. I’m a firm believer that adult acoustic players should buy the very best instrument they can afford. If that’s a beginner instrument, bought on a budget, then great. However, if you can afford more, then spend it. You’ll end up learning on a guitar that’s both easier to play and more pleasurable to listen to. An instrument that’s easy to fall in love with and hard to blame for your playing inadequacies.

Buying advice is less clear cut for electric guitars because their lower action makes them more comfortable to play than acoustics for beginners. They’re easier to adjust if the set-up isn’t quite right too. Additionally, unlike acoustics, solid-body electrics such as Strats and Teles don’t need an expertly crafted, resonant body to generate tone. So, provided the neck is good, entry-level electric guitars from brands such as Squier and Epiphone can sound very close to their mid-level Fender and Gibson stablemates. However, there’s something very comforting about owning a guitar that’s that little bit more special.

2. Solid wood vs laminate vs veneer

+ Solid wood is more resonant than laminate of the same thickness
+ Solid wood acoustics have a more complex tone
+ Guitars with solid tops aren't too expensive
- Laminate acoustics can still sound great
- Laminate is stronger, and more resistant to temperature change
- Premium brands like Martin make some laminate guitars

Many guitarists consider a solid wood top to be a mark of quality for an acoustic guitar, bettered only if the entire instrument is constructed from thin sheets of solid tonewood. The alternative is laminate, a sandwich of separate layers of material bonded together with resin.

Laminates, of which there are several different kinds, are popular with guitar brands because they’re inexpensive, consistent, readily available, strong, resistant to temperature change and look just as good as solid wood. However, solid wood is preferable for tone hounds because it vibrates more freely, resulting in a guitar that’s louder and more resonant, with a sound characterized by additional complexity.

Acoustic guitars at the budget end of the market are likely to have bodies made completely from laminate, but spend a little more and you’ll find plenty of brands boasting instruments with solid tops. There’s rarely mention of the rest of the guitar body at this price point because the top is the instrument’s soundboard, which makes it a more critical component than the back and sides. Fork out quite a lot more and you’ll be the proud owner of an all-solid guitar.

It's worth recognizing that laminates aren’t all bad. Prestigious brand C F Martin makes many of its lower-end guitars from High Pressure Laminate (HPL), a material composed of bonded sheets of wood fiber and paper. Many archtop guitars, including Gibson’s legendary, and somewhat pricey, 335 line, are also made from laminate because it’s an easy material to press into shape.

Low-cost electric guitars with ornately flamed tops that look like a million dollars, are probably made from a cheap material, such as medium density fibreboard (MDF) or plywood, that’s been covered in a very thin sheet of wood called a veneer. These can look great and may sound acceptable, but the finish is prone to chipping easily.

Of course, Gibson’s expensive Les Paul model usually features a maple cap, one that’s often elaborately flamed or features a gorgeous burst of color. Don’t worry, this cap is way too thick to be a veneer, its true purpose is to bring balance to the tone of the guitar’s heavy mahogany body. The stunning appearance is just the icing on the cake.

3. Solid body electrics built from multiple pieces of material

+ Fewer pieces of body material may be more resonant
+ It may help your guitar’s natural sustain
+ Transparent finishes look better with fewer visible pieces
- Multiple pieces of material may look ugly, but that’s what paint’s for
- Multi-piece bodies may be stronger

Top-of-the-line solid body guitars, such as a Fender Strat or Tele will be made from as few pieces of wood as possible. Perhaps two or three, maybe just the one. Cheaper guitars are commonly made by bonding multiple chunks – as many as six or seven – of wood together. 

Will this affect your tone? The jury’s still out on this one. Some guitarists maintain that bodies made from many separate pieces of wood resonate better. Others claim this is nonsense and will actively seek out single-piece bodies instead.

Frankly, if the guitar you’re choosing has a painted body, then aesthetically it’s of little consequence. On the other hand, if you favor a natural look, or a semi-opaque burst, then the separate pieces of wood can interrupt the visual flow of the finish.

4. The importance of intonation

+ Well-made guitars are more likely to intonate accurately
+ Intonation issues with cheap acoustics can be hard to fix
- Electric guitars, even cheaper models, can be adjusted to intonate well

Electronic guitar tuners and smartphone apps make light work of tuning the open strings of your guitar. Many amps are equipped with tuners too, as are pretty much all DAWs. 

However, getting notes to ring out in tune up and down the fretboard on a cheaply built guitar can have you pulling your hair out in frustration. The issue is intonation, or more accurately, the lack of it. 

Intonation is the accuracy of pitch across the fretboard, so a poorly intonated guitar will sound horribly out of tune as you fret different notes and their intervals, most noticeably octaves. A good way to test for this is to tune the guitar up and then sound the strings at the twelfth fret, which should be exactly an octave up (most tuners can be used to check for this). Unfortunately, it’s a condition that can be difficult if not impossible to rectify, especially when it afflicts a badly made acoustic.

If you’re lucky, cheap, poorly made strings can be the culprit, so replacing them may cure the issue. In fact, replacing the strings on any cheap guitar is an excellent, inexpensive upgrade. 

Another relatively easy fix on electric guitars is to adjust the bridge saddles with a screwdriver, shortening the strings if they’re a bit flat and lengthening them if they’re a little sharp. It’s also possible to adjust the bridge on an acoustic, but it’s skilled work that’s likely to cost.

Finally, it could be that the action is way too high, the neck relief is all over the shop or the frets have been spaced by a luthier who left their glasses on the bus. All of these issues are fixable but they’re rarely worth the expense on a cheap guitar. 

5. Better tuners

+ Quality tuners make a guitar easier to tune
+ A guitar with great tuners will stay in tune longer
- In most cases, tuners are easily upgraded

Poor quality machine heads, popularly known as tuners, are the bane of every guitarist's life. Unsurprisingly, if a tuner isn’t doing its job correctly then your guitar’s going to slip out of tune at every opportunity.

Tuners are complex pieces of kit that need to be manufactured to within precise tolerances. There are a few different kinds, with most consisting of a capstan that holds the string, mounted in the center of a pinion gear. Linked to this is a short metal shaft with a tuning button at one end and a worm gear at the other. As you turn the button, the worm gear engages the pinion gear, rotating the capstan and winding, or loosening, the string. Many acoustic guitars have exposed, open tuners for a retro look, while electric guitars tend to be specced with permanently encased gears, which are usually lubricated for life.

Any play in the system will make a guitar devilishly hard to tune. What’s more, it’s unlikely to stay in tune for any useful amount of time. Tuning a guitar is enough of a pain as it is. Don’t make your life worse by buying a guitar with awful tuners.

6. Better strings

+ Bad quality strings sound awful
+ Cheap strings rarely stay in tune, or intonate well
- Strings are a consumable that are easily replaced

Buy a cheap guitar and you’ll almost certainly end up with nasty strings. Not only will they suck every ounce of glorious tone from your instrument, they’re also likely to be a nightmare to tune and can plague your guitar with intonation issues (see above). Do yourself a favor, rip them off at the earliest opportunity and replace them.

Bricks ’n’ mortar guitar stores are wonderful sources of expert advice, making them reassuring places to purchase a first guitar. However, they’ll invariably let anyone play their stock, even the high-end kit, which can result in tired-sounding strings. Don’t be shy to ask for them to be changed.

7. Action replay

+ A great action makes any guitar a dream to play
+ Action is rarely poor on decent quality instruments
+ A high action on an acoustic can be frustrating to fix
- Inexpensive electric guitars can have their action adjusted

Acoustic guitars made hurriedly in a factory by careless workers are unlikely to go through any meaningful QC check. These instruments can be fraught with problems, with the most common, and most serious, being a crazy high or low action. If you’re not that familiar with guitar terminology, a guitar’s action is the height at which the strings sit above the frets.

Too low and the guitar will exhibit fret buzz. Too high, which is the more likely scenario, and you’ll suffer tuning issues, intonation problems and, worst of all, a painful playing experience. If you’ve got tender newbie fingers, you’ll find trying to fret a note with strings as fine as cheese wire difficult enough, without having to wrestle with a high action. The spot with most potential for pain is behind the first fret, which is where beginners spend much of their time.

There are multiple reasons why a guitar’s action can be intolerably high or low. A badly cut nut, a poorly adjusted saddle, a wonky fretboard or awful neck relief are just a few of the culprits.

There are a couple of caveats. If you’re a beginner, or an electric player trying an acoustic for the first time, you’ll likely find the action feels a bit high anyway. However, if it’s around 2.5-2.75mm at the 12th fret then it’s probably in the right ballpark. Trust us, you’ll soon get used to it.

Action issues are less prevalent with electric guitars because they are so much easier to adjust. They can tolerate a lower action too, which makes them a more attractive instrument for beginners.

8. Pups, pots and switches

+ Spending more guarantees improved tone
+ An onboard pickup and preamp are a blessing for the gigging acoustic guitarist  
+ Better switches and jacks are quieter and more reliable
- Electronics can be upgraded in the future
- Acoustic guitars can be retrofit with pickups and preamps

You may have noticed that guitarists love accessories and upgrades – pretty much anything that will customize and personalize their playing experience. 

An entry-level acoustic probably won’t come equipped with a pickup and preamp system. No matter, if your ambition is to play live you can quite easily add these upgrades later from brands such as Fishman and LR Baggs. They, and others, sell a huge range of aftermarket soundhole pickups, piezo pickups and guitar mics, many of which you can install yourself, provided you’re happy taking a drill to your six-string.

Mid-level acoustics often come with electronics pre-installed, which may be enough to justify their additional purchase price. Conversely, high-end acoustics often don’t feature any onboard electronics, or they remain optional, probably because super expensive guitars are rarely gigged or tend to be miked up for a more authentic sound.

Electric guitars are, of course, always packed with pickups, pots and switches, which have a huge influence on an instrument’s tone. The more you spend the more promise these components hold. Budget electric guitars, for example, will feature mass-produced machine-wound pickups, while high-end custom instruments can be blessed with boutique, hand-wound beauties made with vintage-correct materials.

Fortunately, the market is swarming with aftermarket components, both from the major guitar brands such as Fender and aftermarket specialists like Seymour Duncan and Bare Knuckle Pickups. Compatibility issues are something to be aware of, but there’s nothing to stop you buying an entry-level Squier Strat and swapping out the electronics for something much more desirable. 

9. Resale value

+ Premier brands tend to hold their value better
+ Sought-after guitars can bring a decent return
- If the market slides, you’ll lose less on a cheaper guitar

Resale is a tricky one. Like most things, the vast majority of new guitars will fall considerably in value as soon as you buy them. A cheap guitar won’t have far to fall, but then it will never be worth much, however long you keep it.

Mid-market, standard-issue guitars can hold their value quite well, but they’re rarely investment vehicles! For example, eBay and Reverb are swamped with 20-year-old Fender USA Strats. Those in good condition will sell for about the same as their original RRP, which is a significant loss once inflation is accounted for.

Depending on spec, condition and provenance, high-end guitars can sell for a decent profit, especially if they’re associated with a famous artist. Brand is important, a high-end Taylor or Martin will always be easier to sell on than a high-end Yamaha, even if the Yammie is a better guitar.

Unless you really know what you are doing and can afford to take the occasional hit, it’s best to think of guitar ownership in terms of an investment in pleasure rather than a pension fund.

Conclusion

There’s no getting away from it. The more you spend on a guitar the easier it will be on the eye and the more comfortable it will be to play. Not only will it sound better but you’re more likely to find a tone that forges a personal connection. That sound that’s been swimming around in your head for years? Well, it can finally be realized.

Entry-level guitars sound a bit generic because they’re built from commonplace materials and, where applicable, unexceptional electronics. While a Chinese-sourced Squier Sonic Strat will obviously sound different to an Epiphone Les Paul Studio E1, it won’t have much character beyond sounding suitably Fenderish. Similarly, the Epi will radiate that Gibson vibe, but little more. It’s the same with acoustic guitars, a Yamaha F310 is a well-built budget instrument that sounds good but not epic.

As an example, spend just a little more on that Squier and you will land yourself an Affinity model, bringing more pickup options, jumbo frets and a better-quality bridge. Increase your spend by a few hundred $/£ and you’re immediately in Fender Made in Mexico territory, eyeing up its Player series. A proper Fender logo is slapped on the headstock, materials and components are improved, and more options are introduced, including artist specials like the Robert Cray Standard Stratocaster. The progression in quality continues through Fender’s various USA-manufactured lines, right up to its Custom Shop guitars that can be built to your exact specifications. Each step of the way, your money is buying you an instrument that more and more closely aligns with the ideal in your head.

But boy, does the law of diminishing returns apply here. The Squier Sonic Strat is a solid choice, yet the Fender Player Series is a big leap up in quality. However, is there really much difference in tone and playability between a similarly specced top-of-the-line Fender USA Ultra Strat and a Custom Shop model that costs twice as much? Other than aesthetics and bling, probably not.

Is there a sweet spot? It’s hard to be objective because choosing an instrument is such a subjective experience, but spending around $1,300-$1,800 will buy you all the guitar you’ll ever need. However, don’t be disappointed if you only have the budget for a made in the Far East Squier, Epiphone, Yamaha Pacifica or other budget electric guitar. Quality at the lower end of the market is currently through the roof, so sinking $300 in a guitar from a respected brand is a great investment.

If we were to recommend a guitar that offers a comfortable playing experience and a superb tone at a more manageable price for the majority of players, it would have to be the PRS SE CE 24 Standard Satin. Coming in at around $499, this guitar offers outstanding value for money and benefits from PRS's stellar build quality. Featuring a lightweight mahogany body with a thin satin finish, a seriously comfortable maple neck, and a set of 85/15 "S" pickups - with coil taps - this guitar is highly playable and fiercely versatile, ensuring that your playing sessions are always enjoyable and effortless. 

Buying admission into acoustic ownership is going to cost you a bit more, because crafting these guitars takes time, skill and quality materials. However, provided you avoid the very bottom of the market you’ll find plenty of instruments worth treasuring. Spending around the $500 mark will buy you a fine guitar. At the other end of the scale, acoustics top out at more than $10,000, but $2,500 will buy you an heirloom-quality guitar.

“Several features make this example unique. Firstly, there’s the colour, because I’ve never seen a sunburst one before. It’s like a two-tone tobacco sunburst; I’ve had a Les Paul SG that was the same colour. It had to be custom-ordered and that’s why there’s a ‘custom’ engraving on the truss rod cover. 

“Then there’s the ebony fingerboard with genuine mother-of-pearl block markers. Every other EB-6D I’ve seen had a rosewood fingerboard with ‘mother of toilet seat’ celluloid dot markers, but this is more like a Les Paul Custom board, minus the binding.

“There’s a pearl plug where the jack socket would normally be. The original owner, who must have ordered this specially, requested that the jack socket be mounted on the control coverplate. They must have done this to prevent the wood from tearing out in the event of someone hitting or standing on the plug. 

“Gibson intended players to use right-angled jack plugs with front-mounted sockets, but most didn’t and damage in this area is fairly common. I assume the thinking was that the plug would simply pull out from the back if anything happened. And if the plastic plate got damaged, the owner could easily order a replacement. In order to accommodate the socket, Gibson had to customise the control cavity rout, but there are no other structural differences.

“Both pickups are ‘Patent Number’ humbuckers identical to the ones Gibson was fitting to regular six-string guitars. Being a 1965 model, the hardware is a bit of a mixture, with nickel-plated pickup covers and a chrome-plated coverplate. The bridge is the same as the one Gibson used for the four-string basses, but they cut six rather than four slots and made six little string-grooves on the saddle. 

“EB-6s sell quickly and are usually gone straight after I put them on the website. I’m surprised at the number of people who want them because I don’t think they sound as good as a Fender VI and they’re not as versatile. I think the EB-6 can sound a little mushy with the humbuckers, although these pickups have a lot more clarity and tonal range than the earlier ‘mudbucker’ pickups that Gibson fitted to the EB-0.

“This one comes with its original hardshell black Tolex case. EB-6D cases had to be longer because the headstock is enormous; it’s almost like Gibson’s 12-string headstock but a little wider. The neck is full, but it’s not a giant like the late-50s ones or thin like an early 60s neck. It most closely resembles the type of neck you’d find on a ’63 or ’64 ES-335. 

“It’s a little bit wider at the nut and it gets deeper as you move towards the body, but the shoulders and general feel are pretty similar. I’d describe it as a very robust ‘C’ neck. The frets are pretty big and wide, but they’re not gigantic by any means, and you can play chords and bend notes quite easily. 

“In 1959, Gibson made the first EB-6 and it was like the ES-335 with a semi-hollow double-cutaway body and a centre block. It had one big humbucker pickup with a black plastic cover that was eventually changed to a nickel cover. The transition to the solid body version happened around the same time the doublenecks acquired solid bodies in 1961.”

“They actually made some of those with a regular guitar neck and an EB-6 neck. There are several photos showing Elvis playing his and it’s currently on display at Graceland.

“The EBSF-1250 had a built-in fuzz tone circuit, but that was removed around 1965 and the model name was simplified to EBS-1250. Around 30 were made before it was discontinued in 1970. They do come up for sale every once in a while, and I always attempt to buy every one I can get.

“The EB-6D only lasted until 1966 and the six-string bass was a phase that all the manufacturers went through. It was never a big seller. This one is near mint and if 10 is the best, I’d rate it as a solid 9.75. 

“It doesn’t look as if it was ever used much, but it plays very well and the flat-wound stings look so old they may even be the original factory set. Round-wound strings would add brightness, but I think this is the perfect instrument for flats and I’m leaving them on for the next owner to decide.”

It’s ‘purple gain’ over at Gibson, with the firm rolling out exclusive gorgeous Dark Purple Burst finishes for its ES-335, SG Modern, and Les Paul Modern Studio electric guitars. 

The trio of classic designs have been given an elegant new colorway with a gloss finish for the ES-335 and SG Modern, and satin for the Les Paul. Together, they look to deliver “timeless models with a stunning new look” – a very fair observation. 

The drop follows the release of the Dark Purple Burst Les Paul Standards, which arrived in September last year.

The ES-335's specs nod to its heritage via an acrylic dot inlay rosewood fingerboard, which sits on a rounded C-profile mahogany neck.

It offers T-type humbucking pickups with a hand-wired control assembly, while vintage deluxe tuners and keystone buttons continue the vintage veneer. There’s also a classic ABR-1 bridge and Stop Bar tailpiece combo. 

As you’d have guessed from its name, the SG Modern aims to take the classic and sprinkle in some contemporary updates. As such, it brings together an AA figured maple top with mahogany for its body – a combination Gibson says is “renowned for its resonance and sustain”.

There’s a 24-fret, compound radius ebony fretboard with mother-of-pearl inlays, and an asymmetrical Slim Taper profile for “fast and silky access to the highest frets”. 

Burstbucker Pro Alnico 5 humbuckers have been chosen, which offer added versatility through a push/pull Top Hat control pot.

The trio is rounded out by the Les Paul Modern Studio that, like the SG Modern, melds classic touches with modern refinements. 

A weight-relieved mahogany body and maple cap steps away from the Les Paul’s weighty heritage. The bound neck has a compound radius ebony 'board, and a modern contoured heel for improved playability and upper fret access. 

Further modern appointments include coil-tapping, phase control, and pure bypass switching capabilities for its 490R and 498T pickups. It also comes with a soft shell case. 

Gibson, which re-entered the amp-making game at the start of the year, has also recently released an affordable Epiphone Vintage Firebird, a non-reverse Firebird V 12-string, and treated some of its revered acoustic guitars to tuxedo treatment and rosewood reinvention. The ever-busy luthier shows no signs of slowing down. 

The ES-335 ($3,499), SG Modern ($2,499), and Les Paul Modern Studio ($1,999) are available to order exclusively via Gibson.com and the Gibson Garage.  

Head to Gibson to find out more. 

B.B. King had more than one Lucille throughout his illustrious career. Yet, the Gibson ES-330 and ES-355 models not only accompanied King across countless performances, but under the umbrella name Lucille, have also been the subject of many anecdotes. Prolific jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour now adds his own story to Lucille's lore.

“I was at a festival with him. I had performed with my band and opened for him. I forget where this was,” recalls Ritenour in a new interview with MusicRadar.

“After my performance, he went on, and he was on his encore, and he put his guitar down on the stand and he was just singing. He saw me standing by the curtain there, offstage, and he shouts, ‘Lee, come on out!’ And he says to the audience, ‘Lee Ritenour! Come on out!’ [Laughs] I said, ‘I can’t, B.B. – my guitar’s all packed up. I don’t have my stuff.’ He said, ‘That’s okay, play mine.’"

Stunned, Ritenour went on stage and grabbed King's famed Lucille.

“First of all, I put the strap on and the guitar was down to my knees, right!? He was a big guy. So then I adjusted that, and then I tried to play his guitar… His guitar!

“The strings were off his Gibson guitar, like, I have never experienced anything like that. It was like piano strings, and it was so far off the neck, so high off the neck, and then there was all this built-in grease. It was B.B. King grease on the guitar that had been baked on there for years and the strings were heavy as hell.”

He continues, “I couldn’t physically play the guitar! And I tell this story because I was so blown away. He was so strong, and he had that vibrato.

“That’s why I remember this story, ‘cos he had this vibrato that is hard to do when you are playing a guitar like mine, that’s normally strung up. But on his guitar? He was something else. He was very special, and he loved sharing the stage with all the guitar players. He was just something else.”

This wasn't Ritenour's only encounter with King. He was one of King's session guitarists, playing rhythm guitar on the 1997 album King Size. When speaking about these sessions, Ritenour remembers that “B.B. was incredibly strong on guitar. He had this incredible vibrato that nobody on the entire planet could play vibrato on the guitar like he did.”

In 1997, King gifted Pope John Paul II one of his Lucilles, which was later given as a prize during one of the Vatican's charity fundraising events. This particular Lucille was recently up for auction, selling for $45,000 ($48,773). 

Not many musicians can claim to have transitioned from creating genre-defining drum fills behind the kit of grunge’s most famous band to commanding the center stage as a world-class frontman, guitar player, and songwriter. Yet, this is precisely the path that Dave Grohl has traversed, all the while maintaining a reputation for being the nicest man in rock. 

Over the past three decades, Grohl has been at the helm of the Foo Fighters, transforming them from an underground solo project to a seven-piece mega-band that sells out stadiums worldwide. Together, they have solidified their status as one of the most beloved and enduring bands of all time. Their music, a reflection of Grohl's enduring talent as a songwriter and the band's timeless appeal, has resonated with fans across generations, earning them a place in the annals of rock history. 

Accompanying Grohl along his musical journey has been a slew of – mainly – Gibson guitars, although there are a few notable exceptions. From signature semi-hollows to radical Explorers and a few off-kilter models, Dave’s road-ready axes must be able to withstand the harsh conditions of a relentless touring schedule and deliver a stadium-filling sound night after night – there’s no room for pretenders here. 

Today, we’re going to break down some of Dave Grohl’s most iconic guitars and even give you some affordable models to check out if you fancy recreating the Foo Fighters frontman’s signature sound on a budget. 

Of course, Grohl has used various models over his insanely long career, and there’s a lot to cover, so run and tell all of the angels, this could take all night… 

1. 1967 Gibson Trini Lopez / Gibson DG-335

The 1967 Gibson Trini Lopez holds a special place in Dave Grohl's heart, so much so that he has often referred to it as “the sound of the Foo Fighters.” This guitar, which has been a constant companion on every album, has been used to pen the majority of the band's biggest hits. 

Purchased in Bethesda, Maryland around ‘92, in his previous life as the drummer of Nirvana, this guitar has gone on to define the sound of the Foo Fighters and is arguably more associated with Grohl than with its namesake, Trini Lopez. 

Originally designed as one of two models he crafted with Gibson in the sixties, Lopez merged the body of an ES-335 with the headstock of a Non-Reverse Firebird to create his new signature guitar. He also added distinctive visual elements such as diamond sound holes, split diamond inlays, and a Lopez-branded wooden tailpiece, resulting in a guitar so visually striking that it has gone on to develop a life outside of the sixties singer/ guitarist.  

When it came time for Grohl to retire his beloved Trini from live use, he turned to the Gibson Custom Shop to produce a model spec’d to his exact needs. This guitar would become the basis of his signature model, the Gibson DG-335. 

Over the years, various iterations of this signature Pelham Blue guitar have been released, ranging from a $5,000 model in 2007 to a highly limited edition version in 2014. However, if you're not ready to splurge, don't fret. This year, Grohl has finally collaborated with Epiphone to bring you the highly anticipated Epiphone DG-335, which launched at a more affordable price point. 

2. Gibson Explorer

If you’ve been a fan of Foo Fighters since the early days, you'll likely feel a surge of nostalgia when you recall a young Dave Grohl and Co. tearing up the stage with a dangerously slow-slung ebony Gibson Explorer hanging from his shoulder, a sight that has become synonymous with the band's formative years. 

Likely a late ‘90s model, this beaten-up black Explorer was a staple of Dave’s live rig from around 1995 to the early 2000s and quickly became his calling card axe before he moved on to a Firebird and eventually his signature semi-hollow. 

Famed for its ostentatious design and larger-than-life sound, the Explorer is the ideal guitar for a stadium rock setting. Utilizing its mid-range bark and top-end snarl, Grohl used this guitar to its full potential to deliver his gut-punching riffs live.

3. Gibson Les Paul Standard / Gibson Les Paul Custom

Back in the band's early days, while Dave was still finding his feet as a frontman and guitarist, he would often be seen with a Gibson Les Paul around his neck. Again, he has used many models, but the most notable ones are his beloved Tobacco Burst Les Paul Standard and Alpine White Les Paul Custom. These guitars are known for their rich, warm tones and comfortable playability, making them ideal for both studio recordings and live performances.

Grohl used his sunburst Les Paul from the very beginning of the band from 1994 to 1997 and has said that it was used throughout the recording of the first record.  Around the same time, he would also rely on a yellowed-out Alpine White Les Paul Custom, which was a mainstay at early live shows. 

4. Gibson Elvis Presley Dove

When it comes to acoustic guitars, Dave has been known to use many models from the Taylor 814-CE and 410, to the favorite flat-top of his former band leader, Cobain, the Martin D-18. That said, there is one model that he is most associated with live and that’s the Gibson Elvis Presley Dove – I guess Dave loves playing other people’s signature models as much as his own. 

Fashioned after a customized 1969 Gibson Dove that was gifted to Elvis by his father, this unique blacked-out square-shouldered dreadnought is a sight to behold. It features a spruce top with maple back and sides, a mahogany neck, and a rosewood fingerboard, all contributing to its distinctive sound and aesthetic. 

Honorable mentions

So that's just a snippet of the guitars Dave Grohl has used both on stage and in the studio. That said, we can't finish up without mentioning a few of the other six-strings that have made an appearance at one time or another. 

It's no secret that Dave has a penchant for the unconventional side of electric guitars. In the late '90s and early 2000s, he often wielded a '70s RD Standard, as well as the head-turning Ampeg Dan Armstrong Plexiglass, a guitar that played a pivotal role in the video for All My Life. 

Another prominent axe is the Gibson Firebird Studio, which made an appearance around 2005 during the In Your Honor tour. This model is notable as it doesn't fit the standard configuration of a Firebird. It forgoes the neck-through construction and ditches the mini-humbuckers for full-sized humbuckers. 

And lastly, we can't forget to pay homage to Dave's most flamboyant instrument, the iconic Gretsch White Falcon. This '90s Japanese-made Gretsch, once owned by Dave's partner in crime, Pat Smear, holds a special place in their shared musical journey. It was a staple on and off stage for both musicians, with its most memorable appearance in the video for the band's chart-topping hit, Monkey Wrench. Astonishingly, the guitar fetched a whopping $53,000 when it went to auction back in 2022. 

Looking for huge savings on guitars and more? Take a look at our Black Friday guitar deals page for all the latest and greatest offers.

Dave Grohl needs very little introduction. From having a hand (or both hands) in changing the course of rock as the drummer in Nirvana to steadily growing Foo Fighters from a collection of self-recorded songs into a stadium-filling band, he’s become the poster boy for all things rock in mainstream culture. 

Rewind to 1995, and it’s most likely you’ll see him bouncing between Gibson Les Paul Standards and Customs, Explorers and SGs. Throw in the odd Firebird and RD, and it’s clear that – spare a brief dalliance with an Ampeg Dan Armstrong, the clear-bodied Lucite guitar you can see in the All My Life video – Grohl has almost exclusively favoured Gibson models.

His leanings towards slightly leftfield variations go back to before the conception of Foo Fighters though, thanks to a chance purchase of a 1967 Gibson Trini Lopez model while he was still drumming in Nirvana. 

This cherry red guitar would go on to play a massive part in the band’s sound and history, with Grohl using it to track the bulk of his guitar parts on every one of the band’s studio releases.

But as well as that, Grohl used it to inform much of the design of the Pelham Blue Gibson DG-335 signature model that’s been his go-to since 2007. 

Originally released as a mega-expensive, Memphis-made guitar, the DG-335 has been issued and reissued a few times since it was first released, with used examples pushing towards £20,000 at times.

Well, now it’s been issued as a production model under Gibson’s Epiphone brand, giving real-world Foos fans the opportunity to bag the iconic color and shape without having to sacrifice basic necessities like food and heating.

Spec-wise, it would’ve been easy to start putting lines through the spreadsheet to save money, but Epiphone has kept it pretty faithful. There’s the double-bound, laminated body (maple and poplar rather than the Gibson’s pure maple), one-piece mahogany neck, and a laurel – rather than rosewood – fingerboard. 

The elusive Trini Lopez features adopted by Grohl are all present, too: diamond-shaped F-holes, split-diamond inlays and the Firebird-style six-in-line headstock all combine with the Pelham Blue paint job to complete the picture.

But one of the biggest features is bubbling at the surface: the DG is packing Gibson USA pickups. In the neck position, we get a Burstbucker 2, and the bridge humbucker is a Burstbucker 3 – the same pairing found in the USA version.

To the back of the headstock sits Grohl’s signature, and the guitar comes in a sturdy hardcase, which, while devoid of any candy, does include a larger version of the same John Hancock on the outside.

Straight out of the box, the DG-335 cuts a familiar figure – the hue of the finish is spot on, and delivered flawlessly to boot. Acoustically, it’s fairly vibrant and lively, which we think bodes well before plugging in.

The neck shape is also a little different to the norm, another ‘win’ in our book, rather than opting for an off-the-peg profile. Epiphone calls it an Elliptical C-shape, and it’s quite different to the common SlimTaper profile – it’s rounded, wider, chunkier and more of a palm-filler that strikes a great balance for chord and rhythm playing at the lower frets, while giving us a great anchor for string bends and lead playing.

The tone is where the heart is, though, and those USA pickups earn their spot. Many of Grohl’s tones come from a combination of Vox AC30 or Fender-style cleans, combined with Marshall and Mesa/Boogie for the dirt. 

Yes, we’re talking relatively meat and potatoes for a lot of Foo Fighters sounds, but as we all know, getting the simple things right can present as much of a challenge as more complex sounds. 

Not here though, because with our modeler dialled in, we were able to quickly replicate some typical Grohl sounds using very little processing beyond amps, overdrive and delay.

But, it goes beyond Foo Fighters. This is essentially a rock-friendly ES-335, and it’s got the firepower to cover everything from blues to indie to classic rock tones with ease. 

Specs

• PRICE: $1,299 / £1,249
• BODY: Laminated maple/poplar, with maple centre-block
• NECK: Mahogany
• SCALE: 24.75-inches
• FINGERBOARD: Indian laurel
• FRETS: 22
• PICKUPS: Gibson USA Burstbucker 2 (neck) and 3 (bridge)
• CONTROLS: Volume x2, tone x2, three-way selector switch
• HARDWARE: Epiphone lockTone T-o-M bridge and tailpiece, Grover Mini-Rotomatic tuners, nickel
• FINISH: Pelham Blue
• CONTACT: Epiphone

The Gibson Custom Shop has announced a new Collector’s Edition replica of Slash’s 1963 Gibson ES-335, which will be limited to 50 models and include a pair of tickets to an exclusive show at Gibson’s Nashville HQ.

Slash fans might recall that when the Guns N’ Roses man debuted the first track from his new blues album Orgy of the Damned – a cover of Howlin’ Wolf classic Killing Floor – he did so wielding a stunning vintage ES-335, equipped with a Bigsby, rather than his trademark Les Paul.

That model appeared elsewhere on the record, too, and, in a savvy collaboration between the Gibson Custom Shop and Slash’s label Gibson Records, the firm has announced an exhausting replica of that very same dot-neck semi-hollow to coincide with the album’s arrival (due May 17).

“I used a beautiful and killer-sounding 1963 ES-335 Gibson for more than a few songs on Orgy of the Damned,” says Slash. 

“Gibson has now built a fantastic replica of this extraordinary guitar. Same dot neck, Bigsby tremolo, and finish. You have to check it out.”

The build features a tailor-made pair of unpotted Custombucker humbuckers (with Alnico II magnets), a Bigsby B7 vibrato and has been light-aged by the Murphy Lab – in keeping with the remarkably clean condition of Slash’s original.

It will also come with a Lifton hard case (with yellow plush interior), a ‘Custom Made’ plaque and a host of case candy, including a signed copy of the Orgy of the Damned album, a signed copy of Gibson’s Slash: The Collection book (documenting his guitar haul) and the usual Certificate of Authenticity.

In addition, buying one of the 50 Collector’s Edition Slash 1963 ES-335s, also entitles you to a pair of tickets to a Slash show at the Gibson Garage Nashville, alongside a Q&A hosted by Gibson’s Mark Agnesi. The show will take place on June 30.

All of that comes with a price tag of $14,999, which unsurprisingly places it towards the top end of Gibson’s price scale, but is considerably lower than the likes of some of its flagship Collector’s Edition replicas, most notably the $50,000 Gibson Custom Shop Kirk Hammett Greeny 1959 Les Paul Standard.

It remains to be seen if the Slash ES-335 will be rolled out among the firm’s lower tiers, as a Gibson USA model, or an Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Custom Shop build, in the manner of the Greeny Les Paul, or Dave Grohl’s signature DG-335.

For more information on the Gibson Custom Shop Slash 1963 Collector’s Edition ES-335, head to Gibson.

The words “Slash” and “Gibson Les Paul” go hand-in-hand. You can’t think of the Guns N’ Roses rocker without picturing him holding his favored single-cut. Likewise, when you see a Les Paul, Slash usually springs.

Indeed, that’s what happens when you spend an entire career largely playing one particular electric guitar – but for his new blues solo record, Orgy of the Damned, Slash did make quite a notable exception.

No, we’re not talking about the ES-335 he played in his cover of Killing Floor. We’re talking about the fact he swapped Les Pauls for Fender Stratocasters – and Telecasters – for some tracks on the album.

Speaking in the new issue of Total Guitar, the Les Paul loyalist revealed he’d opted for Fender single-coil sounds on two songs: Oh Well and Living For The City.

“For me that song was one of my favourites,” Slash says of his cover of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac classic Oh Well, for which he’s joined by Chris Stapleton. “I remember when they used to play it on the radio back in the ’70s, and I always loved it. 

“Y’know I’ve jammed the riff a few times but I have never played the full song. My take on it is a little bit more hard-driving than most, right? It was a hell of a lot of fun to play. And I’m playing a Strat, too, which you never hear me use.”

As for why he wanted to play a Strat on the song – especially since Green himself is so closely associated to the Les Paul, thanks to the legendary ‘Greeny’ – Slash continues, “It just sounded like a Strat to me. I used a Strat on that, and I used an old ’50s Tele on Living For The City.”

Despite his affiliation with the Les Paul, Slash is a notable admirer of the Strat. Back in 2018, he described the model as “probably one of the most versatile guitars there is”.

It wasn’t just Fender guitars Slash turned to while recording his blues album, either. As he goes on to reveal, he also recorded using some Fender amps – as well as potentially one of the last Dumbles ever made before Alexander Dumble passed away.

“I’m funny with amps,” Slash says. “I have obviously been a Marshall guy forever, and I love Marshalls – nothing gets the Marshall sound, right? But I also love old Fender Deluxes. 

“I love old Fender amps for lots of different kinds of things, and they pop up here and there for clean stuff on a record or whatever. But I pulled them out, a couple of old Fender ’50s Deluxes. 

“I had a Dumble Fender Deluxe that he (Alexander ‘Howard’ Dumble) built for me, just before he passed away. I think it was the last one he ever built.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Total Guitar, which features interviews with Slash, St. Vincent and Kerry King

Maybe it’s all the bending and vibrato, and the associated pain that comes with steel-string manipulation, but there is something deeper about the connection between the blues player and their guitar. 

The great blues players do something with those guitars; they take on a life of their own. Blues guitars are often named, as though a surrogate for a lover, past or present. 

Here we’re going to take a look at some of the most famous blues six-strings in history, and also suggest some reasonably priced options on today’s market for the next generation of players to tell their story on. That’s us, right?

1. Robert Johnson's circa-1926 Gibson L-1

We might imagine Robert Johnson’s life in sepia and monochrome but that’s an illusion sold by archive photography. His reality was lived in vivid colour as the Delta blues godfather breathed life into the art, mostly in juke joints but, thankfully for posterity, across two recording sessions too. 

He played a number of guitars but the 1920s Gibson L-1 flat-top – spruce topped, round-bottomed – is the one we remember.

2. Muddy Waters’ 1958 Fender Telecaster

Someone needed to take that sound pioneered by Johnson and the acoustic forebears of blues and electrify it. Enter Muddy Waters. Mississippi born, made in Chicago, Waters’ Telecaster (aka The Hoss) was his number one. 

Serial number: 026176, ash-bodied refinished red, upgraded with a six-saddle bridge and rosewood neck, it gave Waters some spike to work with. The Stones, Clapton et al were listening. 

3. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s circa-1963 Fender Strat Number One

Number one, aka ‘First Wife’, is the greatest guitar in Texas blues, recognisable for its engraved pickguard, three-colour sunburst, and a left-handed vibrato on a right-handed guitar. Bought at Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas Music, Austin, Number One is a mongrel with a ’63 body, ’59 pickups ’62 neck, but it had guts.

4. Eric Clapton’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul ‘Beano Burst’

Eric Clapton used it to track Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton in 1966, and it’s named Beano because Slowhand is reading the Beano on the album cover. What makes this the Loch Ness Monster of Les Pauls is that it was stolen in ’66 and hasn’t been seen since. The late Peter Green said in 1999 it’d be worth £50 million. Where is it?

5. B.B. King’s Gibson ES-355 Lucille

There have been many Lucilles in B.B. King’s arsenal over the years, but they all share the same story: named after a woman two men were fighting over in a dancehall. The tale goes that they knocked over a barrel of burning fuel in the process and started a fire. 

King ran into it in order to save his beloved guitar and subsequently named it after the subject of the feud. Typically, Lucille was an ES-355, dressed in a tux, f-holes filled in, and a TP-6 bridge because intonation is everything.

6. Billy Gibbons’ 1959 Gibson Les Paul ‘Pearly Gates’

Another Holy Grail Les Paul, and one that ZZ Top’s whiskered master of ceremonies says is irreplaceable. Gibbons bought Pearly Gates in 1968 for $250, from a country player turned rancher whom he described as “a John Wayne guy”. A feature of every ZZ Top record since, it is one of the best-sounding Les Pauls ever made. 

7. The Greeny 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard

Not another ’59 Les Paul Standard? Yes, and how could we leave Greeny off this list? Owned by two blues greats, first Peter Green, from whom it takes its name, then Gary Moore, and now by Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Greeny has the iconic out-of-phase tone and mismatched controls. 

8. Johnny Winter’s 1964 Gibson Firebird V

They say dogs look like their owners (or is it the other way round?) but what about guitarists and their instruments? There was something truly simpatico about Winter and his beat-down Polaris White Firebird V, bearing the scars of its removed maestro, the worn Firebird log on the pickguard, all the signs of a life lived hard. And then it had that voice, the perfect vehicle for Winter’s animalistic playing style. 

9. Albert King’s 1959 Gibson Flying V ‘Lucy’*

We’re putting an asterisk on which Lucy is considered Albert King’s main squeeze because, like his namesake B.B., he loved a few in his life, but the korina V from the first batch out the Gibson factory helped establish one of the most captivating presences in blues. Legendary luthier Dan Erlewine built King some custom Lucy V’s, replete with her name on an open-book style headstock. 

10. Albert Collins’ 1966 Custom Telecaster

The Iceman cometh! Now here’s a Telecaster to pin the audience to the back of their seats, which Albert Collins, the undisputed Master of the Telecaster, did on a nightly basis throughout his career. 

Famously, he’d tune his Tele to open F minor, using a capo to change the key, playing with his fingers through a dimed Fender Quad. With a Gibson PAF at the neck position, what else could anyone need from a guitar?

I was part of the generation that took their first steps on electric guitar by learning blink-182 songs.

All the Small Things taught me power chords. What’s My Age Again? was my first frustrating encounter with string skipping. I learned the catalog front to back – M+M’s’ whip-fast pull-offs and Carousel’s frenetic scale runs – before, 20 years ago, blink-182 became one of the first bands I ever saw live… although by that stage DeLonge had switched to his new beau, a signature Gibson ES-333.

And that’s why writing about Tom DeLonge’s return to Fender in late 2022 gave me such a heady rush of nostalgia. This was the hero of my foundational guitar-playing years, returning to the company whose instruments accompanied him for blink’s biggest moments.

More exciting still was the fact that DeLonge hadn’t just revisited his signature Strat of yesteryear for his homecoming. Instead, he’d sought to reinvent one of Fender’s most unloved instruments, the Starcaster, with his own take on the design finally landing earlier this week for a cool $1,199.

When it was first released in 1976, the Starcaster was Fender’s attempt to take a slice of the semi-hollowbody guitar market – which was, at the time, considered very much Gibson’s domain.

Yet the model’s appearance was out of keeping with the altogether classier ES-335, and guitarists didn’t take to the offset maple body and black fin headstock. There were other specs that deviated from convention, too: the hardtail bridge, CBS-era three-bolt neck joint and five closely spaced control knobs, including a master volume. It was a step too far for traditionalists, and the guitar was discontinued after just four years.

In the decades since, the Starcaster has achieved cult status at the hands of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and The Killers’ Dave Keuning. Limited production runs of the instrument have come and gone, and Squier still makes a trio of distinctive Starcaster models. But, as I discovered upon getting my hands on an early review model, none of these are as successful as DeLonge’s take.

DeLonge and winding road

DeLonge may have agreed to the Starcaster shape purely because of its name – as if UFOs ever don’t factor into his decision-making – but it does neatly marry the best parts of his two previous signature guitars.

So, you get the semi-hollow body – offset for extra cool points – paired with bolt-on Fender playability, and a single bridge humbucker: Seymour Duncan’s overwound PAF-inspired SH-5 Custom.

There are some aesthetic considerations, too, with the Adjusto-Matic bridge and tailpiece offering a classier appearance, while the oversized ’70s-style Fender headstock will be a relief to naysayers of the Starcaster’s OG black fin, topped off by a very welcome set of locking tuners.

Perhaps most importantly, it all looks right. While previous models have been decent guitars, this is the first time a Starcaster has felt desirable. It helps that DeLonge picked out four delectable satin finishes for the model: Surf Green, Shell Pink, Shoreline Gold and Olympic White.

Having long harbored hopes for the flagship pink, I was a little disappointed when I pulled my review model out of the box: Shoreline Gold. Dammit (heh). But the white binding does make it pop in person. It’s spoiled only slightly by the out-of-place white control knob.

Its modern C-shaped neck is the kind of roasted maple appendage that wouldn’t feel out of place on your average Strat, especially paired with the 12”-radius rosewood fingerboard. Compared with the neck on the other big semi-hollow du jour, Epiphone’s long-awaited Dave Grohl DG-335, it’s a slinkier playing experience that rewards faster left-hand acrobatics than this model has any right to host. However, like the Grohl model, the neck is gloss-finished, which feels a little incongruous here given the sleekness of the body’s satin.

While I fully expected to be inspired to launch straight into the blink back catalog, the contemporary neck shape and feel had me playing like, well, me – which mostly means lots of legato noodling and moody drone notes. This isn’t always the case with a lot of guitars I pick up for review: give me a Strat, and I’m in dangerously Hendrixian territory. A Les Paul will always conjure Page first. A 335 is situated in blues or big-chord town. This felt like more of a blank canvas.

That lonely Seymour Duncan pickup lets you paint with your own palette, too – especially compared with the TD Strat’s gratuitously high-output Invader. With a vintage hot output, distorted palm-muting is immensely satisfying, but the inclusion of a treble bleed circuit – which prevents the tone from darkening when the volume knob is wound down – aids its flexibility (even if the knob itself is positioned a little too far out of the way for easy volume swells).

This guitar could cope in any hard-rock scenario you can throw at it – you need only look to Wolfgang Van Halen to hear what a semi-hollow is capable of in heavier settings. Granted, there’s not quite the ‘grab-a-sandwich-and-come-back’ sustain of a set-neck, but the bolt-on joint yields a lighter, punchier tone that’s a big plus for recording, particularly if your bass player likes their tone on the treblier end of the EQ spectrum (we’re looking at you, Mark Hoppus).

To the Stars

Tom DeLonge was wise to keep his signature off his Starcaster’s headstock – there’s only that custom neckplate and rear-headstock graphic to signify his association. Combined with the guitar’s inarguably impressive Indonesian build – coming out of the same factory as Squier’s current-production Starcasters – it points not only towards a new future for the Starcaster, but Fender’s signature line in general.

It’s indicative of the new concept of ‘premium offshore’ – a topic my esteemed colleague Matt Parker has written about at length – as evidenced by this year’s most hyped Fender being produced in Indonesia, and the hottest Epiphone being manufactured in China. As build quality across the world goes up, the location of manufacture matters less to consumers – and the success of this model will be a fascinating test case.

This is a significant release in other ways, too: Tom DeLonge’s reimagining of the Starcaster has finally given Fender’s also-ran semi-hollow its own identity. Unlike the shape’s original ’60s launch, the TD Starcaster isn’t trying to steal away market share – it certainly doesn’t look like the semi-hollows of yore. Instead, it taps neatly into the ongoing offset guitar boom – and those pastel finishes could not be more on trend.

Given the year-and-a-half of fervor surrounding the model, it could even lead to a Starcaster renaissance. Just imagine a dual-humbucker version without the DeLonge branding – the semi-hollow for guitarists who don’t like semi-hollows. The semi-hollow for offset fanatics. And with Fender’s Indonesian factory ramping up production for this signature model, it would be a logical next step.

Whatever happens, the Tom DeLonge Starcaster’s potential reach extends far beyond Blink-182 fans. It’s a streamlined, unashamedly modern electric guitar – and DeLonge’s decision to throw out the traditional spec rulebook is key to its success.

As the guitarist muses in Fender’s promo video for the new model, “This guitar shows my evolution as a player but also has the hallmarks of where I came from and what I’m about.” And those sentiments apply to the Starcaster as a whole – I guess this is growing up…

• For more information on the Tom DeLonge Starcaster, head to Fender.com.

Epiphone has expanded its premium ‘Inspired by Gibson Custom’ range with a wealth of new electric guitars and acoustic guitars – including an updated take on the firm’s 1959 Burst Les Paul Standard.

The series was originally envisioned as an outlet for Epiphone to give players high-end, near-Gibson instruments that were built in collaboration with the latter’s Custom Shop, and that bridged the gap between lower-end US-made Gibsons and higher-end offshore Epis.

It has since gone on to produce the most talked-about Epis of recent months, from the Epiphone Kirk Hammett Greeny and Adam Jones Les Pauls, to the more recent Firebird V and Firebird I models.

Now, the above have been joined by a trio of acoustics and four new electrics: a Les Paul Custom, 1959 ES-355, 1963 Les Paul SG Custom and, perhaps most notably of all, the 1959 Les Paul Standard.

In a continuation of Epiphone’s commitment to offering authentic Gibson aesthetics, its latest quartet of six-strings all retain the Gibson ‘open book’ headstock, which replaces Epiphone’s larger and more rounded Kalamazoo alternative.

It makes for Epiphone’s first non-signature drop of instruments (since the takeover of parent-company Gibson Brands in 2018) to come fitted with that coveted headstock. Before, only the Greeny and Adam Jones Les Paul could boast such a feature.

Its presence here isn’t that much of a surprise, though: Gibson Brands’ VP of Product Mat Koehler promised that it would be a regular appointment for the ‘Inspired by Gibson Custom Shop’ builds.

But new-look headstocks are only part of the package, with Epiphone stressing these models faithfully recreate “some of the most iconic electric and acoustic guitars in history” by way of Gibson USA pickups, solid wood construction and an “unrivaled combination of professional features and accessibility”.

As mentioned, the new Epiphone ‘59 Les Paul Standard is the standout model here. Said to be “updated and more authentic than ever”, the LP weighs in at $1,299, making it slightly more expensive than its $999 predecessor, and just shy of the $1,499 Greeny.

But, of course, guitar prices these days are a different kettle of fish, and you get some appointments – as well as a vintage-style hardshell case – that look to justify that middle-ground price tag.

They include that headstock, and a set of Gibson USA Custombuckers, which swap out the old Epi R9’s Burstbuckers. This version also has a hand-wired ‘50s style wiring.

As for construction, a premium long neck tenon – a staple of Custom Shop Gibsons, which increases sustain and resonance – is used alongside a period-correct tailpiece. Also, the mahogany body is topped with a maple cap and a AAA flamed maple veneer (as is the case with Epi Bursts) and an accurate “1959 Rounded Medium C” neck profile.

It’s a similar story for the rest of the electric drop. The flagship Les Paul Custom, ‘63 Les Paul SG Custom, and 1959 ES-355 all feature those upgraded pickups, hand-wired electronics, period-accurate tailpieces/vibratos, the open book headstock and neck profiles that are, in most cases, matched to their respective vintage models.

Some standout specs from the remaining drop worth shouting about include the ebony fretboards and mother-of-pearl block inlays, as well as the Maestro Vibrola of the ‘63 Les Paul SG Custom – which recreates the famed Les Paul-named model that paved the way for the SG. 

A host of classic finishes are available for each, from the ‘59 LP’s exclusive Washed Cherry Sunburst, to the 355’s Ebony VOS.

Price-wise, they all sit above the $1k mark: $1,299 for the '59 Les Paul, Les Paul Custom and '59 ES-355, and $1,499 for the '63 Les Paul SG Custom.

Epiphone's drop is further bolstered by a trio of acoustics: a ‘42 J-45 ($1,299), ‘57 SJ-200 ($1,499) and a J-180 ($1,299). Again, these are all concerned with delivering faithful recreations of original Gibson models, with the appropriate headstocks, an assortment of spruce/mahogany/maple constructions and LR Baggs electronics.

Shoutout must go to the J-180 – a reimagining of the Everly Brother's iconic Star-inlaid Flattop, which has been made available in a rather generous array of pastel colors. 

Those Frost Blue and Pink models look rad, and we can’t help but wonder whether this is a nod to the custom-colored Gibson J-180 that Taylor Swift plays. If it is… well, fair play, Epiphone. A very savvy move indeed.

All in all, it makes for a rather sightly set of guitars – and, dare we say, Epiphone’s best-looking batch of Gibson-inspired guitars yet. 

Granted, it’s also the most expensive, and the knee-jerk reaction will be that the additional cost goes towards footing a fancy new headstock.

But that's without considering the included hard cases, ebony ‘boards, USA pickups, body binding and other premium appointments – and so the just-over-$1k price tags, particularly in today's guitar price climate, look pretty standard.

And, as Koehler explains, the cheaper alternatives are still there: “While you can still get all the same beloved Epiphone instruments at the same affordable price points, the new Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Custom line appeals to those who want the historic and premium specs that our Custom Shop fans love. 

“Collectively, we made sure every possible upgrade was included so that these would become the new crown jewels of our Epiphone range.”

Head over to Epiphone to find out more.

During Ted McCarty’s tenure as president of Gibson from 1950 through 1966, the company developed some of the greatest and most enduring electric guitar designs of all time. 

In fact, literally every electric model Gibson offers today was designed by McCarty and his team during this golden era, including the Explorer, Firebird, Flying V, Les Paul and SG. These are all timeless models, but McCarty’s semi-hollowbody design for the ES-335 and its numerous variants may be his greatest achievement of all time.

Gibson introduced the ES-335 – the music industry’s very first semi-hollow electric model – in 1958, only six short years after the company’s first solidbody model, the Les Paul, made its debut. 

The 335 was a natural progression of ideas sparked by input from players, who wanted a “best of both worlds’’ instrument that combined the best features of solidbody and hollowbody electrics, namely the former’s ability to be amplified to generous volume levels without feedback and the latter’s warm, round tones and acoustic-like resonance. 

Gibson’s thinline models like the Byrdland introduced in 1955 were a first step toward this goal, but the semi-hollow ES-335 was the ultimate refinement and, as a result, became an iconic electric guitar model.

The 335’s key feature is a solid block of maple extending through the body underneath the strings from the neck joint to the tail block, providing a truly solid center. This block is encased inside a slim hollow body, dividing it into two resonant chamber “wings” on either side of the strings. 

A generous double cutaway design allows easy access all the way up the neck to the 22nd fret, something even the “radical” new Fender Stratocaster model didn’t quite offer back in the day. The crowning touch was a pair of humbucking pickups, which had just started appearing on Gibson guitars around this time.

The 335 became the blueprint for several successful variants, like the fancier ES-345 and ES-355, one of two Trini Lopez models introduced in the mid-Sixties and much later the signature B.B. King Lucille model.

Early 335 guitars often came with Bigsby or Maestro vibrato or trapeze tailpieces, but most players agree that the “money” version is the one with a standard stop tailpiece.

While all of Gibson’s most popular solidbody models have come and gone and eventually come back again, the ES-335 has remained a consistent fixture of its product line since its intro in 1958, mainly due to its incredible versatility.

The list of guitarists who have played an ES-335 at some point in their careers encompasses pretty much every style except classical and flamenco, and that wouldn’t even count the variants like the ES-345/355 models played by blues and rock ’n’ roll icons like B.B. and Freddie King, Otis Rush and Chuck Berry or the Trini Lopez model favored by Dave Grohl.

The following is a select list of songs prominently featuring the 335:

• B.B. King – The Thrill Is Gone (Live at the Regal, using a custom 335 modified with a Varitone switch)
• Eric Clapton/Cream – Badge
• Alvin Lee – I’m Going Home
• Ritchie Blackmore/Deep Purple – Child in Time
• Alex Lifeson/Rush – Working Man
• Andy Scott/Sweet – Action
• Larry Mr. 335 Carlton/Steely Dan – Kid Charlemagne
• Eddie Van Halen – And the Cradle Will Rock…
• Eric Johnson – Cliffs of Dover
• Pepper Keenan/Down – Stone the Crow
• Peter Hayes/Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Red Eyes and Tears
• Chris Stapleton – Second One to Know

Gibson has shared a series of previously unpublished sketches from the 1950s that have altered guitar historians’ understanding of the development of models like the Explorer and Flying V. They also, potentially, offer a clue to the evolution of the ES-335.

The images were rediscovered by Gibson’s in-house history buffs, VP of Product Mat Koehler and Director of Product Development and Gibson Archives Curator Jason Davidson, and seemingly led to the development of the recently released Theodore model.

The sketches are thought to have been created in conjunction with Chicago design firm Painter Teague & Petertil (PTP) in 1955 at the behest of the firm’s golden-era CEO Ted McCarty. 

Koehler tells Reverb that he first saw some of the sketches in Walter Carter’s reference book Gibson Guitars: 100 Years Of An American Icon. 

“Rediscovering the drawings in Walter’s book prompted a search through Gibson’s archives to see if they were still there,” says Koehler, who notes it was Davidson that eventually found them.

“That was the first time we understood when the drawings were made. They’re dated November 14th 1955, and that just blew us away.”

The year is significant because the sketches contain images of an Explorer-like headstock that predate the launch of that model by some three years. You can also see what are likely early concepts for shapes like the Moderne.

In addition, Koehler believes that the predominance of thinline designs among the sketches is evidence that the firm’s iconic ES-335 (announced in 1958) was being conceived alongside the Modernistic lines as far back as ’55.

“Those wacky designs, I think came all around the same time, for a few years, where Gibson was trying to get to what became the Modernistic guitars, the Explorer and Flying V,” Koehler tells Reverb.

“But I think there were actually two paths. One was the wild pointy-shape things. The other path was what I believe led to the 335.”

One final aspect of these designs that seems to have gone unmentioned so far is the similarity of some of the headstock sketches to Gibson’s unreleased ‘headless’ Futura prototype.  

That model arrived some 26 years later and was thought to be mere myth until Gibson’s Mark Agnesi found an example in storage at Gibson. 

Notably, the 'headless' Futura was developed around the same time as the 1980 Moderne reissue. The original Moderne debuted during the McCarty era (at the same NAMM show as the Flying V and Explorer) but was soon canned after it got a poor reception. 

However, it seems feasible that when Gibson returned to the design in the early ’80s, it may also have taken the Futura headstock from the same point of inspiration, possibly these same 1950s drawings. 

Furthermore, the model name Futura was also used on an unreleased 1957 Gibson prototype, so we know the design team of the era was clearly exploring the McCarty era archives.

Who knows? It may be mere coincidence but there’s definitely more than a passing similarity to GW’s eyes...

You can read the full interview with Koehler – penned by our own go-to guitar historian, Tony Bacon – over at Reverb. 

Seymour Duncan and Joe Bonamassa have teamed up to produce another set of signature pickups – this time a pair of humbuckers that seek to recreate the tones of JoBo’s Blonde Dot 1960 ES-335.

As the curator of one of music’s largest and most envied vintage guitar collections, Bonamassa is by extension also the custodian of some of the most sought-after vintage pickups, including a wealth of Gibson’s original PAF humbuckers.

Indeed, original early examples of Seth Lover’s pioneering Patent Applied For units are widely considered to be the some of the sweetest-sounding pickups you could fit into an ES-335 or a Les Paul.

This latest collaboration between Bonamassa and the pickup specialist looks to harness this tonal nirvana, and first began when Seymour Duncan approached the blues guitar ace with the prospect of working together to recreate a set of humbuckers from one of his ES guitars.

To that proposition, Bonamassa volunteered his prized blonde-finished 1960 dot-neck ES-335 – one of the rarest ES-335 examples owing to their limited number, which had been aptly named “Blonde Dot” by its owner. 

Dubbed “one of his favorite ES-335s”, the guitar was first purchased by Bonamassa from a friend who supposedly had a collection of these highly sought-after dot neck ES models, and came fitted with what Bonamassa considered to be “some of the most balanced PAFs in his collection”.

It is this set of PAFs that has been replicated for Seymour Duncan’s latest release. To do so, the company measured and recorded the original units, recruiting an Alnico 2 magnet in the neck and Alnico 4 magnet in the bridge. Aesthetically, unaged nickel covers look to channel the like-new condition of the Blonde Dot humbuckers.

“There was something about this one. It just kind of explodes out of the amp,” Bonamassa says of his original Blonde Dot. “The PAFs are really balanced. It’s really clear in the front, but kind of punches you in the face in the back.

“The front pickup is really clear and Strat-y,” he continues, “and the back pickup is really punchy and dark and bite-y at the same time, so it’s got a lot of output.” 

The first 800 sets come with limited-edition packaging, and bottom plates signed by Bonamassa and Duncan. After that, the set will be available as standard Custom Shop Seymour Duncan pickups with a number of cosmetic options.

The set is available now for $375.

Head over to the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop to find out more.

This is just the latest set the pair have produced together, following JoBo's signature Nocaster pickups and his Cradle Rock Strat single-coils.

Bonamassa recently picked his three quintessential guitars for playing the blues – and the 335 was among them.

Gibson has announced the arrival of its latest limited-edition Murphy Lab electric guitars – a trio of Light and Heavy aged 1958 ES-335 reissues.

Now, the Murphy Lab line is no stranger to the ES-335 semi-hollow template. A quick glance at the collection’s catalog will confirm that ‘59, ‘61 and ‘64 models – with various hardware appointments, finishes and levels of relic'ing – all exist.

However, the ‘58 model is a different beast, particularly because it revives the first-ever ES-335 design that was created – and with it, one nuanced feature that was only provided for original ‘58 models. To that end, they are, as Gibson explains, “Striking limited edition reissues of the very first ES-335.”

To usher in the latest ES models, Gibson has dropped three distinct guitars: a Light Aged Tri-Burst variant, and Heavy Aged options in either Dirty Blonde or Faded Tobacco Burst.

Despite flashing their own finishes and artificial aging, all three carry the same faithful 1958-inspired spec sheet that accommodates some choice, ‘58-exclusive features that won’t be found on any other 335.

Notably, that means there’s a big ‘58 rounded neck profile and an unbound dot-inlaid fingerboard – a feature, according to Gibson, that is “found only on 1958 ES-335 models”.

Elsewhere, a maple centerblock is encased in a three-ply maple/poplar/maple body, which in turn flaunts one-ply Royalite top and back binding. A Murphy Lab aged Nitro Lacquer finish, naturally, is also recruited.

That ‘58 rounded neck is topped with a 22-fret, 12”-radius Indian rosewood fingerboard. A glued-in set neck with a long neck tenon construction is utilized, as is a 24.75” scale length.

Moving on, Murphy Lab Aged nickel hardware can be found: Kluson tuners line up alongside Authentic Profile pickup covers, as well as a lightweight aluminum Stop Bar and an ABR-1 bridge. 

Other era-accurate appointments include True Historic Gold Top Hat with Dial Pointer knobs, white plastic strap buttons, True Historic Amber switch tip and a slightly elongated 5-ply black pickguard.

Tones come by way of two unpotted Custombucker pickups, which are wired to a three-way Switchcraft toggle and two pairs of volume and tone parameters. Under the hood, CTS 500K Audio Taper pots and Paper-in-Oil capacitors can be found.

The above is packaged in a Brown/Pink Lifton reissue five-latch case, which carries a Certificate of Authenticity.

“The ES-335 was the world’s first semi-hollow guitar model,” Gibson writes. “Imagined by former Gibson President Ted McCarty, who later called it his proudest contribution, it has been in continuous production since its debut, with support from countless legendary artists, including B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Larry Carlton, and Warren Haynes.”

Owing to both the historic and limited-edition nature of the models – and their meticulous Murphy Lab treatment – these three come at a premium. Only 130 of each colorway will be made, with both the Dirty Blonde and Faded Tobacco Burst weighing in at $7,999 apiece.

The Tri-Burst model, meanwhile, is available for $6,499.

To find out more, head over to Gibson.

Joe Bonamassa’s blues chops – as well as the many vintage electric guitars he owns that help facilitate said chops – are the stuff of legend. But, if push came to shove, which three instruments would he choose above all others as his quintessential blues machines?

Certainly, the answer would make for interesting reading, not just for aspiring blues players who may be on the hunt for a suitable six-string, but also for more seasoned blues aficionados who may be looking to expand their arsenal.

Well, fortunately for all the above, that was the topic of conversation during Bonamassa’s latest chat with Total Guitar, during which he was asked about the guitars that sing the blues better than the rest.

Two guitars immediately came to Bonamassa’s mind: “A Strat and a [Gibson] ES-335. To me, those are blues machines,” he offered. “A Strat can do so much, kinda like [how] Buddy Guy [used one]. And the 335 is like the classic instrument that a guy like Freddie King used.”

JoBo did also namedrop another model – one he believed had been etched into the very annals of blues history thanks to some legendary players.

“I’d have to include a Les Paul, too,” he went on. “The British guys, like Jeff Beck, Peter Green and Mick Taylor, took the classic Les Paul ’Bursts from ’59 and used them as weapons for the blues.

“Those ’Bursts plugged into a Marshall became a common denominator. So, the Strat, 335, and the Les Paul – those are the quintessential three.”

Of course, Bonamassa is something of an authority when it comes to selecting the best bits of gear for playing the blues, and is clearly a master handler of all three aforementioned models. In the past, he’s told Guitar World of his favorite Stratocaster blues licks, his top ES-335 licks, and his go-to Goldtop Les Paul licks.

One guitar that didn’t get a mention, though, was the Telecaster. To some, the Albert Collins-favored model may seem a curious omission, given JoBo has previously waxed lyrical about it in the past: “You could do anything with a Telecaster,” he once told Guitarist.

Elsewhere in his Total Guitar interview, Bonamassa was asked about the best Strat, 335 and Les Paul he’s ever owned, which prompted him to reveal the identity of his “Les Paul killers”.

“Oh, God. The ’55 hardtail ‘Bonnie’ Strat is the best one for me,” he mused. “As for the 335, there’s a couple of ’62s that I play live – they’re Les Paul killers.

“And with Les Pauls, it depends on what I’m playing. It’s hard to name a favourite as it depends on the job. You’ve got a Goldtop with P-90s, and then there’s ’Bursts with PAFs, so it all depends.”