Brian Robertson’s time in Motörhead is one of the most intriguing chapters in the band’s history, and while his brightly-colored hotpants proved contentious, he was able to sneak guitar synths into his one album with the band, and he has a guitar legend to thank for that.

When “Fast” Eddie Clarke left the band in the middle of the Iron Fist tour, they turned to the former Thin Lizzy guitarist for assistance. After filling in on tour, he ultimately earned a permanent place in the band, featuring on 1983’s Another Perfect Day, which would be their last record as a power trio until 1996’s Overnight Sensation.

Naturally, Robertson’s ultra-rare hollow-bodied 1953 Les Paul came along for the ride. The guitar was customized by Les Paul himself for his wife, Mary Ford, who found the usual design too heavy. Robertson had purchased it upon joining Lizzy in 1974, and it became the center of an important guitar swap.

“I used it on two gigs [with Lizzy],” he tells Guitarist, having bought it off Mott the Hoople/Bad Company riffer, Mick Ralphs.

“It was dreadful because it fed back,” he reveals. “But it looked great, Burgundy red-ish. I had to have it, even though it had a Bigsby. My contention was that we needed a spare, which is bollocks because you couldn’t use it live. Plus, with the Bigsby, if you broke a string, it’d take you an hour and a half to change it.”

The guitar featured on Lizzy’s classic, Jailbreak, and, he says, anything that needed slide guitar, but Jeff Beck soon had it in his crosshairs.

“We were rehearsing together in [London rehearsal/recording studio] Nomis Studios,” Robertson explains. “I was rehearsing with Motörhead. I wanted to know how he got that top note on Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers, and he said, ‘It’s a guitar synth.’ I started joking, ‘You can have that if you give me your Roland guitar synth.’”

If you don’t ask in life, you don’t get. Fortunately for Robertson, Beck was game.

“He let me use the guitar synth while he had the Les Paul,” he smiles. “That’s how I got into using the guitar synths with Motörhead.”

In Joel McIver’s book Overkill: The Untold Story of Motörhead, Lemmy is quoted as saying that Robertson helped make the band “more musical,” but despite helping turn over a new leaf for the band, in the wake of their adrenalized heavy blues rock with Clarke, he left after just one year.

That paved the way for the late Phil Campbell and Michael “Würzel” Burston to form a fiery guitar tandem that lasted for around a decade, producing some of the densest-sounding Motörhead records in their exhaustive discography.

Robertson, in truth, knew his stint in the band was doomed, and he also knew what Lizzy lost when he stepped aside in 1978, yet he played a pivotal role in the histories of both hugely celebrated rock bands. And he did so with some rarified six-strings for company.

For the interview with Robertson, and to read about the unearthing of a classic Cream-era Eric Clapton guitar, pick up issue 539 of Guitarist from Magazines Direct.

Matthieu Lucas, from the Parisian guitar emporium Matt’s Guitar Shop, has unearthed a few musical gems during his lifetime. But, perhaps his proudest moment happened very recently, when he brought Eric Clapton’s influential ‘Summersburst’ – which has been hidden away from public view for nearly 60 years – to the public.

Eric Clapton’s fabled 1960 Les Paul Standard – his ‘Beano’ ’Burst – was snatched from a church hall in Brondesbury, London, at the height of his mid-’60s Bluesbreakers fame. He also happened to be just starting rehearsals with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker on a certain project called Cream. After the robbery, Clapton hastily bought another ’60 Les Paul from future Police guitarist Andy Summers for £300.

This guitar would shape Clapton’s next era – including, most pivotally, his work on Cream’s debut album, the game-changing Fresh Cream. Somewhere in between his trips across the Atlantic, though, the Les Paul would suffer the second of two serious neck breaks. While it was given a “creative” headstock replacement at Dan Armstrong’s repair shop, Clapton seemed unhappy with the result and left the guitar at the shop after refusing to pay the bill.

After changing hands more than a few times, fast-forward to 2026, when the guitar somehow found its way to Paris and into Lucas’ hands via renowned guitar collector Perry Margouleff.

“I knew about it for years,” Lucas says in the latest issue of Guitarist. “I couldn’t tell anyone about it because that’s not how Perry is working – he wants his guitars to be top secret, if I can say.

“But then I decided to make it public for several reasons, because my theory is that guitars like this should be played, should be shared with people. I think it doesn't even belong to me, or whoever is going to buy the guitar – it belongs to, I would almost say, humanity because that guitar is a major piece of the ’60s and British music, and a major piece of guitar history, so my feeling is that all those guitars need to be shared and played.”

At some point, Lucas stepped in and told Margouleff, “‘I want to buy this piece, but in my opinion it’s just a shame that it stays off the internet because I think it’s a different time now and everybody should know what happened to this guitar,’ because nobody knew where it was, basically.”

Lucas says that when he first met Margouleff around 13 years ago, the veteran collector took him under his wing and showed him a lot of his star-owned guitars. However, the future owner of Matt’s Guitar Shop wasn’t in a position to purchase Clapton’s guitar – that is, until 12 years later.

“It took a bit of time, but we arranged a deal a few weeks ago, and then I went to New York City and picked up the guitar myself.”

Having played Clapton’s “The Fool” SG, his 335, and other Cream-era instruments, Lucas has a few thoughts on how this Les Paul compares.

“It’s funny, because all of them [have notably slim necks], except the 335, which has more like a ’64 neck but still a very thin neck. So I think Clapton really loved a very thin neck on guitars, you know? This guitar is quite the same: it has one of the thinnest necks on a ’60 I’ve ever played.”

Lucas notes that it was probably made in the latter part of 1960 “because of that ‘tomato soup’ finish and other details,” while, structurally speaking, “it’s super easy to play and super fast because of that thin neck.” He goes on to point out that “the neck pickup is one of the creamiest neck pickups that I’ve tried.

“It’s not like a woody sound, it’s very creamy, very dense. It makes total sense when you put the guitar into a Marshall, and you put the tone at zero – you get exactly the Spoonful sound.

And the one thing that still blows his mind? “When you play the guitar, it’s incredible because that’s the record, you know? It already sounds like the record.”

For the full story and more about Eric Clapton’s iconic guitars, pick up issue 539 of Guitarist from Magazines Direct.

Deputies at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) have recovered nearly $60,000 worth of stolen guitars following an interception in Lake Forest, California.

“On Friday night (May 15), someone tried to strike a chord with a burglary involving nearly $60,000 worth of guitars,” reads the statement on the official Lake Forest Police Service Facebook account, “but Deputies quickly changed their tune.”

Officials detail that Deputy Carillo and K9 Billy, with the department’s K9 unit, managed to locate the suspect’s vehicle, a Kia Forte, parked at the gas pumps. The deputies detained the suspect and recovered five high-value guitars from the open trunk before taking the vehicle into custody.

Judging by the price tags still attached to the guitars when they were recovered, the Fender Custom Shop 1952 Telecaster, vintage 1950 Gibson L7-C, PRS Private Stock McCarty 594, single-cut Gibson Les Paul Custom, and Gibson Eric Clapton “Crossroads” Custom Shop ’64 Reissue ES-335 were all stolen from a Guitar Center in Lake Forest.

Due to the commercial nature of the burglary, the unnamed suspect faces severe felony charges under California law, including grand theft and commercial burglary.

“No satisfaction for this suspect,” the statement continues. “Just a failed getaway, busted chords and a setlist that includes felony charges. Deputies hit all the right notes bringing this case to a close.”

A few weeks ago, a separate suspect was arrested in Washington state in connection with a series of high-value guitar thefts at multiple West Coast Guitar Center locations.

When is a ’59 ’Burst not a ’59 ’Burst? The answer is when it’s a ‘Double O’. Most people associate 1960 Les Pauls with vibrant cherry sunbursts that never fade, reflector control knobs and skinnier neck profiles, but those features were not introduced right at the start of the year.

Well into 1960, Gibson continued building Les Pauls using necks, bodies and even pickups that had been made in 1959. These ’59-spec early 1960 ’Bursts have become known as ‘Double O’s because the first two serial number digits were zeros. That’s why they look, feel and sound indistinguishable from 1959 Les Pauls.

Gibson must have become aware of the fading finish issues. The aniline red pigment that most manufacturers used was not light-fast and would rapidly bleach out when exposed to sunlight. As hard as it is to believe nowadays, sunburst Les Pauls were not that popular because they were expensive and regarded as too heavy.

Most players probably didn’t understand what sounds you could get out of them until Keith Richards appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and then guys like Mike Bloomfield and Eric Clapton made them public. Many Les Pauls would have spent considerable amounts of time sunbathing in shop windows.

When light-fast red pigment became available, Gibson stopped spraying aniline red and the unfaded late-1960s style of sunburst became known as ‘tomato soup’.

I’ve had this early 1960 for about seven years and the colour is very 1959. It retains a lot of very strong unfaded aniline dye, but it weighs 9lb 9oz. Despite being heavy, the guitar is pretty balanced so it doesn’t feel like it’s pulling on your shoulders too much. The back does show a little bit of playwear – I call them spaghetti marks – and there’s some more wear on the rear upper bout to one side of the switch plate.

The neck pickup reads 8.23k and the bridge is 8.32k, so they’re very well matched. Both pickups have double black bobbins and the covers have never been off. They sound pretty aggressive, but all you need to do is roll the volumes back to 9 or 8 and they clean up sweetly.

The tuner buttons have been replaced with Uncle Lou’s as they shrank and disintegrated, but everything on the guitar is original and there’s no real wear on the fingerboard. At first glance I assumed it had been refretted, but these frets are actually original and in fantastic condition.

I think Double Os are really cool, although lots of people hear ‘1960’ and assume the worst. But when you have seen as many as me – and I currently have 12 1960s in stock – I can tell you they all vary.

The earliest ones have fairly large necks that feel comfortable, but the neck of one very late 1960 that I have is absolutely tiny. It’s like a blade in comparison, but Gibson didn’t make all these changes overnight. It was a progressive thing.

Some suggest that thinner necks make Les Pauls sound different, but you have to acknowledge that every piece of wood sounds different. I can’t really comment on how neck thickness affects tone because I’ve had some skinny-neck 1960s that sound richer and fuller than some 1959s. I think it’s more about the tonal characteristics and quality of the lumber.

When the collector market was obsessed with 1959 Les Pauls, and it still is to some extent, nobody was paying much attention to 1960s for a while. I started buying them up and went on a run where I acquired seven or eight Double Os.

I would hunt for them at guitar shows because back then people would simply classify them as ’59s or ’60s. I was particularly interested in the early ones, and the desirable 1959 specs were retained up to the point where serial numbers beginning with 02 started to appear.

What I can tell you is that there are really good ’Bursts, average ’Bursts and some that are not that good at all. I would definitely place this guitar well above average, although I can’t say it’s the best one I’ve ever had. I do wish it was lighter and, although it’s fine to use in the studio or play sitting down, I wouldn’t want to do a whole gig with it standing up.

There is such a wide variation in ’Burst weights – it just goes to show that Gibson made these in a factory with whatever materials were available at the time.

• Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York / info@wellstrungguitars.com / 001 (516) 221-0563
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Lester William Polsfuss is a man who needs no introduction, at least when you introduce him by his other name: Les Paul.

The guitarist and music gear innovator changed the course of the electric guitar’s history with his eponymous guitar design. He also masterminded the invention of multi-track recording, with his Monster console a vital piece of music history.

As such, he’s left behind a raft of historic, change-making gear, and for a day, Dre DiMura was given free rein to explore his studio, play his guitars, and record through “the most important recording console in music history.”

The guitarist and social media star was invited down to the Les Paul Recording Studio in Hollywood, which opened in March 2025 as a way of honoring his legacy, to run wild.

While his Number 1 Les Paul, a 1990 model he played in his later years, remains (mostly) locked behind a case in the studio, there are others that visitors can play. Those include a 1941 Epiphone Zephyr, a super-rare Les Paul Jumbo acoustic that sports a “weird” low-impedance pickup, the Signature and Recording models, and a more recognizable Goldtop.

“This is a guitarist's dream,” DiMura beams. “For a few hours, I got to live it; one piece of priceless gear after another.” During those hours, he tracked an Iron Maiden hit on the historic ‘Monster’ console with Les’s very own quirky 1965 Signature model.

Hearing The Trooper twang as it does here is certainly unusual, but it’s hard not to admire the sound of the guitar – and marvel at the Monster process.

But the best surprise happened when Les’s Number 1 was lifted from its case, with the strings that Les Paul played still on it.

“It's crazy because it's been totally messed with, like everything else,” says studio tour guide, Tom. “He shaved the bridge out of a solid piece of metal. It was sitting in a case since he passed [in 2009], and when we got it out here, the intonation was perfect. The action was perfect. Nothing buzzes, and there's really no adjustment on it.”

So, what does DiMura do when he gets the legendary six-string in his lap? Well, he see if it can djent, of course. And it sort of does – even without distortion.

In related Les Paul (guitar) news, Ace Frehley's prized 1975 workhorse is headed to auction, where it's expected to reach $600K.

The 1977 Gibson Les Paul Pro Deluxe that Journey’s Neal Schon famously used to record Don't Stop Believin’ went under the hammer for $254,000 on March 12 at the historic Jim Irsay Collection auction. The guitar had previously sold for $250,000 at auction in 2021.

Aside from being used on one of the most enduring rock anthems of all time, Schon believes it to be the first-ever Les Paul fitted with a double-locking Floyd Rose vibrato system.

Other specs include a mahogany body with a maple top in a black finish, a maple neck with a bound ebony fingerboard and faux-pearl inlays, and two double-coil pickups, including Fernandes Sustainer circuitry.

The guitar also features Schon-specific trimmings like a Ferrari sticker on the back, a signed autograph on the reverse of the headstock, and a white flight case with JOURNEY / NIGHTMARE INC. / SAN FRANCISCO U.S.A. stenciled in black. And, as a bonus, the new owner also bagged a tremolo bar and strap, plus a copy of the July 1982 edition of Guitar Player, the cover of which features both Schon and the guitar.

Speaking about the song now synonymous with Journey, Schon told Guitar World in a 2022 interview, “For the first time, you’re hearing a chorus on the outro, which was completely against all rules of nature in that time period – and now – if you’re going to try to get a song on the radio. The saying was, ‘Don’t bore me. Get to the chorus.’

He continued, “In this case, the chorus didn’t happen until the end of the song. Actually, I had a short guitar solo before the chorus; so the obvious thing for me to do was to play the melody of Don’t Stop Believin’ – the melody people are going to hear right after I play it.

“Steve [Perry, Journey's vocalist] turned to me and said, ‘What? You’re going to play the melody that I’m going to sing?’ I go, ‘Why not? It’s a good one.’ When the song was done and the mix was almost finalized, I turned to everybody in the room and said, ‘I think this song is going to be massive.’”

The Jim Irsay auction has indeed smashed all pre-auction estimates – with David Gilmour's iconic Black Strat topping the list after going under the hammer for a whopping $14,550,000.

Multi-hyphenate artist Janelle Monáe has donned a wide range of guitars over the years, including a Fender Duo-Sonic HS and even a Squier Precision Bass in her earlier performances.

Now, in a new social media post hinting at a new artistic (and musical) era, Monáe is seen wielding the cheapest Les Paul Epiphone ever released – and playing neo-soul and jazz-inflected musings.

The Epiphone Les Paul SL, which launched in 2017, retails at around $99, and with slim ceramic single-coil units and a budget-friendly price tag, echoes Gibson's ’60s entry-level staple, the Melody Maker.

Monáe opts for the Sunset Yellow colorway and plays through a VOX AC15 – a curious pairing considering that her musical director, Kellindo, typically uses Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amps on her records, with the Marshall Plexi ’59 being his all-time favorite.

“It’s the holy grail,” he told Guitar World in 2020. “There’s something about the hand-wired versions that seem to have everything I like from Marshall, Fender and Vox all in one. What I love about Plexis in particular is how they receive distortion pedals with rewarding feedback. You can really milk it.”

As for Monáe, her relationship with the instrument goes way back – and marked a pivotal point in her artistic journey. “It takes me back to when I first started," she told The Guardian in a 2014 interview. "I am playing the guitar, and that is what I was doing when I decided I wanted to be an independent artist."

“I studied at the American Musical and Dramatics Academy in New York,” she extrapolated in a Red Bull Music Academy interview. “I studied acting, and music, and musical theater. When I left school there I moved to Atlanta, and I actually lived on the campus of the historically black colleges.

“I would perform at all the dorm lounges, like literally go into the dorm lounge areas and have a guitar and just be performing, and how I would find out if my music was any good is I would measure by okay, are they stopping it?”

And, speaking of Epiphone, the brand recently teamed up with Grammy-nominated Afrofuturist guitarist, singer-songwriter, and actress Fatoumata Diawara on a new signature model, making her the first woman of color to receive an Epiphone signature guitar.

Adrian Smith might have started his Iron Maiden career with a Gibson Les Paul – alongside a rarebreed Ibanez Destroyer – but he’d soon be converted to playing Jacksons. It was a switch, he says, that came about for one big reason.

Smith and Richie Kotzen are currently on tour, supporting their second album as Smith/Kotzen, Black Light / White Noise, with Bruce Dickinson joining them in London for a run through of Wasted Years. As such, Guitarist linked up with the pair for a set of rig tours – and Smith has revealed what convinced him to trade Les Pauls for Jacksons.

“It's a slim neck,” he says of his Jackson signature guitar, the X Series SDXQM, which comes loaded with a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in the bridge. “I don't really like chunky necks. That's why I don't like old Les Pauls. Or, you know, some Les Pauls. So the Les Pauls that I have have got slimmer necks.

“This has a flat profile that's modeled off an old Strat,” he adds of his Jackson. “When I first hooked up with Jackson, I took an old Strat to the factory, and they copied the neck dimensions, because it was really comfortable.”

Indeed, it was company founder Grover Jackson himself who delivered Jacksons backstage to an Iron Maiden show in the 1980s in a bid to tempt Smith to his camp. And Smith, struggling with many fatter neck LPs, was open to change.

His custom-built Jackson uses a Charvel San Dimas body and a Floyd Rose. His latest signature model came in December, with Iron Maiden getting a band-wide drop to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

But that doesn’t mean his rig is completely free of Les Pauls.

“When I was a kid, I had a Black Les Paul copy, and I loved it,” Smith continues. “I modded it, put Gibson pickups in it, and maxed it out as much as I could. Eventually, I sold it, and I wish I hadn't.”

In its place, he shows off a Gibson Les Paul Classic reissue, which he bought in New York: “Its neck is chunkier,” he admits, “but I'll use it for a few songs. It's just got that mojo factor.”

In related news, Smith has ruminated on his failed Def Leppard audition and what could have been, and has told Guitar World that his collaborations with Kotzen have been a success because they come from completely different worlds.

Throughout his multi-decade career, Joe Perry of Aerosmith has also developed quite a reputation as a guitar collector. His arsenal includes everything from highly sought-after ’59 ’bursts to a Gibson B.B. King Lucille Custom (featuring his wife Billie’s face), the Guild X-100 Blade Runner made famous by the Walk This Way music video, and even a couple of guitars he’s built himself.

The jewel of his collection, however, is a storied 1959 Gibson Les Paul that was Perry's main guitar in the ’70s, before it famously ended up in Slash's hands. Now, in the new issue of Guitar World, Perry discusses his collection, and details the guitar’s journey.

“Different people had it and sold it,” he explains. “And then I came across it – and for a good price! I can’t remember what I paid for it, but it was around $2,500.”

Sadly, Perry was forced to sell it after he left Aerosmith in 1979 – partway through the recording of Night in the Ruts – due to intense internal disputes.

Leaving Aerosmith also meant leaving behind the guitar that had accompanied him through the best part of a decade. “I needed money for Christmas,” says Perry. “And I remember selling it for $4,500.”

However, after the band got back together in 1984 – and signed a new (and more advantageous) deal with Geffen Records – Perry thought it was the right time to track down his long-lost ’59 Les Paul. However, by that time, the prices of Gibsons from the era had already started to skyrocket...

“I started making calls and talking to some of my techs, and it seemed like every six months, the dollar signs in front of those ’59s were going up. But I really wanted to try and get back some of the guitars I’d had, and I remember calling everybody.”

As it turned out, he didn't have to search too far – his own bandmate, Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford, had the answer.

“[Brad] said, ‘I know where it is.’” remembers Perry. “I said, ‘Really? Where?’ He opened up Guitar Player, I think, and there was a spread of Slash’s guitar collection, and right in the middle of it was my ’59 Les Paul – right there in the magazine.”

Owning such a desirable guitar meant that Slash wasn’t so keen to part ways with it – even if that meant returning it to its original owner.

“We’d gotten to be friends, and when I asked him, he went, ‘Oh, man… don’t ask me that.’ I said, ‘I’ll buy it back and pay whatever you want.’ But he said, ‘Don’t ask me, please!’

“It got to the point where he wouldn’t take my calls because he knew I was gonna ask him,” Perry admits. “He hated saying no, and I realized I was potentially losing a friend over this thing. I finally said, ‘Listen, I’m not gonna ask you again. It’s not even an issue. It’s your guitar. This is fucking up our friendship, so no more.’”

However, a few years went by, and right around the time Perry was about to turn 50 – marked by a huge birthday blowout – the Aerosmith guitarist got the surprise of a lifetime, or rather, one that he had been waiting decades for.

“I asked Cheap Trick if they’d come and play [at my birthday party] and I’d sit in on a set,” he recalls.

“When we were getting ready to go up and do the set at a restaurant that Steven [Tyler] and I owned in South Boston near the Cape, where we all lived, I got up on stage, and my guitar tech goes, ‘Slash wanted me to give you this,’ and it was the ’59. It was dead silent in the room. I was just blown away. But that was it – I got it back.”

And, speaking of Perry’s exploits, the guitarist recently gave Guitar World more insight into why Aerosmith decided to link up with Yungblud on an EP – and the gear he used during the recording process.

For more from Perry, plus new interviews with Alter Bridge’s Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy, and a tribute to the legendary Bob Weir, pick up issue 602 of Guitar World 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.

Warren Haynes will play a trio of electric guitars tied to three bona fide guitar legends at Gov’t Mule’s celebratory show at New York’s Beacon Theatre on New Year’s Eve.

The show will be the band’s 50th at the iconic venue and will be a celebration of all things 1971. It's been described by Haynes as “arguably the greatest year in rock music history,” and he’ll play three guitars that Jerry Garcia, Dickey Betts, and Bob Dylan made history with for a special set.

The first of those is Jerry Garcia’s 1976 Travis Bean TB500 #11. It featured extensively on the Grateful Dead’s ninth album, Terrapin Station, and was played at over 90 shows before it was auctioned off in 2013. The late great is said to have retired the guitar once the Tiger came into his life.

Dickey Betts' main guitar between 1969-71 – a 1958 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top Dark Back – will also play a key role. The guitar starred in their iconic Fillmore East shows and was used to track the Allman Brothers Band’s first three albums – The Allman Brothers Band (1969), Idlewild South (1970), and Eat a Peach (1972).

Rounding out the trio of history-makers is “the guitar that killed folk”: the 1963 Fender Telecaster that Mike Bloomfield played during Bob Dylan’s 1965 Newport Folk Festival set, the first time he went electric.

It was later used to record Highway 61 Revisited, a record that saw Dylan further establish his rockier, more electrified sound. The Tele, which went up for sale for $275,000 in January, received a crude left-handed modification sometime after Bloomfield opted to swap it for a ’54 Les Paul in late 1965.

John Nuese, who took the hacksaw to the instrument, was the guitarist during Gram Parsons' early career.

Haynes will use the guitars to perform songs from a barmstorming year in rock. Albums released that year include Led Zeppelin’s IV, the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality, and John Lennon’s Imagine, which should give you an idea of the evening’s setlist.

After years of trying to convince him, Haynes and Gibson finally worked on a signature Les Paul earlier this year. It's loaded up, in a shock twist, with P-90s – and the hybrid pups might just be having a renaissance.

Les Paul made no secret of the fact that he loved to jam. He would welcome all kinds of players up onstage with him. Slash, B.B. King, Eddie Van Halen, Brian Setzer, David Gilmour... The list goes on. They have all shared the stage with the man.

Besides putting his name to one of the most-famous electric guitars of all time, he was a heckuva player. He also had a heckuva sense of humor, as Australian acoustic guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel learned when he was first invited to sit in with the Les Paul band during his residency at the Iridium, in New York. You would find Les Paul in there every Monday night. He played there weekly from 1995 until his dead in 2009.

Well, Paul could spot an easy mark. He was going to have a little fun with Emmanuel.

The gig was simple, a two-hander. The first night was easy. “I take a little solo then throw it back to him then I play one more tune, like Caravan or something like that, and then I bow and go off,” says Emmanuel, in a recent radio interview with Q104.3. “I didn’t make anything of it, and I was being very low-key.”

Emmanuel was being a perfect gentlemen, respectful of his host, and we would expect nothing less (a few later years, he would recount onstage that he and everyone who played with Paul for the first time would be “scared shitless” as Paul chuckled in delight).

With his bit done, Emmanuel kicked back in the dressing room. In came trouble. Paul wanted a word with him.

“When he finished the first show, I was sitting in the dressing room, and he came straight in like a rabid dog and he said, ‘I know what you’re doing!’ He said, ‘You think I’m old. Don’t you ever hold back onstage again. When I call you out there, you get up there! You give it hell. You give it all you’ve got!’” says Emmanuel.

Naturally, he was taken aback. But also, he’s also no shrinking violet. Challenge accepted. “I looked him right in the eye,” says Emmanuel, “and I said, ‘Okay, Les, I will.’ Just like that.”

He would not make the same mistake twice. On night two, Emmanuel was taking no prisoners.

“He calls me up, I come running out there, I crank my amp up, and I went straight into Classical Gas,” recalls Emmanuel. “The audience erupted at the end, jumped to their feet. They were screaming. Deafening. And just going wild.”

Something tells us this is what the cunning Les Paul had been planning all along. Emmanuel says he walked into the punchline: “When they finally calmed down, Les gets on the mic and says, ‘Ah! So he waits till I’m old to come and beat me up!”

Emmanuel was a longtime friend of Les Paul and first played with him during his 90th birthday bash at Carnegie Hall. He insists that the guitar icon only got better in his 90s.

“In that last year of his life, I said to him one night, ‘Les, I don't know, but I swear, you're playing better than you were last year,’” said Emmanuel, speaking to Rick Beato.

In his later years, the notes didn’t come just as easy, but Emmanuel says there was no stopping him. He adapted his style.

“The funny thing is, after hanging around with Les Paul those few years before he passed away, watching him deal with the pain in his hands, and watching him playing melody, using four fingers to get one note... that's dedication.”

Dave Navarro was Guitar World's cover star for the March 1996 issue – and the guitar he brandished for the occasion, an early ’90s Les Paul, has one hell of a story behind it.

The electric guitar was originally bought for a Guns ’N’ Roses audition – which never transpired – and by the time the Guitar World shoot came about, Navarro had already jumped ship to Ibanez, PRS, and Fender Strats.

“Years after the GN’R thing, I knew that guitar was kind of leaning up against the wall,” Navarro tells Guitar World.

“I guess the Guitar World people came to the house to do the shoot, and if you walked around my house, there’s, like, 12 guitars all over the place – and they’re all different makes and models.

“For some reason, I picked up that guitar and grabbed it for the shoot. I think, in hindsight, I was probably contractually supposed to be holding a PRS!” he adds with a laugh.

The Les Paul's story doesn't end there, however. In a final twist of fate, John Frusciante also, somehow, got involved.

Navarro remembers, “He was in detox at a hospital. He called me and said, ‘I’m sitting in a hospital and I don’t have a guitar. Can you loan me one?’

“I was like, ‘I’ve got this Les Paul sitting here if you want to play that.’ I was still in the Chili Peppers at the time, and he was getting clean. I was like, ‘I’ll come down to the hospital and bring this to you.’ So I ended up giving him that Les Paul, which is… you know, the layers here are kind of bizarre.”

Turns out, once the guitar was with Frusciante, it was as good as gone, as Navarro puts it: “He apparently sold the guitar once he got out of rehab. And that was that – I never saw that guitar again. That was somewhere in the Nineties.”

Frusciante never forgot the gesture, though, and years later made it up to Navarro.

“I got a call from John, and I hadn’t talked to him in years,” Navarro continues. “I say, 'What’s up, man?' He goes, 'I remember years ago, when I was in the hospital, you brought me this Les Paul, which was really nice of you. Thank you so much for that.'

“He went, 'I got out of detox and I sold it. I’m really sorry. I was wondering if I could come visit you.' And I hadn’t talked to him since that day, to be honest, but he came up to my house, and he had a guitar with him.

“He sat down, opened the case, and it was a Black Beauty. He was like, 'I just wanted to apologize for selling your guitar. I know it’s not the same guitar, but I know you had a Black Beauty in Jane’s Addiction on the original record, and [it] got broken, and you don’t have it anymore, so I got you this.'”

For more from Navarro, plus new interviews with Eric Bell and Jim Root, pick up issue 598 of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.

British blues rock guitar ace Chris Buck was recently reunited with Bernie Marsden's $1 million 'The Beast' Les Paul, when he was given the opportunity to play it on stage for the second time.

The late Whitesnake guitar great, whose influence spans generations of blues and rock guitar players, bought the 1959 Les Paul Standard in 1979 for £600. He played it relentlessly and used it to record every one of his Whitesnake guitar parts, including the singing-into-your-hairbrush classic Here I Go Again, which he co-wrote with David Coverdale.

Marsden once put the guitar up for auction with a weighty $1.3 million asking price, but pulled it away from any potential bidders after a change of heart. It therefore remained in his possession until his passing in 2023.

A year later, Marsden's wife, Fran, entrusted Buck with the famed electric guitar, which he played during an all-star event in honor of the Whitesnake legend.

Now, the Les Paul is enjoying another foray as part of the Cardinal Black guitarist's live rig, as Buck – who was once namedropped by Slash as the GNR rocker's favorite upcoming British guitarist – revealed during a gear rundown on his YouTube channel.

His rig, he says, has changed “fairly significantly” since the group's recent US tour. The most significant change, naturally, was the fact The Beast was a special guest for the band’s show at Camden, London’s gorgeous Koko venue.

“The Marsdens – Liv, Charlotte, and Fran – very kindly offered for me to play the guitar this evening,” Buck says.

“My friendship with Bernie aside, it's such a beautiful guitar. It's particularly poignant to play it at such a big show,” he continues. “There's not much more to say that hasn't been written or said already; it's a stunningly beautiful guitar. Scarcity and value and everything else aside, it just sounds great.”

There were around 1,500 crammed into the venue for the band’s biggest London show to date. Reflecting on his second dance with the LP after the gig, he couldn’t help but think of the added personal poignancy it held.

“Bernie was a wonderful man, musician, and songwriter who, in a strange twist of fate, passed away on the same day as my father,” he wrote on Instagram. “Closing the show with Bernie’s iconic ‘Burst on Push/Pull – a song about my dad’s passing – and Tied Up in Blue was not only an honour but deeply moving.”

Shortly before Marsden's passing, Guitarist was granted an up-close-and-personal tour of the electric guitars he was willing to sell, including a 1950 Gibson ES-5 in remarkable condition and an early Les Paul Goldtop from 1952 saddled up with P-90 pickups.

Buck recently explained why Yamaha Revstars have usurped Fender Strats in his live rig, believing the Strat comes with plenty of “baggage”. He also recalled the time Slash came to his band's aid when they needed to sort visas for their US tour.

What is it?

No sooner had Oasis begun their Live ’25 reunion tour on 4th July 2025 than chatter started about a mystery guitar Noel Gallagher was wielding, a black Les Paul. Was it the fabled Custom he was loaned from Johnny Marr?

As the dates continued, so did the speculation until Gibson announced a 25-piece limited run, at a mere £17,500, that “paid tribute to the instrument that Noel Gallagher has been using at Oasis reunion shows,” technically a Made To Measure Les Paul that Noel had been working on with Gibson for the previous 18 months.

Surely a production version would follow, and just before Oasis kicked off their five-date run in Australia, it was announced: the Gibson USA Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard!

Specs

• Launch price: $2,999 | £2,699 | €3.099
• Made: USA
• Type: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric
• Body: Mahogany (no weight relief) with carved maple top
• Neck: Mahogany, SlimTaper profile, glued-in
• Fingerboard/Radius: Single-bound Indian rosewood /12”
• Scale length: 24.75” (629mm)
• Nut/width: Graph Tech/43.5mm
• Frets: 22, medium jumbo
• Hardware: Tune-o-matic bridge, aluminium stud tailpiece, Grover Rotomatic tuners w/ kidney buttons – chrome plated
• Electrics: 2x Gibson Soapbar P-90 single coils w/ chromed metal covers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, individual volume and tone controls
• Weight: 10lb (4.56kg)
• Left-handed options: No
• Finishes: Ebony nitrocellulose only
• Case: Hard case
• Contact: Gibson

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★ ½

Now, rather than any radical re-design of the Les Paul this new signature comes across as a pimped-up hot-rod. Gibson already has its Les Paul Standard 50s P-90 and really this is the same guitar with some tweaks: first off, instead of the ‘50s Vintage neck profile it swaps to Noel’s preferred SlimTaper.

The gloss nitro-cellulose Ebony-only finish is not only nicely done but is the perfect backdrop for the all-chrome hardware instead of the 50s P-90’s nickel. The specs (and some Gibson images) tell us we should have an ABR-1 tune-o-matic bridge, although our sample uses the aluminium Nashville tune-o-matic with its slightly wider-travel saddles – as used extensively in Gibson USA’s Modern Collection – along with a lightweight stop tailpiece and Grover Rotomatic tuners. Further pimps include both a chromed-metal jackplate – as used on certain Modern models too – and toggle switch surround aka the ‘switch washer’.

Under the moody exterior there are no changes to the Standard’s mahogany back/maple top construction or its one-piece mahogany neck with a mid-brown, single bound rosewood fingerboard and time-honored acrylic trapezoid inlays.

While the actual soapbar P-90 pickups are the same specification as that 50s model, the difference here are the unique chromed-metal covers, a nod to the chromed dog-ear covers of another Noel favourite, the Epiphone Casino. There are no changes in the controls either, it’s the standard Gibson modern-wired control circuit that’s typically neatly done with Gibson logo’d pots and Orange Drop capacitors. Overall, it’s a pretty tidy contemporary Les Paul.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★☆

If the five-ply pickguard is a nod to that loaned Johnny Marr Les Paul Custom, so is our Standard’s heft. There’s no weight relief here and our sample tips the scales bang-on 10lbs. That aside, it’s obviously very similar to plenty of other USA Les Pauls: it’s very familiar, nothing to get used to.

That said, Gibson’s so-called ‘medium jumbo’ fret wire feels more like a smaller ‘medium’ and our sample’s felt and measured a little low. Bends feel a little less positive and you can certainly feel the fingerboard face: it’s almost a built-in vintage-y played-a-lot vibe. The frets could also benefit from a bit more polishing and the fingerboard needs a little conditioning, if only to deepen the color.

In some quarters the SlimTaper gets some flak, not least from the ‘big is best’ fraternity. But that’s taste: the profile here isn’t exactly skinny, quite a classic ‘C’ with a little more shoulder.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

There’s nothing remarkable in the guitar’s unplugged response either, a good typically pushy ring. But it’s the single coil P-90s, that with the exception of that Les Paul Standard 50s P-90, differentiate this from the mainly humbucker-loaded USA LP models.

Using an original 1957 Les Paul Jr as a sonic benchmark, the NG doesn’t disappoint. It retains some of that Jr’s bite and mid-range attitude but smooths it a little adding seemingly both depth and clarity.

Switch off the obvious crunch and gain on your amp and go clean and there’s quite strident jangle at bridge, jazztastic smoothness at neck and a little sparkle with both pickups voiced that works in more soulful, funkier styles. But then bring back a little hair and crunch and the single-coil texture eases into Americana and a whole lot more. If only there was a Bigsby option…

But the humbucker was invented for good reason. Single coils pick up noise and hum that in certain situations can ruin the fun. It’s why numerous Gibson artists, most recently Warren Haynes, choose hum-canceling P-90 DC soapbars for his signature. In the short time we had the guitar though it was well-behaved. The pickups have the same magnetic polarity so aren’t hum-canceling in the mix position and we simply ran out of time [Gibson UK needed this example back fairly urgently] to test what effect, or not, those covers have on the sound and any noise reduction.

Potential pitfalls aside, the quality of sound, that different texture and bite ain’t to be sneezed at.

Verdict

Some might say this is far from a valid Oasis signature guitar, having only come into play earlier this year. It’s simply based on a custom-spec’d guitar, a tool for Noel’s day job, admittedly a ginormous world tour, but is Noel even still using his versions?

All of that aside, as we said, it’s a slightly different, pimped-up take on an existing USA Les Paul that quite simply might entice players to taste, or remind themselves of the P-90s different, less-smooth fat single-coil voice that has way more sonic potential than merely playing covers of the signature artist’s band. It’s quite the rock’n’roller: old or new.

Guitar World verdict: Forgot the backstory; this is a good USA Les Paul pairing a SlimTaper neck profile with P-90 single coils and rock ’n’ roll dress.

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Loog, the company behind the three-string guitar designed to introduce kids to the instrument, has partnered with Gibson to create child-friendly Les Paul and SG models.

The infant instrument specialist is known for its innovative kids' guitars, downsizing the electric guitar concept for an accessible gateway into music for inquisitive youngsters. It’s now turned towards two of the most famous electric silhouettes of them all, following a collaboration with Fender in 2023 that brought pint-sized Strats and Teles to the fore.

They're built to put future rockstars on their guitar journey, with the three-string concept introducing the basic building blocks of music to a young player's vocabulary. Accompanying tools like an activity book, learning app, flashcards, and game-like exercises aim to incentivize learning in a fun and interactive way.

By using standard tuning, guitar strings and micro-pickups, the transition to six-strings should be a doddle, and they're made from real wood, which “projects a sweet, beautiful sound.” These mini guitars are designed to prepare kids for larger instruments.

It might look like a toy – and Loog's signature, almost Jackson-esque headstock might make Les Paul purists weep – but this is a real guitar through and through.

Priced at $229 each, matching the Fender x Loog prices, they come in a choice of four colorways, including some Gibson classics. There's a one-two of Frost Blue and Shell Pink, as well as TV Yellow and Cardinal Red, which, for the SG especially, gives it a true rock 'n' roll feel. It’s what a pre-school Angus Young would have shredded on. Probably.

“The Gibson x Loog guitars utilize our iconic colors and shapes with Loog’s intuitive 3-string format to inspire young players to begin their musical journeys,” adds Mat Koehler, Vice President of Product at Gibson.

“There’s something deeply emotional about your first guitar. You remember it forever. And for a lot of us, there’s that other moment when you finally get your first Gibson,” says Loog. “This collaboration is about capturing that feeling and channeling it into a guitar that starts a child’s musical journey in the most meaningful way possible.”

“Getting to collaborate with Gibson has been such an incredible experience and honor for us,” Loog continues.

Head to Loog to discover more.

Dire Straits' career-defining album Brothers in Arms ushered in the addition of the 1983 Les Paul ’59 Reissue to Knopfler's electric guitar roster, which defined the tone of both the title track and Money for Nothing.

“The Strat is almost like a ballet dancer, whereas the Les Paul has a lot of emotional weight to it and seemed to be the absolute answer for Brothers In Arms,” John Ilsey, Dire Straits' bassist, points out in the new issue with Guitarist. “So it didn’t need 15 notes in a bar. It just needed two or three.”

During that recording period, Knopfler's approach to solos was shifting, which perfectly paved the way for his adoption of the Les Paul. Ron Eve, Knopfler’s guitar tech at the time, credits his own influence – and coaxing – with convincing the guitar great to finally give the Gibson a try.

“As he got into more complex arrangements, he knew the guitar sound needed to fit what he was playing,” he reflects. “And Mark always loved that Les Paul tone, it just wasn’t really his style.

“It was up to him, of course,” Eve clarifies. “But I confess I pushed him more towards the Les Paul sound. I felt a resistance early on. But I persevered. He’d be on the neck setting with the tone rolled off, if I recall. Winding up the sustain. I can see him now, holding those notes.

“I don’t think he could have played those parts on any other guitar, quite frankly. A Strat couldn’t have done it at all. Not with all the pedals in the world.”

Eve was quick to notice the Gibson’s impact on the album’s overall tone, and Knopfler was equally observant of the influence it had on his playing style.

“You start to realize how much real estate there is in a bar – where you can put the notes or, if you have a band of that quality, where you can lean on the timing,” Knopfler says. “But there wasn’t really time to think about it. You’re just moving on. The band had developed.

“It was a lot louder and more powerful, with keyboards becoming more important. That then makes you think in a different way – more inversions, perhaps. But I didn’t force it. I didn’t stop picking on country tunes. I was still doing rootsy things.”

In celebration of Brothers in Arms' 40th anniversary, Knopfler recently reflected on the guitars and riffs that made the album, and the pressure of learning to play in time.

For more from Mark Knopfler, plus exclusive interviews with Don Felder and Nicolas Meiser, pick up issue 529 of Guitarist from Magazines Direct.

When you think of rock legends, few names inspire as much awe and reverence as Jimmy Page. As the mastermind behind Led Zeppelin’s monumental sound, it’s fair to say Page wielded his guitars like no other. From the very first pluck of the iconic opening riff of Whole Lotta Love to the intricate melodies of Stairway to Heaven, the guitars he chose and the stories they tell are interwoven into the very fabric of rock history.

Now, buckle up as we dive into the five most significant guitars of Jimmy Page. We’ll explore how these extraordinary instruments not only shaped his legendary career but also left a lasting imprint on the world of music itself. We’ve sifted through past interviews with the iconic guitarist from our archive, so you can hear the tales of these important rock artifacts straight from the man himself.

And if you're itching to replicate Page's legendary tone in the comfort of your own home, we’ve got you covered. We’ll provide expert guitar recommendations tailored to every budget, from wallet-friendly gems to top-of-the-line models that would feel right at home on stage next to Page.

1. 1959 Fender Telecaster

It’s often joked that nothing has sold more Les Pauls than Jimmy Page's Telecaster, and well, this is the Fender model they are referring to. Originally given to Page by Jeff Beck, the ’59 Telecaster first saw use in The Yardbirds and, in 1967, the future guitar hero sought to dazzle audiences by fitting eight round mirrors to the body.

By mid-1967, Page had stripped the guitar of its original finish and repainted it with a striking ‘dragon’ design, which would go on to be one of the most recognized guitars of all time.

Speaking to Total Guitar back in 2020, Page recalled the origin of the model, saying, “Jeff Beck gave me a Telecaster, one that he played in the Yardbirds for a while, but I was still doing sessions, and he gave me that as a gift. And once I went into The Yardbirds, I was playing that Telecaster. Bit by bit, I started to customize it.

“I put some mirrors on it. I wanted to really make the guitar my own,” he continues. “People had started painting guitars at that point, and I thought, well, I’d like to paint mine and really consecrate it, so that guitar is absolutely my own. So I went about painting it [with the dragon artwork] – all that art school training didn’t finally go to waste!”

In a separate interview with Guitarist, Page recalls how the guitar was used on Led Zeppelin's early work. “The first album is done on the Telecaster, because it is a transition from The Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin, it’s exactly the same guitar. It’s not until 1969 that I get the Les Paul, when Joe Walsh insists on me having this guitar.”

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2. 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard

Now, when you picture Jimmy Page on stage, you most likely think of him with a Gibson Les Paul hanging from his shoulder and a bow in hand. Often called his “Number One” by the man himself, he would have another guitar hero, Joe Walsh, to thank for his gorgeous 1959 Sunburst Les Paul.

The famed 1959 Les Paul is often credited with being one of the most sought-after models of all time, and that's in no small part due to Page’s associations with the instrument.

In a chat with Guitar World, Page details how he purchased the model from the Eagles’ axeman. “Joe Walsh insists I buy this guitar,” he explains. “That Les Paul was a beauty. It wanted a new home, so I took it home. I had it right through to the O2 [2007], and that’s unusual. Most people have got other guitars they’ll play, but no matter what, it’s the same Les Paul.”

Thinking about the impact the guitar has had on his playing, Page ponders, “It’s hypothetical, but I may not have come up with the riff from Whole Lotta Love on the Telecaster. That fat sound on the Les Paul, you’re inspired. Well, I am, and I know other people are inspired by the sound of particular instruments. Suddenly, they’re playing something they haven’t played before, and it’s really user-friendly, and suddenly they’ve got some sort of riff, which is peculiar to that moment. So many things start singing, you know? Really singing.”

We can only imagine what rock ‘n’ roll would have looked like if Page hadn’t succumbed to Walsh’s persuasive sales pitch and not purchased the guitar.

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3. 1960 Gibson Les Paul Custom

Page isn’t associated with only one Gibson singlecut; he is also known to use a rather unique Black Beauty from 1960. This jet-black Gibson was used as his main guitar during his session work in the early stages of his career. Now, the model would go missing in the 1970s, after it was stolen from Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport after a Led Zeppelin concert in Minnesota. Thankfully, Page would be reunited with the three-pickup beaut in 2014.

Jimmy tells Guitarist he bought his black Les Paul Custom in a London music shop in the early '60s. “I remember going in, and there was a sort of cash desk, and the guys behind it, and right up on the wall was this Custom. I said, ‘Oh my god, let me try that!’ It was, oh, this is just… I fell in love with the bloody thing.”

When quizzed about the instrument by Guitar World, Page recalls his early memories of the model. “The first time I played it, I had such a connection with it. I thought, ‘This is it. After all this searching and going through guitar shops, this is the one.’ I got it before I went to art college, so when I started doing studio work as a session player, that’s the electric that’s used on pretty much all of that work.”

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4. Danelectro 1961 'shorthorn' 3021/DC59

Moving away from Page’s Fender and Gibson models for a moment. We need to talk about his beloved Danelectro. Jimmy bought this guitar sometime in the mid-’60s, and like the Les Paul Custom above, it was used heavily on his early studio work and would also be the guitar that he would use to pen the epic riffs of Kashmir.

Page tells Total Guitar how he first got the model, saying, “Selmers was the big showcase shop, and I don’t know how they got away with it, but they sold every brand of guitar in there – Gibsons, Gretsches, Fenders. I don’t know how they did it, but they did.

“Suddenly, the Danelectro guitar appeared in there, and [John] Entwistle had got the bass with horns on it, and this salesman was saying they had this guitar, it was only £45 or something, and all the other guitars were getting into the hundreds. I said,’ Let’s have a go on it,’ and it sounded pretty great. Because, of course, it’s hollow-bodied, put together with plywood. It sounded phenomenal, and I could afford it, so I thought, ‘I’ll have this as a sort of second guitar.’”

Speaking on how it inspired one of Led Zep’s most popular tracks, he recalls, “I started to write things on it like Kashmir because I was used to playing it in the DADGAD tuning, so Kashmir came out on that guitar, and In My Time of Dying. They’re both on [Physical Graffiti]. So clearly I was using it in [altered] tunings.”

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5. 1969 Gibson EDS-1275

For many, the most iconic image of the electric guitar in the 1970s will always be Jimmy Page brandishing his EDS-1275 double-neck to perform the mighty Stairway to Heaven, but while this massive twin-necked behemoth would become the face of the Led Zep mega-hit, it would be a Fender and Vox that committed the jangly tones to tape.

When it came time to record the classic Stairway to Heaven, Page would employ the use of two 12-string guitars – a Fender Electric XII and the Vox Phantom XII. Now, while these guitars will forever be cemented into the annals of rock history through a recording, they wouldn’t get a taste of the limelight when it was time to perform the song live.

Instead, Page would use a Gibson EDS-1275 double-neck to ensure he could perform the intricate fingerpicking parts as well as the face-melting solo.

Page tells us how he recorded the famous song with his two 12-string guitars. “The Vox one, I had that in the Yardbirds, so a lot of the stuff in the Yardbirds – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor and all those things – were done on that. And then I got the Fender a little later. I think I got that when I came back from America the first time I visited.

“So basically, I had two electric 12-strings, and on Stairway, I wanted to use both, so I’d have one [panned] left and one right. There is a slight difference, obviously, in the sound of them, so that bit in the fanfare that leads into the solo with all the 12s, that’s tracking both the Vox and the Fender.

“I thought, what’s the guitar, how to do this on stage? And it was just obvious that the only way to do this, with the sort of fragile guitar of the opening style and the more racy sort of pickups for the solo, the double-neck is the only way I’m going to do it.

“When I recorded the song, I wasn’t thinking about how I was going to do it live. So, in actual fact, the song demanded the guitar. There was no other way to do it. When you think about it, it was the only way to actually replicate that song, apart from jumping from one guitar to another on stage!”

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Metallica’s Kirk Hammett has been afforded the rare chance to play Al Di Meola’s legendary Black Beauty Gibson Les Paul – after he let the jazz icon get hands-on with his Greeny electric guitar.

The virtuosos have been striking up a friendship of late, with Di Meola on the guest list for Metallica’s launch party for their new channel on SiriusXM last week.

The event, at the Hamptons, Long Island, was quite the gathering, with Paul McCartney among those in attendance to watch Metallica perform. Di Meola and McCartney were metres away from one another as the thrash heavyweights played.

A clip from the event finds the pair discussing Greeny’s history, with Di Meola’s eyes lighting up as he asks, “Was Oh Well [by Fleetwood Mac] done on this guitar? Oh, shit!”

He then proceeds to play the song’s iconic pentatonic blues riff while Hammett reveals that another classic, Black Magic Woman, was penned on the LP.

The Greeny Les Paul got its name from its first high-profile owner, Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green. Upon his departure from the group, he insisted that Gary Moore took ownership of it. Kirk Hammett later acquired the axe, even though he wasn’t sold on the idea of it at first.

Di Meola, taken aback by the privilege of playing the time-worn guitar – its flaking paint full of stories – was eager to return the favor, and he didn’t have to wait long to do so.

“After Kirk introduced me to Greeny last week, it felt only right to return the favor by introducing him to my 1971 Black Beauty,” he writes on Instagram. “That’s the guitar you hear all over [his 1977 album] Elegant Gypsy.”

Before Di Meola launched his solo career, the Gibson had been his go-to instrument during his Return to Forever days, and had starred on Elegant Gyspsy’s predecessor, Land of the Midnight Sun (1976), too.

He also shared a picture of the pair at Blue Note, Hawaii, where their second hangout in quick succession took place.

Hammett has been in the sharing mood of late, having let Jack White give Greeny the run around, and Jake E. Lee also took it for a spin at Back to the Beginning. He said it played so well that he’s not been able to stop thinking about it since.

Few guitars have a history quite as rich as Greeny, and the fact that one of jazz fusion’s greatest ever players has now also played it will only add to its incredible lore.

Elsewhere, Meola believes guitarists shouldn't ignore their feet if they want to improve their sense of rhythm. He's also told Jason Richardson to forget music theory as the guitarist, who has announced his departure from All That Remains, weighs in on the age-old ‘theory versus ear training debate.’

It's fair to say I'm a Gibson guitar fanatic. Now, my guitar collection isn't purely populated with the Nashville guitar giants' instruments, but it certainly makes up a fair amount of them. Out of the 25 guitars I own, 13 of them are Gibson models.

• Shop the full Musician's Friend Labor Day sale

Currently, I have a flock of Gibson Firebirds (one Firebird V and two Non-Reverse versions), a gorgeous cherry red SG Standard, a Pelham Blue '61 reissue SG Special, '60s style Les Paul Standard, '60s reissue ES-335, its little brother the ES-339, TV Yellow Les Paul Special, a '70s reissue Flying V, Explorer, the weird Theodore Standard and the workhorse acoustic, the J-45.

Much to my wife's disappointment, I'm not done yet. I'm still jonesing for another Explorer, and I think I've just found it.

The Labor Day sales are here, and the deals are pouring in thick and fast, with this offering from Musician's Friend being the one that caught my eye the most. Right now, you can score up to $450 off select Gibson models – including the newly released Double Trouble Les Paul and the stunning '70s Explorer in the timeless Antique Natural finish.

Now, to take advantage of these exclusive Gibson discounts, you'll need to sign up to be a Musician's Friend member, but don't worry, it's completely free! Head over to the sign-up page, enter a few details, and you're all set. It takes 30 seconds, and then you'll be greeted with a slew of extra discounts that aren't available to non-members.

My favorite gigging guitar is my beloved Explorer. I take it to every gig and it never lets me down. I've always thought about getting another as a backup for shows, but I've always found it difficult to justify – that was until I saw $374.85 slashed off the price. I love everything about this model. The 70s Tribute pickups rock, the body is incredibly well-balanced, and, of course, it looks fantastic!

The Gibson Les Paul Studio may seem a little understated when compared to its flashier big brother – the Standard – but it still has all the hallmarks you’d expect to see on an LP. Featuring a mahogany body and neck, ebony fingerboard, trapezoid inlays, and a mother-of-pearl Gibson logo, this beautiful single-cut is unmistakably a Les Paul. This is one of the most versatile Les Pauls on the market, and with $269.85 off, it's the perfect excuse to snap up a genuine Gibson guitar for a whole lot less.

A model I was surprised to see so heavily discounted was the Gibson Les Paul Standard '50s Double Trouble. Gibson only announced the arrival of the Double Trouble Les Paul back in March, offering an appealing combination of uncovered 'Classic White' humbuckers and faded Vintage nitrocellulose finishes, in a limited-edition run. So if this Ace Frehley-esque model caught your eye, maybe $419.85 off will seal the deal.

Looking for more epic guitar deals? Below is a list of the sales you don't want to miss

Bare Knuckle has arguably become one of the – if not the – world's largest independent electric guitar pickup manufacturer, and with that level of reputation comes the A-list clients.

For founder Tim Mills, this meant getting the chance to analyze the guitar of one of his bucket-list guitarists: Jimmy Page’s “Number One” 1959 Les Paul Standard.

“I’d love to make something for Jimmy Page,” he replies when asked by Guitar World who his dream client would be.

“He actually sent his “Number One” 1959 Les Paul to my workshop because of a pickup issue just before the 2007 Led Zeppelin reunion. It was fantastic to analyze such a brilliant guitar,” he goes on to reveal nonchalantly. “The back of the neck had this odd carve where it got thin from frets three to nine.”

Indeed, Page's “Number One” – purchased in 1969 from Joe Walsh and (heavily) modified by the Zeppelin guitarist – is, at least for gearheads, as inextricably linked to Page as his Stairway to Heaven solo.

So what exactly makes its tone so special? “Interestingly, the neck pickup was just shy of 9k. Normally that would be muddy and hot, but because the magnet had discharged so much and the coil windings were heavily asymmetrical, it was behaving more like a single-coil,” he dishes.

“That’s why it had this woody, almost SRV sound. The bridge was a symmetrically wound 8.2k Seymour Duncan installed around the late Seventies. It was nicely balanced with a good growl.”

However, the most surprising revelation from Mills assessment was that, "Most of the tone came from how much timber had taken off the neck, almost to Ibanez levels of thinness. I was amazed the truss rod hadn’t popped out.

“Honestly, working on Jimmy Page’s guitar was bucket list stuff for me!” he concludes.

In February last year, Gibson announced a new multi-guitar series with Jimmy Page, kicking off with the signature 1971 EDS-1275 double neck. While there’s no news of the Number One just yet, we imagine it's only a matter of when, not if.

The 1959 Gibson Les Paul that famously appeared on the Rolling Stones' breakthrough Ed Sullivan Show appearance in October 1964 is at the center of a dispute between former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Taylor's representatives are asserting that the guitar – nicknamed the “Keithburst” – belonged to him at one point, and was allegedly stolen when the Stones were recording Exile on Main St. at a mansion on the French Riviera near Nice in 1971.

Therefore, the guitarist expressed his surprise to The New York Post when the guitar resurfaced at the museum, with Taylor’s manager Marlies Damming asking the Met to “make the guitar available so that we can inspect it and confirm its provenance one way or the other.”

Now, the Met shared what it alleges to be a copy of the guitar's recorded provenance with Guitar World. “This guitar has a long and well-documented history of ownership,” states a spokesperson.

The Les Paul's story starts at Farmers Music Store in Luton, England, where it was recorded to have been bought by an individual named John Bowen in March 1961, with a Bigsby vibrato added around 1961–62 by Selmer's Guitar Store.

Reportedly, the guitar was traded for a Gretsch Country Gentleman in late 1962 at Selmer's. Keith Richards acquired it sometime before August 1964 and, according to the provenance, owned it until 1971.

Record producer and manager Adrian Miller is then listed as its owner in 1971 – however, it's not clear whether he bought the guitar from Richards or someone else. Heavy Metal Kids' Cosmo Verrico then reportedly acquired it in 1971 from Adrian Miller, trading it for £125 plus a 1959 Gibson ES-175 with PAFs.

As per the Met's records, in 1974, Whitesnake's Bernie Marsden bought it from Verrico for £400, followed by Mike Jopp in that same year for £450. Fast-forward to 2004, and the historic guitar was part of a very public attempted sale by Christie's (part of lot 267) but was left unsold after it did not reach the desired price.

Swedish producer Peter Svensson bought it two years later, while, a decade later, it was acquired by billionaire businessman Dirk Ziff, with the help and advice of producer and guitar collector Perry Margouleff.

Ziff would later loan the guitar to the Met in 2019 for the Play It Loud exhibition – later moved to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Interestingly, Richards himself was very involved in this exhibition, even sitting for an interview and loaning other instruments and gear to the exhibit. In 2024, Ziff donated the guitar to the Met, where it can be found today alongside the museum’s new collection of guitars, which spans from 1920 to 1970.

“This is not just a once-in-a-lifetime gift,” Jayson Kerr Dobney, the Met’s curator of musical instruments, comments in a press statement. “It is a once-in-a-century opportunity for the museum – a visionary, comprehensive collection of American guitars, unparalleled in both its breadth and variety.”

Guitar World has reached out to Mick Taylor's representatives for comment.

A Russian luthier has made a guitar out of *checks notes* glazed donuts because…well, why not?

Artem Mayer (known as ArtMayer on YouTube) has crafted the guitar in the style of a Gibson Les Paul, with its body mushing together over 20 donuts for the sweetest six-string in town. Readers may recognise the mad genius from his McDonald's French Fries guitar from a few years ago, but now it's time for dessert.

First, Mayer cut the body shape out of an unspecified wood before applying a thin top and sculpting its neck and headstock, which is all very normal so far. As for the donuts, well, unfortunately, they aren't real, quashing any hopes of a mid-solo snack. Instead, it's the result of some very intricate stencilling, drilling, and carving work.

The basic donut holes were drilled out before being carefully chiselled into more realistic, donut-like, sloping curves, with a similar approach applied to their edges. The attention to detail is painstaking, and he must have been starving during the exhaustive process.

After giving the donut a doughy base layer of paint, Mayer hand-painted the glazing and some exacting details onto the guitar while – rejoice! – the sprinkles are real.

There's also a nod to perhaps the world's most famous donut fanatic, Homer Simpson. His hand can be seen reaching for a pink, sprinkles-coated donut as part of a unique 12th fret inlay, while what looks to be a P-90 pickup and its volume knob have been given an equally glutinous treatment to blend into the scene.

The white neck and fretboard are interesting choices, and we hugely admire the jam filling oozing out of one of the donuts on the side of the electric guitar’s body. It also looks like it has locking tuners, which is a plus.

Taking the guitar for a much-needed spin, Mayer proves that this guitar has plenty of, ahem, bite, during a demo that sees him hurtling through thrash metal riffs. And, of course, there’s a guitar solo and some neat tapping licks to savour, too.

It's clear Mayer had way too much fun making this one-of-a-kind instrument.

At the end of the video, with sweat beading on his brow, Mayer says (translated by ChatGPT): “Well, in short, it’s awesome. It looks sweet, sounds sweet, and the music that comes out of it should be sweet too, so that all of you have a sweet life.”

Last year, another of YouTube's most madcap luthiers, Burls Art, produced what he claims is the heaviest guitar in the world, a copper Telecaster weighing in at a back-destroying 50lbs.

He then followed that up by making a working aquarium guitar, because many guitar builders have always thought that offset guitars would benefit from more goldfish in their bodies. It helps with the tone.

Nothing pulls on the heartstrings of a guitarist more than the thought of a beloved axe being stolen. But when Warren Haynes lost his go-to electric guitar – a red Custom Shop Fender Strat that was by his side as he went from Dickey Betts' foil to a star of the Allman Brothers Band – it forced him to rethink his guitar of choice.

“That particular Strat, it had a really beefy and wide neck, it had the Lace Sensor pickups with the Clapton midrange boost, but there was something really special about that guitar,” he reminisces with MusicRadar.

To Haynes, it wasn’t just another Fender Stratocaster; its feel and quirks made it one of a kind. In particular, that peculiar midrange boost, designed by Fender to supercharge single-coil pickups into fatter, ultra-hot humbucking territory, was a game changer. However, one day it was cruelly stolen.

As the 1990s dawned, Haynes pivoted to a white Strat to fill the hole left behind after the theft of his beloved. But it wasn’t the same, and it fast-tracked a tonal switch that was already in motion.

“When it got stolen, I was already starting to concentrate more on playing Les Pauls and gravitating back towards the Gibson sound,” he confesses. “And when the Strat got stolen, it forced me to think differently because every other Strat I picked up at the time didn’t have the same feeling to me.”

Three decades later, the Strat remains missing, but its lineage lives on in his all-new P-90 loaded Les Paul signature. Amongst its cluster of Tone and Volume controls is a toggle clean boost, which acts similarly, and its cherry red colorway is a far less subtle nod to his former flame.

“I am looking for new inspiration, something to change the way that I play at any given moment,” he told Guitar World as the Les Paul hit the shelves, marking a third different era following Strats and PAF-loaded LPs.

In the early '90s, he'd done likewise when he realized he couldn't replace the Strat like-for-like. Both instances showcase Haynes' adaptability and prove that, no matter how experienced a player may be, there is always room for further experimentation.

That being said, he still harbors hopes of being reunited with the red Strat. Hell, Paul McCartney's Höfner bass was missing for 50 years before it was found in an English attic, and Bon Jovi was recently reunited with the first-ever guitar he bought, 45 years after selling it. So the hope he hangs onto isn't overly fanciful.

“I would love to get that guitar back,” Haynes admits. “I got a call a few years ago, someone thought they had found it, but it wasn’t the one.”

Meanwhile, Haynes has discussed his greatest Gov't Mule riffs and confessed a love for one particular Jazzmaster.

For a Gibson loyalist with a resume as action-packed as Warren Haynes’, it seemed obvious that the rock guitar veteran eventually be honored with a signature guitar.

After some Les Paul creations as part of Gibson’s Inspired By series in 2022 and 2023, a fully-fledged, P-90 stocked signature arrived earlier this year, bearing his name – but, he says, he wasn’t convinced about the idea at first.

“I've played Gibson all my life, and they've just been really wonderful to me through the years,” he tells Setlist.fm. “So when they [Gibson] first started approaching me about making a signature model Les Paul years ago, maybe decades ago, my first reaction was, ‘Well, there's only one Les Paul.’

“Les Paul invented the electric guitar, and I happened to play a Les Paul guitar. There's nothing really special about it, so I kind of prolonged the conversation.”

Haynes liked his Les Paul as it was. A signature build would have been pretty straightforward, he understood that. Were a model to bear his name, it had to stick its head above the stock guitar parapet in some way.

“Eventually they were like, ‘Well, if you come up with some stuff about yours that's very different…’” Haynes explains. The firm was desperate to twist his arms, and this change of tact struck a chord with the guitarist.

“So we were able to make a Les Paul that was different than normal,” he says, with work beginning after Gibson had first copied his 1961 ES 335. “We're talking technical shop now, but the big difference is that it has P-90 pickups instead of humbucker pickups. And that's not normal, but I really like it a lot. I think they did a fantastic job. It was an honor to do that.”

Having spent most of his career playing humbucker guitars, the switch to P-90 pickups, which sit somewhere between the bite of a single-coil and the girth of humbuckers, was a shock. Even for Haynes. But he says change is a good thing.

“I’m really loving the hum-free P-90s,” he beams. “It’s a really cool tonal change, and the boost offers even more tonal options.”

The move comes after gear guru Joe Bonamassa made a bold claim that “most people who are real dyed-in-the-wool Gibson people will say behind closed doors that their favorite pickup is a P-90”.

“They're cleaner,” he argues. “There's a sparkle on top that a humbucking pickup doesn't get.” And that argument is compounded with his gorgeous Copper Iridescent Epiphone Les Paul signature. So, are we witnessing a P-90 renaissance?

“We’re all looking for new inspiration,” Haynes believes. “Some of us have been playing humbuckers for a long, long time. Most of the sounds I enjoy come from the guitar anyway. I’m not depending on pedals for the majority of the sounds that I use. I like to change the volume knob on the guitar to get a lot of different sounds that way, and P90s are definitely great for that.” A P-90 Firebird is also expected to follow in its wake.

Haynes has also sat down with Guitarist to discuss the greatest riffs of his career and the stories behind them after he reunited with Derek Trucks to finish an old Duane Allman song as a tribute to the late great.

Have you ever wondered why the early Les Paul Standards were Goldtops? The first models, produced between 1952 and 1957, were retroactively given the moniker “Goldtop” due to their all-gold solid top paint. However, according to the famed luthier and PRS Guitars founder, Paul Reed Smith, the decision was less about aesthetics and more about practicality.

And, as he recalls in a new interview, he got the information straight from the horse's mouth – i.e., his mentor and former Gibson president, Ted McCarty.

“[McCarty said,] ‘Well, we knew that Leo didn't have a carving machine, and we had discovered that if we put a maple top on a mahogany body, it sounded better,’” he tells Reverb.

“‘And we didn't want him to know, so we painted ’em gold so he wouldn't know that they were maple.’ I said, ‘But Ted, you can see inside the horn, where the binding goes up that it's got a maple cap.’ He goes, ‘Shut up,’” Smith adds with a laugh.

As for his relationship with another guitar giant, Smith recalls, “Leo Fender used to come by my booth, and he would pay his respects to the young, new guitar maker and give me his approval.

“They were looking after their industry,” he asserts. “These guys didn't play guitar – they were making guitars that were the fundamental core of this new kind of music that people were picking up and making them do things that they weren't supposed to do.”

As he puts it, “There were these old teams of people at Fender and Gibson that made electric guitars, who started a whole industry, and some of it's magic, if you don't go look at it, I'd be Looney Tunes.”

Smith has recently looked back on his legacy and shared why he isn't interested in chasing Fender or Gibson, but is solely focused on cementing PRS in history.

What is it?

Jeff Beck needs no introduction and neither do his guitars. The ‘Yardburst’ and the ‘Oxblood’ Les Pauls, to name but two, are ever-linked to defining periods of the late, great guitarist’s storied past. Recently Gibson Custom launched a rather fine 130-only replica of the former in 2024 aimed at well-heeled collectors, now Epiphone, in collaboration with Gibson Custom, has now shone the light on the latter with an everyman model that’s some £8k less expensive.

Specs

• Launch price: $1,299 /£1,199/€1,399
• Made: China
• Type: Solidbody electric
• Body: Mahogany back w/ maple cap
• Neck: One-piece mahogany w/ long tenon
• Fingerboard / Radius: Bound rosewood/ 12”
• Scale length: 24.75” (629mm)
• Nut/width: 42.9mm
• Frets: 22, medium
• Hardware: Gibson Historic wraparound bridge/tailpiece, Grover Rotomatic tuners
• Electrics: 2x Gibson Custombuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, individual pickup volume and tone controls
• Weight: 8.56lb (3.89kg)
• Left-handed options: No
• Finishes: Oxblood only
• Case: Hardshell case with Inspired by Gibson Custom graphics
• Contact: epiphone.com

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆

Jeff Beck’s original was an already mucked about with 1954 Goldtop when he bought it in late 1972: its P-90 single coils replaced with Patent Applied For humbuckers and the original finish swapped for this chocolate brown opaque that apparently he coined ‘Oxblood’.

The muted low gloss sheen to the finish here, like the Vintage Gloss of the recent Reissue models, certainly doesn’t appear new. It also hides any glimpse of the woods used, although Epiphone spec the usual for the full-depth mahogany/maple body and a one-piece neck with its long-tenon join.

Again, like the new Reissues the Oxblood returns to a decent-looking rosewood fingerboard with what I’d call ‘medium’, frets and those bright “aged mother-of-pearl” trapezoid inlays.

Directly before the separate Tune-O-Matic bridge and stud tailpiece, the 1954 Les Paul used a combined wrapover, like a Les Paul Junior, and that’s what we have here. The original has retro-fitted Schaller M6 tuners and so should this one according to the spec but ours are Grover Rotomatics.

The pretty crude work on the original is replicated to a certain extent: the bridge humbucker is very closely placed to the bridge leaving that untidy gap on the unbevelled, and slightly sharp-edged pickguard.

The Oxblood sticks with Gibson USA Custombuckers, uncovered to match a post-purchase mod by Beck; the wiring is period-correct fifties-style with decent CTS pots, a Switchcraft toggle switch and a pair of .022µF Mallory 150 series 400V polyester capacitors.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★☆

After testing some heavy Reissue Les Pauls I'm pleasantly surprised that this one is relatively light: a good start. But the neck is something else: it’s one of the biggest necks on a production guitar I’ve ever handled and its description – ‘Jeff Beck Custom Large C’ – is understatement.

Does this huge girth make the frets feel smaller? Well, they’re definitely more vintage feeling but the supplied set-up feels good and the tuning stability – no doubt helped by the rock-solid girder of a neck – is superb.

Without individual string adjustment on the bridge, intonation is slightly compromised – although that never bothered Beck or indeed any of us Junior/Special devotees. Also, the low four strings here were all a little sharp at the first fret due to slightly domed string grooves at the nut which needed a couple of passes with a fret file to fix.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

If you’re a believer that a big neck equals big sound, not least when paired with this near light-weight body, here’s a guitar you might want to try. It’s working like it should, pretty vibrant with a full-bodied acoustic ring.

In theory, the bridge pickup placement should result in an over-sharp response, not least without a cover, but while there’s plenty of bite, it just adds to the sonic range and that, of course, is what the master was all about. Again these Custombuckers seem the perfect choice: pulling back the volume and tone and that bridge is almost single coil sounding, pick close to the wrapover and chicken-pick away while at full chat there’s just a classic biting yet throaty roar.

I have no complaints with the neck pickup’s default jazz/blues’n’rock voice either. In middle position, is there a little more sparkle due to the subtly wider pickup spacing? Well, it’s not lacking and again pull back those controls and it’s chime-y and more than suited to the sometimes funkier styles Beck was moving into with the original. You might not get close to his virtuosity but the sounds are here.

Verdict

This homage to Beck’s last Les Paul is a timely reminder of a true great. Will you sound like him when you plug it in? We wish. No, this is simply a good unshowy Les Paul with a great backstory and more importantly a wide range of very useable sounds. The huge neck does seem a bold step on a production model but it adds to the character, and this one has that in spades.

Guitar World verdict: This Epiphone repro of the most expensive-ever Gibson Les Paul sold at auction is not only considerably less money, it’s one of the best Epi’s yet: a very fit-for-purpose working Les Paul.

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• Epiphone Kirk Hammett 'Greeny' 1959 Les Paul Standard review 

When they weren't penning a string of hits in the 1980s, Jim Babjak and the Smithereens were writing for other artists and projects, but sometimes, those worlds collided.

When the band adopted A Girl Like You, which would become one of their biggest hits, Babjak knew his go-to Gibson SG didn't have the bite needed to make it work, and he bought the guitar used in its place without even playing it.

He tells Guitar World that the song was originally destined for the silver screen and Cameron Crowe’s teen comedy drama, Say Anything… “In fact, that's why Pat [DiNizio, The Smithereens' lead singer] sings, ‘I'll say anything’ at the end,” he reveals – but when it went unused, they brought it back home.

“Pat came up with the opening riff, but I helped him out on some of the chords,” Babjak details. “There's an F chord in there, but I don't know what it's called, and I do a sort of unorthodox thing with the E minor.”

It was a driving rock sound, perhaps a result of the band chasing the sonic recreation of teenage angst and lust in keeping with the film's spirit. While it wasn't far from the band's wheelhouse, it did pack a little more venom. The overdrive dials were cranked, with edge-of-breakup SG and Rickenbacker tones making way for something a little hairier.

“We were definitely going for a heavier sound, and I needed something even tougher than my SG,” the guitarist confesses. “I said, ‘I gotta get a Les Paul.’”

But his approach to E minor chords wasn’t the only unorthodox thing in the writing and recording process...

“I've never been one of those guys who will go into a guitar store and start playing Stairway to Heaven,” he expands. “I was always kind of embarrassed by that sort of thing.

“We were recording in California, so I went with one of our assistant engineers to a used-guitar shop by the studio. I pointed to a Les Paul and said, ‘Can you plug that in to see what it sounds like?’ He did, and I said, ‘Okay, I'll take that one.’”

They’re words that might send shivers down a gear snob's spine, but though he never placed his hands on the electric guitar until after he’d paid for it – finally digging into the axe while in the studio – his ignorance proved bliss.

“It was a 1975 Les Paul,” Babjak continues. “I put it through my Marshall, and it sounded great. I still have it – I don't want to give it up.”

Released as the lead single from their third album, 11, it peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart and was the first time the band broke the top 40 of the Hot 100.

The story goes that the song was cut from the film because its lyrics were too revealing of its plot – its producers wanted something a little more subtle. So, the hard-hitting track ended up becoming a Smithereens staple. Safe to say it was quite the twist of fate!

The guitar store incident isn't the only time one of Babjak's close collaborators has come to his aid. One of his guitar techs once tried to introduce him to his guitar idol, Pete Townshend, but he was too scared to meet his hero.

Babjak's full interview features in the June 2025 issue of Guitar World. Copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

There’s no doubt that the Gibson Les Paul is one of the most iconic electric guitars ever produced, but does it work as an acoustic guitar? That's a question Gibson is clearly keen to answer with the launch of the Les Paul Parlor.

It’s likely to divide fans (similar to how Fender’s Acoustasonic range split opinion) but it’s certainly an interesting concept.

Gibson is approaching cautiously here. Unlike its previous Les Paul acoustic iterations – which came in 1969 and 2000 for three and four-year runs, respectively – the body shape is a lot smaller this time around. Featuring a parlor-sized body “reminiscent of a scaled-down SJ-200”, its compactness may just sway those on the fence about this hybrid aesthetic.

Taking tonewood cues from the source material, its back and sides are crafted with solid mahogany, and there’s a AAA flame maple top for “a bit of bite and note definition to the warm tone from the mahogany body”.

The bookmatched top also benefits from traditional scalloped X-bracing with single-ply cream binding found all over to ensure the Les Paul’s legendary chic carries across.

Mahogany is also employed for the neck, which has a notable Advanced Response profile. Expect a neck that’s not “too beefy nor too slim”, while its 12"-radius, 19-fret fingerboard is made from rosewood. Pearloid trapezoid inlays harmonize with the guitar’s cream binding (and continues the LP vibe, naturally) and the neck attaches to the body with a compound dovetail neck-to-body joint.

Rosewood returns for the bridge, which is installed in a belly-down orientation. TUSQ is the material of choice for its nut and saddle, and its Grover Rotomatic tuners are nickel-plated.

Another hint of the parlor’s electric lineage comes via the mother-of-pearl Gibson logo and gold Les Paul Model decal on the headstock.

And, seeing as it’s part of the LP family, it would be remiss not to saddle this thing up with some pickups. An L.R. Baggs VTC +4 under-saddle piezo pickup and active preamp are the electronics of choice here.

As the system's name implies, this model has an output 4dB hotter than the standard VTC system. Still, we can't imagine this guitar is going to be hooked up to a Marshall stack.

There are two finish options available, Vintage Sunburst and Vintage Cherry Sunburst, and both are available as left-handed models too.

The Gibson Les Paul Parlor is priced at $3,999 and comes with a hardshell case.

Head to Gibson to oggle it some more.

Gibson has been evolving its acoustic range in 2025, with top picks including a new Acoustic Specials series that brings its most beloved (and expensive) designs to lower price points, a downsized, single-cut take on the SJ-200 via the Parlor Rosewood EC, and a signature, twist-laden take on the J-45 for Margo Price.

Avid gear collector Kirk Hammett has revealed he’s been thinning out his electric guitar collection and has recently sold “a lot” of six-strings online, but there is a slight twist: he’s been selling them anonymously.

Peter Green’s beloved Greeny Les Paul is the Metallica man’s most fabled instrument, even if he had no interest in buying it at first. However, his collection includes plenty more vintage picks, and he believes an ultra-rare 1959 ES-335 to be his best-sounding coup.

Those two may currently remain in Hammett’s possession, but some of his other guitars have since gone on to new homes, after being anonymously listed on eBay or Reverb.

“I’ll list them on eBay or Reverb and I don’t say they’re mine,” Hammett tells Metal Hammer during a discussion of his overwhelming collection. “I get rid of a lot of guitars that way!

“I get anxiety because I believe guitars should be played,” he adds, saying he believes the guitars deserved better than “solitary confinement”.

“I don’t believe in just storing them away and forgetting about them,” he adds. “I feel guilty! So I have been on a quest to shrink my collection and get rid of the ones I don’t play.”

To that end, Hammett reveals how a bucketload of his guitars had been collecting dust since since the late 2000s.

“There were a few that were only ever used on [2008’s] Death Magnetic,” he explains. “I played them on that tour, then as soon as that tour stopped they went into storage again as I’m not playing those songs.” That means some of them hadn't seen the light of day in 15 years.

Putting the (sadly unspecified) guitars up for sale anonymously is something of an unprecedented move from Hammett, especially since it isn’t the usual route big-name players take when putting guitars up for adoption.

“I try to trade them off because it’s better than just doing a cash deal,” he says. “Everyone leaves with a smile on their face and has something they want! Another way is to just give stuff away.”

It’s a philosophy similarly held by Joe Bonamassa, who once helped Hammett score another rare Les Paul he’d been chasing for years. The blues guitarist says he traded one of his prized Dumble amps for a 1959 Les Paul in 2016 and got “way more joy” from it than he did the tube amp.

Hammett didn’t name the guitars he sold specifically, but a little research into the band’s Death Magnetic era gives us a little clue as to what guitars could have been sold.

Of his gear picks for Metallica's ninth album, Kirk Hammett told Guitar World back in 2008: “I’ve added more midrange to my over sound. I can still appreciate my original scooped sound, but I need to feel the ground shake when I hit a chord.”

While amps included models from Marshall, Randall, and Ampeg, guitar-wise he says: “I think I used a ’58 Paul and a ’59 Tele on some clean stuff, but overall, almost everything is done with my ESP Mummy and Caution guitar, which is the original “Skully” [KH-2 Kirk Hammett signature] guitar – the very first ESP guitar, from 1987.”

“Skully” is, of course, a prized possession, so that was almost definitely not put up for sale, but the late 1950s axes – of which he owns many – could have found their way onto the chopping block along with a number of touring guitars.

Speaking of his 100+ guitar collection earlier this year, Hammett revealed why there are no PRS guitars among the bunch. Interestingly, Jack White's signature Triplecaster can be found in his collection, following a high-profile signature guitar swap.

What is it?

Earlier in the year, Epiphone took the wraps off eight new ‘Inspired by Gibson Custom’ models. Each is now called a Reissue to differentiate them from the previous models and refers to various upgrades that include a return to rosewood fingerboards, new Vintage Gloss finishes that, says Epiphone, “are thin, allowing for more resonance and keeping a vintage lacquer-like look, that more closely resembles a Gibson aged nitro finish.”

There are electronic upgrades under the hood, too, with “vintage era-appropriate capacitors (Black Beauty, Bumblebee) to more accurately capture the Gibson ‘Golden Era’ tone.”

The range is home to four new Reissue Les Pauls: a 1960 double-cut Special, a ’57 Goldtop and two standards, a 1960 and the featured guitar here, the benchmark 1959 Les Paul Standard.

Specs

• Launch price: $1,299 /£1,199/€1,399
• Made: China
• Type: Solidbody electric
• Body: Two-piece mahogany back w/ AAA flame maple veneer over plain maple cap
• Neck: One-piece mahogany w/ long tenon
• Fingerboard: / Radius: Bound rosewood/ 12”
• Scale length: 24.75” (629mm)
• Nut/width: 42.9mm
• Frets: 22, medium
• Hardware: ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge w/ Gibson Historic Reissue Aluminum Stop Bar, Epiphone Deluxe single ring, keystone button tuners
• Electrics: 2x Gibson Custombuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, individual pickup volume and tone controls
• Weight: 9.72lb (4.42kg)
• Left-handed options: No
• Finishes: Washed Bourbon Burst (as reviewed), Deep Cherry Sunburst
• Case: Hardshell case with Inspired by Gibson Custom Graphics
• Contact: www.epiphone.com

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆

Now, if you’ve not played an Epiphone Les Paul for a while, you’re in for a surprise. First off, it’s made in a very similar fashion to, well, a Custom Shop Les Paul.

Yes, the back is two-piece, not one, and that subtle tiger-strip figure is a AAA veneer over a plain maple top. The actual top carve might not be quite as deeply dished as the original but it’s very close to my current Gibson USA Les Paul Classic reference.

With its long-tenon extending under the neck pickup, the neck itself apes the real deal: one-piece mahogany with the correct ‘open-book’ headstock and a shallower back angle, something that may help, rather than hinder, the Les Paul’s notorious Achilles heel.

This new Vintage Gloss is well applied and paired back to a lower gloss sheen that’s silky satin and certainly not a dull matte. The top’s figuring lacks some of the crispness of the real thing, the actual figure looks a little diffused too, but it’s a massive improvement over those heavily applied high-gloss finishes of old. And this ’59 is available in two colours: our Washed Bourbon Burst or the ubiquitous Deep Cherry Sunburst.

With rosewood now replacing the previous laurel we have a good-looking deep chocolate fingerboard contrasted by the bright and crisp inlays.

The fretwire can best be described as ‘medium’ and the ends sit over the edge binding without the binding ‘nibs’ of the real thing or the more historic Gibson models and the Graph Tech nut does look rather modern too, certainly not vintage.

While the hardware is pretty generic but perfectively serviceable, the inclusion of the real-deal Gibson Custombuckers, CTS 500k ohm pots, a Switchcraft toggle switch and some boutique-looking ‘Bumblebee’ capacitors – all wired fifties-style – are more than welcome.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★☆

While certainly not the lightest Epiphone Les Paul we’ve ever played it’s on the right side of 10lbs and feels more comfortable strapped on than seated. Hey, it’s a Les Paul!

But with a good set-up and fitted with .010s it plays well although the relatively small frets do give it a more vintage than modern feel.

To be critical, while that set-up is good, as is the tuning stability with no more than some basic string stretching, the fret ends feel a little sharp and erode a little of played-in vibe.

You engage with a neck shape immediately and here the Rounded Medium C profile sits between, for example, Gibson’s rather fuller ‘50s profile and the slimmer but still quite full-shouldered ‘60s SlimTaper.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

At full tilt this ’59 has certainly got that Les Paul bigness, it’s a fulsome classic rock voice but not over-egged: the Alnico 3-powered Custombuckers are very much in the classic rather than hot Patent Applied For range. But select a clean amp and this is a plummy, smoky jazzer.

Use those controls too. The fifties-style wiring pulls out lots of colours: back off the volume, pull down the tone to just before it rolls off and you have a completely different guitar with snap and plenty of cleaner jangle. Pull the controls back up, hit the neck and you’re in thick, vocal solo heaven. It’s a good Les Paul.

Verdict

While this example would be a tad too heavy for many, and it’s crying out for a little more time on fret finishing basics, this really is a very viable, vintage-inspired Les Paul.

Yes, it’s got what some will always consider the 'wrong' name on the right ‘open book’ headstock, and it’s not as crisply built as the ‘proper’ Gibson USA Les Paul Standards. But if we’re talking about sound, playability and overall style it’s certainly worth considering against the start-point of the Gibson USA Les Paul range. The lines are getting blurred.

Guitar World verdict: No, it’s not the real deal but this new ‘Reissue’ level of the expanding ‘Inspired by Gibson Custom’ Epiphone range is a noticeable upgrade to the original 2024 model.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art has received a landmark donation of historic electric guitars and acoustic guitars, which will be the lifeblood of a new permanent gallery that underscores the impact the instrument has had on popular music.

As per a report from The New Yorker, the collection of “500 of the finest guitars from the golden age of American guitar-making between 1920 and 1970” has been secretly curated over a number of decades.

The stories of these vintage guitars – many of which have changed the world with the music they were used to write – are headline-worthy unto themselves. The fact that this definitive collection of history-soaked instruments was gathered in secret over a huge period is another matter altogether.

The collector – read gear obsessive – is Dirk Ziff, a publishing heir and financier. He’s also a keen guitarist himself and has recorded and toured with Carly Simon. Vintage guitar connoisseur Perry Margouleff has been working alongside him as his advisor, and since 1987, they’ve amassed a collection that many would argue rivals Jim Isray’s star-studded buys.

Jayson Dobney, the Met’s curator of musical instruments, first met Margouleff in 2011, when he was secretly shown just some of the examples from a long-rumored 'secret trove' guitar collection.

“It was so secretive that when I, as a curator of the Met, came to visit, I had no idea what was actually there. I just saw those eight guitars,” he told The New Yorker.

Dobney then met Ziff in 2019, when Ziff attended the Met's Play It Loud exhibit. It became one of its most-attended events in recent years, helped attract a new crowd to the museum – and convinced Ziff to finally go public with his own collection.

The collection, which is set to be unveiled in Spring 2027, is quite something. Leo Fender’s first guitar made in 1948, Les Paul’s 1941 Epiphone “Klunker”, an oddball experiment that showcases the lineage of the Les Paul proper, and the 1959 'Burst Les Paul used by Keith Richards during The Rolling Stones’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 all feature. But it doesn’t end there.

Of course, pre-war Martins play a key part. Roy Rogers’ beloved 1930 OM-45 is included. There's also a Martin that is thought to date back to 1853 where it stood as a presentation model at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of the same year.

Elsewhere, the collection spans guitars significant for their creation, how they were wielded, or sometimes both. There's Gretsch's first prototype of Chet Atkins' signature guitar, built in 1955, a 1958 Korina Gibson flying V played by Neil Young, the second-ever solid-body guitar made by Paul Bigsby in 1948, and the first production model of a 1924 Gibson L-5 archtop, signed by its designer, Lloyd Loar.

Speaking to the New Yorker about the collection, Margouleff says that guitar in particular tells a story they want the collection to echo.

“If you looked at an automobile in 1924 and then looked at one today, it would be completely unrecognizable, the change is so dramatic,” he says. “If you went to a music store today and bought a new Gibson L-5, it might look identical to this one, in every way. They had it right from day one.”

“This is truly a trailblazing and transformative gift, positioning the Museum to be the epicenter for the appreciation and study of the American guitar,” says Max Hollein, The Met’s Chief Executive Officer. “We are immensely grateful to Dirk and Perry Margouleff, for their extraordinary commitment to assembling this world-class, one-of-a-kind collection over the course of decades.

“These guitars are examples of outstanding artistry and craftsmanship as well as visually powerful tools of expression and distinction. This gift celebrates the innovators, inventors, and manufacturers who created many different forms of the guitar to meet the needs of individual musicians, while also telling the stories of American music through the 20th century.”

Says Ziff: “Since embarking on this journey with Perry in 1987, our objective has been to assemble a comprehensive collection of American guitars, many of them historic and culturally significant, and preserve them for the benefit of future generations.

“It is genuinely thrilling to see our vision validated at the greatest cultural institution in the world. I am honored to help play a role in broadening the Museum’s reach and impact by making these great instruments accessible to legions of guitar lovers from all over the world.”

“To know that there is so much passion behind this project is thrilling,” adds Jimmy Page, who first started working with the Met for the Play it Loud exhibit. “I would like to take my hat off to the people who have been behind this—and to The Met for its dedication to construct something that is going to be of such great importance for generations to come.”

Joe Bonamassa has revealed his handy trick for minimizing string breakages on Gibson Les Pauls, which expands upon a stringing technique used by Jimmy Page and Billy Gibbons in the 1970s.

Eagle-eyed Bonamassa fans who have closely inspected his Les Pauls over the years will have noticed that the ball end of his strings point towards the bridge, and stick out visibly from the instrument’s tailpiece. This, he reveals, is intentional.

In a new video interview with Guitarist magazine, Bonamassa reveals the string-saving hack that transformed how he strings his Les Pauls. Since adopting the technique, he claims he hasn’t broken a single string in over three years of touring.

Traditionally, Les Pauls are strung by threading the string through the tailpiece, with the ball end anchoring inside. Bonamassa’s method builds on the “top-wrap” approach that became popular in the ’70s.

In this setup, the tailpiece is screwed down flat against the body – something many players believe enhances resonance – and the strings are fed through the tailpiece from the neck side, wrapped over the top of it, and then strung to the machine heads.

“The top-wrap on the Les Paul was something I noticed in pictures of Jimmy Page and Billy Gibbons when Billy was using heavier gauge strings,” Bonamassa explains. “You start thinking about it critically, and you go, 'They're decreasing the break angle over the bridge.'

“Now, you could do that by going through the bridge and just raising the tailpiece, but most of us Les Paul wielders tend to like the tailpiece screwed all the way down. So, how do you achieve both at the same time? You overwrap just like a Les Paul Junior.

“Once I did that, I was like, 'Wow, these 11s – I use Ernie Ball Burly Slinkies, 11-52s – feel like 10.5s. They're a little bit slinkier, they have more bounce to them.

“My former tech, Mike Hickey, came up with an extension of the over-the-top wrap,” he develops. “He would cut off the ball ends, put the string through there, then through the bridge, and then go over. That prevented the break angle from being right on the wind, preventing string breakage.”

He admits the method might not be for everyone, but encourages other Les Paul players to try it and find out.

“Now, Ernie Ball sends them us in bulk, but in the very beginning he'd tediously cut the ball ends off and it worked,” Bonamassa concludes. “We haven't broken a string on a Les Paul – knock on wood – for over three years. And that's not playing light!”

Bonamassa’s chat with Guitarist also looks at the action of a guitar and the value of finding an instrument’s sweet spot.

“Every guitar has a happy spot where it rings naturally and it's a case-by-case basis,” he says, noting the instrument itself, and a player’s action preference, as two contributing factors. “You can't paint in broad strokes.”

He goes on to say that older guitars usually need fewer truss rod adjustments “as the wood has been sitting for a long time, so, they're kind of cranky and stuck in their ways”. He finds newer models require a little more TLC.

On his preferred action, he adds, “Too low, and I feel the instrument starts to choke. But if there's too much tension with the truss rod, it's going to choke as well. When you hit a chord and it's blooming, the whole guitar will resonate. That's when you know it's set up [properly].

“I know people that use super low action and they get great sound out of it,” he concludes “So, it's just one man's opinion.”

Bonamassa, however, will be focusing on Strats in the coming months, with his Rory Gallagher tribute shows fast approaching. He has also recently paid tribute to underrated guitar hero Lowell George, whose Dumble Special Overdrive is now a key part of his touring rig.

Guitar Center has announced its latest store-exclusive electric guitar – an Epiphone Les Paul Custom Widow, which resurrects one of Gibson's most sought-after limited-edition designs in a more affordable format.

Notably, it also brings back Gibson’s rare breed purple burst colorway, which got a limited-run release last year. Now the guitar store has brought it back – and given it some eye-popping color-matched binding – to a more affordable price point of $799 for a build it’s calling “a bold reinterpretation of a classic design”.

The mid-priced guitar, part of Epiphone’s Inspired by Gibson range, marries “premium craftsmanship and striking aesthetics”, with a mahogany body bestowed with a flame maple top.

Mahogany has also been chosen for its modern medium C-profile neck, while ebony is used for its 22-fret fingerboard, which is completed with Pearloid block inlays.

Its Probucker Custom humbuckers have been modeled after Gibson Custom's well-loved pickups, with quintessential Les Paul versatility unlocked with its quartet of controls – a Volume and Tone for each ’bucker – and a three-way selector.

Expect “smooth, creamy tones” from the neck pickup, and “tight, focused clarity” from the bridge, which has been crafted with guitar solos in mind for “warm lows and sparkling highs” across its tonal spectrum.

The instrument’s seven-ply binding has been color-matched for a sleek look. Chrome hardware, including a LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge with a Stop Bar tailpiece and Grover Rotomatic tuners, punctuate its styling.

“Initially released as a limited-edition Les Paul Custom Black Widow in 2009, Gibson soon realized the sleek and striking colored binding and headstock was turning lots of heads,” says Guitar Center. “More colors were introduced, and the original run of Gibson Les Paul Widows now bring hefty, collector-level prices on the used market.

“The Epiphone Les Paul Custom Widow limited-edition electric guitar offers a distinctive look and high-end features suited for players who demand both style and performance. From its flame maple top to its Probucker pickups and color-matched binding, this guitar delivers a premium playing experience.”

The guitar, priced at $799, is available exclusively from Guitar Center stores and online and is ready to help players unlock a purple patch in their playing.

Head to Guitar Center for more.

The release comes shortly after the dealer announced an exclusive Gretsch Streamliner with standout ‘cat-eye’ f-holes.

In related Guitar Center news, CEO Gabe Dalporto recently discussed how the retailer can beat Amazon and other digital competition as the threat of online retailers looms over the guitar market. Meanwhile, Guitar World readers have had their say on how the dealer can improve its store.

Sting guitarist Dominic Miller has made his case for the age-old Fender versus Gibson debate, believing the Les Paul to be “the perfect instrument”.

Interestingly, Les Paul’s innovative solid-body electric guitar design could have been a Fender model, with Leo Fender making him an offer before Gibson, his preferred manufacturer, finally got on board with his concept.

Because of that, the Les Paul and Fender’s flagship, now 70-year-old Stratocaster – recently called “a piece of art,” by Hans Zimmer – have consistently fought with one another for the electric guitar crown.

Miller uses both guitars for his shows with Sting, but as far as he’s concerned, there’s only one winner.

“They're two completely different instruments,” he tells Ultimate Guitar. “The strength of a Les Paul is the intonation stays really, really in, much more reliably than on a Fender. And the tuning always stays in. It's a much more reliable instrument in terms of tuning and intonation.

“Also,” he extends, “what I love about a Les Paul is it's got a wider tonal range than a Strat, I think. The lows are much lower, and the high is not quite as high as a Strat, but it's got a very bright sound on the bridge pickup, which I like. You can really mess around the volumes on the two different pickups, which makes a difference on the sound if you're using both pickups.”

Pickups and their electronic configurations will also divide opinion in this debate. LPs are typically loaded with humbuckers – although P-90s are making a comeback thanks to Joe Bonamassa and Warren Haynes – with a three-way switch.

Strats, conversely, are usually served up with a trio of single coils and a five-way switch. On paper, the Strat is arguably a little more versatile here. But it all comes down to a player’s taste.

“The strength of a Fender,” Miller says, turning to the competition, “is that there's nothing that you can't do on a Fender Strat. In terms of the wide sonic range is just incredible. That's why I think it's the most versatile electric solid-body guitar that there is. Closely followed by a Telecaster.”

Gibson, he says, is “standing alone. It's its own continent in a way that nothing sounds like a Gibson Les Paul.

“I mean, maybe an SG would sound a little bit like that because it's a solid body. It's got that 'Gibson sound.' But a Les Paul is a perfect instrument. I love it.”

Pushed on the weaknesses of the two electrics, he’s hard-pressed to provide answers but does pluck some out of the ether and his own experiences.

“The weakness of a Fender is the tuning goes out really easy, because it's a wobblier neck. You can have noise issues depending on what pickup configuration you have. And the weakness of a Les Paul, I would say, is that the bridge pickup is not as glassy as a Fender. That nice, very pristine upper range, it hasn't got.”

Kirk Hammett made headlines in January when he shared photos of himself playing Jack White’s Triplecaster. White commented that he was simply returning a favor: Hammett had previously gifted him one of his signature Gibson ‘Greeny’ replica Les Pauls.

Now, the Metallica electric guitar maestro reveals what prompted him to give the guitar to White. In a new interview with Guitar World’s Amit Sharma, Hammett says: “I sent him a Greeny. He’s played the original.”

Not only that, but White did a gig with the legendary Les Paul previously owned by Peter Green and Gary Moore.

“I turned up at one of his shows with Greeny and said ‘Bro, check it out, and play her on stage!’” Hammett admits gleefully. “He used that guitar for a few songs.”

This performance gave Metallica’s axeman an idea: “When the replicas came out, I sent him one because I knew he’d dig it,” Kirk says simply. “He was happy and wasn’t expecting anything. So a couple of months ago, I got a text from him saying, ‘You’re gonna get a package in the mail.’”

The package, of course, was one of Jack’s personal Triplecasters.

“Then a guitar case showed up, and when I opened it up, I was so happy,” smiles Hammett. It turns out the two have an established relationship of sharing gear.

“He occasionally sends me his Third Man pedals, which are totally psycho,” Kirk comments. “I love them.”

Somehow, no footage has emerged of Jack White performing with possibly the world’s most famous Les Paul. Rest assured Guitar World will be combing the web and will share it if we find it.

Hammett has also been discussing Polyphia's Tim Henson and giving his opinion on the 'boomer bends' controversy. Jack White's latest Third Man Hardware release is a collaboration with Eventide on a sub-octave fuzz and analog synth pedal.

Keep your eyes peeled on GuitarWorld.com for the full interview with Kirk Hammett.

Last month, Gibson released 150 Murphy Lab replicas of a special 1958 Les Paul Custom. Although Gibson has given Eric Clapton’s name to the run, the guitar has belonged to Albert Lee since 1979. In a new video for Gibson, Lee reveals the guitar’s full history, and Clapton isn’t even the guitar’s most famous player.

The story begins with a young Albert Lee’s obsession with Selmer, a guitar shop on London’s Charing Cross Road.

“Every Saturday I'd come up on the train see what was in in Selmer's,” begins Lee. “So he opened up this guitar case, and there's a brand new Les Paul Custom with a Bigsby on it. I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll join your band!’” he laughs.

“I played that guitar throughout the early ’60s. This guy persuaded me to sell it to him. He pestered me and pestered me,” Lee continues. “I let it go, and I regretted it for a long, long time.”

In 1978, Lee joined Eric Clapton’s touring band, and the subject of his old Les Paul came up.

“I remember the first day, chatting with Eric,” he recalls. “For some reason I had a picture of my old guitar with me, you know, and I showed it to him. I told him how much I missed that guitar. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I've got one of those at home somewhere.’”

“I didn't think any more of it,” Lee remarks. “The next day at rehearsals, you know, the roadie, he walked in with this big case and opened it up, and it's Eric's Les Paul Custom for me to play.

“I guess it was mine. From there on, I used it on the whole tour. Eric never asked for the guitar back. He was happy that I was enjoying it and using it on stage.”

Lee had no idea of the guitar's full history when it came into his possession.

“I found that out later on,” he admits. “I thought maybe it was Cream and maybe Delaney and Bonnie.”

Lee was correct in those assumptions, but it had a much longer history, as he now recounts:

“From Paul Kossoff to Eric and John Lennon and George Harrison playing it. I’d no idea Eric used it with Derek and the Dominos. Great bit of history there.”

The guitar had in fact been used to record Cream’s Disraeli Gears, where Clapton first used ‘woman tone,’ the sound of the bridge pickup with the tone control all the way off.

After that the guitar turned up in the hands of Free’s Paul Kossoff, although Clapton doesn’t remember what he did with it after Disraeli Gears. Still, the guitar was in Kossoff’s possession from ’67–’69, a period that includes the recording of Free’s debut, Tons of Sobs.

Clapton’s memory of the period is fragmentary, but he remembers, “We [Free and Blind Faith] were touring together,” adding that the two jammed together “quite a lot.”

After regaining the guitar, Clapton was pictured with it in The Sunday Times Magazine, at which point the guitar had uncovered humbuckers; the covers are now back in place.

In 1969 Eric Clapton joined John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band to perform at the Toronto Rock n’ Roll Revival. Footage from that concert shows Clapton with the Les Paul Custom.

From there, Clapton played the guitar on tour with Delaney and Bonnie, alongside George Harrison.

Michael Doyle, who researched the guitar for Gibson’s replica, says photos exist of George Harrison playing the guitar onstage while Clapton plays Harrison’s Strat. We couldn't find that, but we did find a widely circulated picture that appears to show Harrison playing the guitar while hanging out with Clapton and Bonnie Bramlett. Here's footage of Clapton playing the Les Paul with Harrison:

Michael Doyle also says that a photo of Derek & The Dominos shows Eric using the Les Paul Custom for slide work, “which makes sense,” Doyle contends.

“One of the reasons why he gave it away was because the frets were so skinny. If you can't get on with a guitar because the frets aren't right for you, what do you do? Well, set it up for slide.”

In other Albert Lee news, Steve Lukather recently spilled the beans on his secret supergroup with Lee, Eddie Van Halen, and Steve Morse. Meanwhile, Dunlop issued an Eric Clapton Crybaby in recognition that Clapton was one of the wah's earliest champions.

Gibson has announced the arrival of the Double Trouble Les Paul, offering an appealing combination of uncovered 'Classic White' humbuckers and faded Vintage nitrocellulose finishes, in a limited-edition run.

Guitar World first reported on the models after we got a glimpse of them at Gibson’s NAMM 2025 showcase, noting the line appeared to be inspired by the firm's legal wrangle with DiMarzio (over the use of the PAF name and the latter’s trademark on cream color humbucker designs, or Double-Cream pickups).

The two new models encompass a ‘50s and ‘60s-styled Les Paul Standard, both of which come with a choice of Vintage Cherry and Tobacco Bursts – and a pair of pointedly-titled ‘Classic White’ humbuckers.

As Gibson notes on its site, “The covers are off and it's time to rock ’n’ roll with these new, limited-edition Les Paul Standards”.

That said, the spec is no joke. Both models feature non-weight relieved mahogany bodies with carved maple caps, mahogany necks, and Indian rosewood fretboards boasting 22 medium jumbo frets and trapezoid inlays. But atop that canvas, they are painted with decade-specific twists.

The ‘50s model serves a period-correct neck profile and gets its sonic character from uncovered Burstbucker 1 and Burstbucker 2 humbuckers. They combine Alnico II magnets and new Double Classic White bobbins for an “elegant vintage vibe”.

The standard LP electronics configuration of two Volume and two Tone knobs (here hand-wired with Orange Drop capacitors) and a three-way pickup toggle also presides here.

Its all-nickel hardware includes an ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge, an aluminum stop bar tailpiece, and Vintage Deluxe tuners with keystone buttons.

As for its ‘60s counterpart, players will find a SlimTaper neck profile and Burstbucker 61R and Burstbucker 61T pickups for distinction.

Those uncovered ‘buckers also utilize Double Classic White bobbins but mix up the magnets by opting for Alnico 5 for something brighter and altogether more aggressive. They are hand-wired with audio taper potentiometers and Orange Drop capacitors.

The same ABR-1 bridge has carried over, but its tuners have been swapped for Grover Romotmatics with kidney buttons.

Notably, the two Double Trouble six-strings are also differentiated by their retro-tinted finishes.

“The finish colors are ‘Vintage’ variations on our standard nitrocellulose lacquer finishes,” explains Gibson.

“Our [usual] standard gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finishes represent the finishes on brand-new models from the [era]... while the full-gloss nitrocellulose lacquer Vintage finishes on the Les Paul Standard Double Trouble models are slightly faded when compared to the standard versions, like the subtly faded light vintage aging that occurs over several years.”

Overall, it gives the impression of a sun-faded colorway, which helps heighten the old-school aesthetic.

It is something that famously happened to Jason Isbell’s prized 1959 ‘Red Eye’ Les Paul – formerly owned by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ed King. Its finish had faded into its unmistakable 'Red Eye' visage after sitting in the window display of a guitar store.

Only 500 guitars will be made in each color, equating to a pool of 2,000 guitars across the run. They are priced at $2,799 each and come with a Gibson hard shell guitar case.

Head to Gibson to learn more about the Les Paul Standard ’50s Double Trouble and Les Paul Standard ‘60s Double Trouble, respectively.

Gibson’s release expands on what is already proving a busy year for the brand. It has teamed up with Warren Haynes for a much-anticipated, P-90-loaded signature Les Paul, with Brian May for an interstellar 12-string acoustic, returned to the archives to reprise its long-forgotten Superstrat era, and resurrected the Dave Grohl, and Ghost-approved RD.

Gibson has also claimed a major victory in its ongoing legal battle with Dean, as a court ruling found – for a second time – that Dean was infringing on Gibson’s trademark with its Z and V-shaped designs.

Heritage Guitars has added its weight to the burgeoning budget guitar market with its new Ascent and Ascent+ electric guitars – which start from less than $200.

As the firm's name implies, Heritage aims to honor vintage designs for the modern player, but such a design brief comes at a cost, with price tags that can vary anywhere between the $2,400 and $5,000 bracket.

As such, the made-in-China Ascent range will be an exciting prospect for those previously priced out of Heritage's premium axes.

The standard Ascent lineup wades into Harley Benton price ranges, with plenty of bang for your buck. There are two models to unpick here: the H-137 ($195), which comes with a choice of humbuckers or P-90s, while it’s ’buckers only for the H-150 ($265).

Both are crafted with okoume bodies, bolt-on maple necks, and cent-saving laurel fretboards, but the H-150 goes one better with a carved basswood top.

Staying close to the traditional source material, they are built to a 24.75" scale and offer a TOM-style bridge, Stopbar tailpiece, closed tuners, an ABS nut, and 22 frets. There's also a sculpted belly cut and some ergonomically-minded body carves.

The pricier Ascent+ range, meanwhile, swaps okoume for mahogany for both its body and set neck. Rosewood fingerboards up the ante, too. Here, the H-137 starts at $499, while the H-150 weighs in at $699.

They’ve also been peppered with extra ergonomic features thanks to a modern heel contour and 12”-16” compound radius, while the pickups get a noiseless upgrade.

For semi-hollow fans, the Ascent+ range adds the H-335 ($699) into the mix. It offers a maple body, mahogany C-profile set neck, and rosewood fingerboard built to that same compound radius.

Hardware choices here, again, include a TOM bridge with a Stopbar tailpiece, GraphTech TUSQ XL nut, twin humbuckers with dedicated Tone and Volume knobs, and a three-way switch.

Says Heritage: “The Ascent Collection offers exceptional value while maintaining our high standards. Designed for players at all levels, these guitars deliver quality materials, versatile electronics, and enhanced playability – hallmarks of the Heritage experience.”

All models are available now.

Head to Heritage for more.

The firm updated its premium H-157 for “more oomph and power” last year, while its H-575 jazz box was crafted to deliver “the ultimate playing experience”.

A brand-new recording studio has opened up in Hollywood, California, honoring the legacy of Les Paul, the man who helped revolutionize the electric guitar.

Named The Les Paul Recording Studio, of course, it features “meticulously restored original equipment used by the legendary inventor and guitarist, including his groundbreaking audio console and 8-channel recording set up”.

Les Paul is best known for his namesake solid-body guitar design, which Leo Fender courted before Gibson was convinced of its worth, but he also made a raft of innovations in the recording world.

Working out of his Hollywood garage, Paul poured hours into developing “the new sound” and his work brought multi-track recording, sound-on-sound, close mic’ing, overdubbing, speed manipulation, and echo to the fore, changing the recording landscape forever.

As such, the change-making 8-track console he built with Rein Narma in the 1950s stands as the new studio’s centrepiece. Known as “The Monster” – but not to be confused with “The Beast”, a seven-necked guitar that is heading to auction this month – the console featured in-line equalization and vibrato effects that were way ahead of its time.

In fact, multi-track recording, today more commonplace than darkness at night time, was born on the console. Les Paul’s Ampex 5258 Sel-Sync machine, dubbed “The Octopus,” sits alongside it – he loved a nickname, apparently. This was the first-ever 8-track recorded producer.

However, the studio isn’t just about showcasing the groundbreaking and now vintage gear. The Les Paul Studio has plenty of state-of-the-art technologies nestled within its four walls, too.

“We’ve painstakingly restored Les Paul’s original gear to working condition, allowing today’s artists to record using the exact tools that revolutionized popular music,” says studio owner Michael Braunstein.

“Combined with the newest technology and digital recording tools, the Les Paul Recording Studio will welcome musical artists, producers, engineers, and students to a new and innovative studio environment that is the only one of its kind in the world.”

The studio will also double up as an educational tool for students to study and record with its equipment. Braunstein calls it “an ideal setting for the next generation of musical artists, to find inspiration in the rich history the studio has to offer”.

Guitar World has also spotted Gibson’s Mary Ford-honoring Standard Gold Top Les Paul in a studio snap, which is a lovely touch.

The Les Paul Recording Studio is located in the historic United Recording building at 6050 Sunset Blvd, which has seen everyone from Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys to Tool and the Mars Volta record albums.

Head to Les-Paul.com to learn more.

Clandestine meetings, dramatic TV pleas, ransom demands, hurried getaway drives across the Mexican border...

It sounds like a thriller – a setup for the likes of Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, or Liam Neeson to Kool-Aid Man through the door, guns blazing, ready to re-possess what was unjustly taken.

Minus the action movie heroes and firearms (at least as far as we know), this was the exact scenario that no less than George Harrison found himself in when trying to get back his “Lucy” Gibson Les Paul, which was stolen from the Beatle in 1973 when he was living in Los Angeles.

Why go to such great lengths, you ask? Well, this wasn't just any ol' Les Paul.

Given to Harrison by his buddy Eric Clapton, “Lucy” had been used by the latter for his lead break on the Harrison-penned Beatles masterpiece, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, widely regarded as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time.

Harrison also went on to use the cherry red-finished guitar on other tracks on the Beatles' landmark White Album, and on Abbey Road.

Before it ended up in Harrison's, or Clapton's, hands, “Lucy” is said to have been owned by Rick Derringer, and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian before him.

By the time Clapton bought it, the Les Paul had ended up at a New York City guitar store. When exactly Clapton bought it isn't certain (Clapton himself, in an interview about Gibson's 2013, ultra-limited edition re-creation of “Lucy,” wasn't entirely sure of the timeline), but by late 1968, the guitar was firmly in Harrison's possession.

It would remain so – contributing to the Beatles repertoire and subsequently Harrison's enormously successful early solo career – until April 13, 1973, when the guitar was swiped from his Beverly Hills home.

From there, the guitar was, reportedly, quickly sold to a shop, Whalin Sound City, that just as quickly sold it on to a Mexican musician named Miguel Ochoa.

Many years later, in 1988 – as Harrison re-emerged from a five-year hiatus with Cloud Nine, his biggest solo album in well over a decade – the Beatle sat down with Guitar World for a wide-ranging interview, which covered, among many other topics, the theft of the cherry red Les Paul.

We'll let Harrison take it from here.

“I called him [Ochoa] up,” Harrison told GW. “I said, ‘That's my guitar. I want it back, and I'll give you your money back.’ He said, ‘How do I know it's really you?’ I said, ‘Okay, I'll meet you.’

“A meeting was arranged, but the guy just took off, jumped in a car, and drove to Guadalajara and kidnapped my guitar!”

As if that wasn't surreal enough already, Harrison's close friend Ravi Shankar, the sitar master who taught Harrison the instrument for a time, just so happened to be in Guadalajara for a TV appearance.

Harrison recalled, “It was just after the Bangladesh concerts [two benefit concerts Harrison organized and headlined at New York City's Madison Square Garden in 1971 after the country was devastated by a massive cyclone] and Ravi went on TV saying, ‘He's very upset because his guitar's been stolen and it's in Guadalajara!’ Then he read the guy's name on TV!”

Even a public call-out didn't bring the ordeal to a swift conclusion.

“In the end it became a bit of a ripoff,” Harrison explained to GW. “I had to pay this guy to keep flying to Guadalajara doing deals with the other guy and I ended up having to go out and find a Les Paul of the same period and swap it for mine.

“I finally got it back, but it was a really good guitar, and also it had that personal thing, because it was the Guitar Gently Weeps guitar that Eric played, and I used it on the White Album and Abbey Road.”

And so, after many headaches, “Lucy” returned to Harrison's hands. It remains in possession of the late guitarist's family.

But what, you might be wondering, was the guitar that Harrison traded for “Lucy”?

Well, that guitar has an interesting story of its own..

Purchased from legendary vintage dealer Norman Harris, of Norman’s Rare Guitars, the guitar that got “Lucy” back was a Sunburst 1958 Les Paul.

Sold by Ochoa a decade after the “Lucy” dust-up, the so-called “ransom” Les Paul changed hands a number of times, before ending up on the auction block in 2022.

With the help of its colorful backstory, the guitar was sold for $312,500. We can assume no private flights to Guadalajara were necessary...

What is it?

Released in the early eighties as a less flashy alternative to the Les Paul Standard, the Studio looked to sound and play every bit as good as Gibson's flagship model, just without all the bells and whistles. Now, a little over 40 years later, the beloved guitar has been revised, remodeled, and redesigned in four separate guises – the Studio, Studio Flame Top, Studio Modern, and with the all-new Session model we are looking at today, the line between the fabled Standard and its less expensive stablemate is getting increasingly blurred.

The iconic mahogany body ditches the plain maple of the previous iteration and is now topped with a gorgeous AA-figured cap and is lightened with the aid of Gibson's Ultra-Modern weight relief. The standardization continues to the slim taper mahogany neck, which now sees the addition of binding – a feature that is available on all four versions in the current Studio line. The neck is adorned with a jet-black ebony fretboard, 22 medium jumbo frets, and acrylic trapezoid inlays, and the whole thing is crowned with the classic Gibson headstock, legendary mother-of-pearl logo, and Grover Rotomatic tuners.

Flip the guitar over, and you'll be greeted with the Modern Contoured Heel, a design feature that offers players unparalleled upper fret access by eliminating the bulky area where the body meets the neck.

Tonally, the Studio Session lives up to its name by offering players a smorgasbord of sonic possibilities. A pair of '57 Classic pickups – with the plus variant in the bridge – drive this Les Paul, which delivers a range of golden-era tones that are ideal for hard rock and blues alike. Hidden within the controls are push/pull coil taps in both volume knobs, while the tone knobs pull out to engage an out-of-phase setting and pure bypass switching (the latter bypassing the tone and volume circuits).

The Studio Session is available in multiple finish options, from the traditional Honey Burst and Bourbon Burst for the purists to the electrifying Cobalt Blue and moody Translucent Ebony Burst that will appeal more to contemporary players. Of course, as you'd expect, each version is wrapped in a shiny, full gloss nitrocellulose lacquer and shipped with a deluxe padded soft shell case.

Specifications

• Launch price: $1,999/£1,899/€2,199
• Type: Six-string electric guitar
• Made: USA
• Body: Mahogany
• Neck: Mahogany
• Fingerboard: Ebony
• Scale length: 628.65 mm / 24.75 in
• Nut/width: Graph Tech/ 43.05 mm / 1.694 in
• Frets: 22, medium jumbo
• Hardware: Aluminum Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge, Grover Rotomatic tuners
• Electrics: '57 Classic +/ '57 Classic
• Left-handed options: No
• Finishes: Honey Burst, Bourbon Burst, Cobalt Blue, Translucent Ebony Burst
• Case: Gibson Gig Bag
• Contact: Gibson

Build

Handling the Studio Session for the first time and casting my eye over its clean and well-applied Honey Burst finish, I'm once again reminded that Gibson is currently producing some of the finest guitars in their history. There's no two ways about it, this guitar is stunning to look at – to the point where I'm starting to doubt it's even a Studio.

The AA flame top is gorgeous, with a lovely wood grain pattern that covers the width of the body vertically, while the bolder tiger stripe-like flames engulf horizontally. Unfortunately, pictures don't seem to do the Studio Session justice, but move the guitar in the light, and the top comes to life. That said, there is one small imperfection on the top near the toggle switch. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly not a deal breaker, but it does detract from the guitar's beauty somewhat.

Moving on to the neck, and everything is as it should be. The fretwork is neat and tidy and well enough polished, while the binding has been expertly applied and scraped. I'm liking the look of the ebony fingerboard too, which is peppered with the traditional trapezoid inlays. The fingerboard does show the odd tooling mark here and there, but it's nothing that I haven't seen on even higher-end Les Paul models.

The modern weight relief is often the subject of harsh criticism from Gibson purists who think a heavy Les Paul is a "real" Les Paul. This is an ideation I've never subscribed to. While not for everyone, chambered Les Pauls can be some of the most resonant around, and that's certainly true for this particular Studio Session. Even unplugged, it sounds "alive", and I must admit its lightweight nature is very appealing to me – let's just hope this extra resonance translates to its electrified tone.

Playability

Turning my attention to the guitar's playability, and there's no doubt I'm dealing with a modern Les Paul. While the neck is billed as the typical Slim Taper profile found on many Gibson models, the Session feels slimmer than most – narrow, too. The slight profile leads to a lightning-fast guitar that makes short work of gravity-defying legato shred but does leave me wanting a little more heft for chord work.

Follow the neck from the nut to the dusty end, and you'll be greeted with what Gibson describes as the Modern Contoured Heel. This extreme heel carve is designed to eliminate the bulky area where the body meets the neck, giving players better access to the upper frets.

Of course, this isn't a new thing for Gibson, they've featured the same design on the Modern, Modern Figured, and Studio Modern – and a similar variation on the Les Paul Access – but if the chunky nature of a standard Les Paul has left you feeling frustrated in the past, then this might be the guitar for you.

For me, I like the design. I'll admit I've never really struggled with the traditional neck join, but it can't be denied that this contemporary option does make reaching those screeching high notes a lot easier.

Sound

If you're going to name your new model the Studio Session, you better live up to it with a versatile collection of tones. I'm happy to report that this new Les Paul does, in fact, sound fantastic, but it may not be as versatile as it appears on the surface.

The 57 Classic and 57 Classic + pickup set is a popular duo among Gibson fans – and for good reason. Responsive, articulate, and harmonically rich, they deliver the exact tone you'd expect from this famed singlecut. The neck position is smooth and rounded, while the slightly hotter bridge pickup unleashes a devastating bark when introduced to a healthy amount of gain. Now, if this was all the guitar offered, I'd be happy!

Taking a look at the extra electronics, and we have a plethora of tonal options via the onboard controls. Loaded with push/pull coil tap functionality – accessible from each volume control – you have the ability to access single-coil-like tones at the pull of a dial. Now, while these are serviceable, they aren't quite as good as others on the market. To me, when tapped, the pickups sound a little scratchy and lackluster - and not bright and spanky like a true Strat.

Pulling the rhythm tone knob grants access to an out-of-phase tone that's great for achieving that famous 'Greeny' sound – a tone I like very much.

Now, Gibson may call this "modern wiring," but fans of the brand will know it has been around for a very long time – in fact, it's the same wiring that was found on the Les Paul Standard before the new management took a back-to-basics approach with their new models. I have the same setup on my own Gibson Les Paul Standard, and I can confidently say I've used the coil taps twice in the 9 years I've had the guitar. That said, I do use the other functionality. I use the out-of-phase switch a lot when recording lead lines, so I'm happy to see it included on the Studio Session.

In case that isn't enough, lurking behind the lead tone knob is a Pure Bypass switch that renders all your controls inactive and sends your bridge pickup directly to your output jack – ideal if you want to quickly take a lead break then jump back to your rolled-down clean tone.

Overall, this is a great-sounding guitar that convincingly delivers the full-fat tones found on more expensive models. Okay, many players may not use every one of the switches, but it is nice to have them if you plan to experiment tonally in a recording session.

Verdict

I had a lot of fun with the Les Paul Studio Session; in fact, out of the four Studio models in the current catalog, it very well may be the standout star.

Personally, I can't help but feel the Studio line is becoming a little bloated and confusing. With a quad of models all presenting slight variations on a common theme, it could be argued that Gibson should streamline the offering to a standard Studio, which retains its traditional appointments, and the Studio Session, which offers players something a little more contemporary, without straying too far from Gibson's well-trodden path.

Heck, Gibson's own marketing calls the new Studio Session "The One," so there's now an even stronger argument to be made that the entire line could be distilled down to just this single guitar - something I'd totally be on board with if I'm honest.

The Session successfully combines all the best elements from each of the other Studios, such as vintage styling and sound, modern playability, and a firey top that belongs on a Standard, and for that reason, I think it's by far the best value Studio Gibson currently offers.

Guitar World verdict: The Studio Session is a gorgeous guitar, both sonically and aesthetically. The 57 Classic pickups deliver the famous Les Paul snarl in abundance, while the AA-flame top is good enough to make a Standard jealous. Throw in superb playability and more than a few modern appointments, and you get the best Studio in the Gibson catalog.

Hands-on demos

Gibson Gear Guide

Long & McQuade Musical Instruments

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Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith has explained how he became enamored with Jackson Guitars, blaming one fundamental flaw for ditching his Gibson Les Paul.

The guitarist has been part of the British metal heavyweights since their second album, Killers, but has since come to stand as one of Jackson’s biggest-name artists, resulting in a series of signature guitars.

It turns out he was headhunted by the firm’s founder, with Smith’s growing discontent about his electric guitar’s suitability for touring the final straw for the pivot.

“What happened originally was Grover Jackson himself used to come down to [Iron] Maiden shows when we played in California,” Smith tells Guitar World. “He was a really lovely guy, and he is very easy to get on with, very easy to talk to.

“I was using a [Gibson] Les Paul at the time, and I had so many tuning problems with it that I’d get very frustrated,” he continues. Jackson, ever the businessman, saw his opportunity.

“Grover Jackson used to bring down these guitars, but some of them weren't even finished,” Smith recalls. “It was just like raw wood, and he’d change the pickups backstage. He’d say, ‘Try this,’ and I’d go out and try it on that night, you know?”

With Smith well and truly on the hook, he was invited to the Jackson factory where the seeds for his Stratocaster build – which uses a Charvel San Dimas body – were planted.

“He brought me to the factory, and I copied a neck off an old Strat. That's basically the guitar but with a few refinements. The truss rod was more accessible, so you could adjust the truss rod without taking the neck off. It’s just a superb, easy-to-play, great-sounding, reliable guitar.”

He admits that the guitar has seen “a few little mods over the years,” but has otherwise stayed true to its original Strat-gone-metal template. A quote from Smith on the Jackson website says, “if I have to mess around with a guitar too much, I kind of lose interest in it,” and so it was vital Jackson nailed the recipe at the first time of asking. His first signature model arrived in 2007.

Adrian Smith has also revealed how he pushed through the pain barrier to track a Powerslave solo while hungover as the band completed their transformation from punk band to world-conquering metallers.

Looking forward, Smith is readying another guitar duo record with ex-Poison and Winery Dogs guitarist Richie Kotzen, the project rather creatively named Smith-Kotzen, having swapped signature guitars on their 2021 debut LP.

NAMM 2025: One of the biggest stories in the lead-up to this year’s NAMM show was the fact a handful of big brands would be returning to the Anaheim Convention Centre to rejoin the gear festivities – and Gibson’s much-anticipated return was particularly notable.

However, like most of its returning peers – such as PRS and Fender – Gibson didn’t have a booth in the conventional sense this time out. Instead, it set up a cosy, behind-closed-doors showcase, which put on display all its new releases (electric guitars, acoustic guitars, bass guitars and guitar amps among them) for those lucky enough to get past the security guards.

Fortunately for our on-the-ground reporters, we were able to get an exclusive, hands-on look at everything Gibson, Epiphone and Mesa/Boogie have got planned in this particular drop window, from Warren Haynes’ newly-announced signature Les Paul, those special edition NAMM 2025 LPs, and even some fresh-off-the-press releases.

The highlights, of course, were the new Les Pauls. To celebrate their 70th Anniversary, Gibson has paid homage to the five Custom Color models that were put on display way back in 1955, reviving them with the very best aging that the Murphy Lab has to offer.

Copper Iridescent, Nugget Gold, Samoa Beige, Platinum and Viceroy Brown (we only saw those first two) car-style finishes are available, recreated in a metallic nitrocellulose lacquer for the first time ever.

Up close they really were a sight to behold, and our tour guide – Gibson’s Mat Koehler – highlighted the fact the Murphy Lab has upped its game for its new releases, now artificially aging all aspects of its guitars, and not just its finishes, for the first time. Because of that, they certainly look and feel more, err... vintage-y.

Warren Haynes has developed a bit of a thing for P-90s in recent years and the fruits of that passion can be seen in his new Cherry Red signature model. It might look like a simple refin at first, but it’s well worth a closer inspection.

For a start, those aren't standard pickups, but a pair of P-90 DC units – offering hum-free-performance. It’s also augmented by a custom boost circuit, which can engage 15dB of clean boost via the mini toggle secreted near the tone/volume controls.

Pair all of that with the traditional Gibson Les Paul specs, an unassuming top and chunky ’50s Vintage profile neck and this looks like one hell of a stage guitar – and a lot of fun.

We were also privy to the all-new Les Paul Standard 50s and 60s Double Trouble models – two cheekily named six-strings that not-so-subtly nod to a well-publicized legal disagreement with a pair of uncovered Classic White humbuckers.

There were a few unexpected previews, too, most notably the return of the Tobias bass. Classic IV, Classic V, Growler IV, Growler V, Killer B IV and Killer B V models have been launched, all of which work to revive the retro-yet-boutique bass brand in striking fashion.

Last but not least, let’s not overlook the new Gibson Custom Margo Price J-45 signature model, a stunning double-scratchplate acoustic for the award-winning country artist, which she based on her mid-’60s J-45 – her “main baby,” as she terms it.

It reportedly uses a thinner mahogany for the body than the standard build and combines it with a solid red spruce top, Grover strap tuners and an L.R. Baggs Element VTC under-saddle pickup. The artwork on the scratchplates is unique to the build – inlaid with red-tailed hawks, which hold special meaning for Price.

“They are common all over the United States,” she explains in the press release for the signature. “But to me, they are otherworldly, and they always come to me in my time of need with messages of strength and perseverance.”

Keep an eye on our NAMM live blog, for more show floor updates across the weekend, and for more information on the new models, head to Gibson.

Tommy Emmanuel had the opportunity to play side by side with the legendary Les Paul in his later years – moments he looks back on fondly, recalling the polymath's determination to continue performing and improving his playing even past the age of 90.

“The funny thing is, after hanging around with Les Paul those few years before he passed away, watching him deal with the pain in his hands, and watching him playing melody, using four fingers to get one note... that's dedication,” gushes Emmanuel in a new interview with Rick Beato.

“I guess he must have thought, ‘Well, I'll go home and put on some old black-and-white footage of me just tearing the crap out of it.’ Because he did – he tore it up like crazy. But it didn't mean that what he was doing when he [was] in his 90s was not as important. It's just different.”

Emmanuel recalls the time he played with the guitar innovator on his 90th birthday at Carnegie Hall, an experience he describes as “beautiful”, and an event that sparked a lasting friendship.

Following that encounter, Emmanuel visited Paul at his usual Manhattan haunt, The Iridium, where Paul jammed every Monday night from 1995 until his death in 2009.

“In that last year of his life, I said to him one night, ‘Les, I don't know, but I swear, you're playing better than you were last year,’” Emmanuel adds.

“He said, ‘I better be. I'm practicing more.’”

Last year, Trump Guitars caused a stir when its patriotic line, claiming to be officially endorsed by incoming 47th American President Donald J. Trump, went up for sale.

The fledgling brand was swiftly hit with a cease-and-desist order from Gibson, as one model – the American Eagle – featured a body shape strikingly similar to the iconic Les Paul.

Despite this, the model is back on sale alongside a disclaimer clarifying that “GetTrumpGuitars.com is not affiliated, associated, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with Gibson Inc.”

The range has been subject to an awful lot of discussion online, but now one intrepid YouTube guitar reviewer has actually bought the $1,500 guitar for research purposes.

As advertised, the solidbody, all-mahogany guitar features a high-gloss eagle and flag design on the body and a rosewood fretboard adorned with ‘Make America Great Again’ inlays.

“Hey, that's a beautiful neck,” admits HW from ToneJunkie TV. “I gotta be honest with you, my first impression of this guitar is a lot better than I expected.

“I completely expected to waste $1,500 just for this video because I was curious. I've never heard of a Reagan guitar or a Clinton guitar or an Obama guitar. I mean, maybe those existed. I just didn't run into them.”

HW demonstrates the guitar's sound through his rig – a Kemper with a Deluxe Reverb capture. While he notes the rhythm and middle positions sound “cool,” he finds the bridge pickup on its own “a little underpowered”.

He also observes that the three-piece body guitar arrived with no finish flaw on the body but a slight finish flaw when it comes to some of the stars on the headstock. It's equipped with chrome hardware, and a fully set-up medium to medium-high action.

He also notes that it stays in tune “pretty well.” However, while the tuners are decent and the bridge is “clearly intonated”, the strings, in his words, play like they “were made in hell,” which he explains is common with imported guitars.

Overall, HW concludes that “it looks like a guitar that might have come out of a Samick or maybe the Harley Benton factory,” meaning it is definitely not a “Made in the USA” guitar.

He adds, “It might mean from China, you know, the body and the wood and everything. So it's less than 51% made in the United States.”

ToneJunkie TV's final verdict? “Could you play it? Sure. Could you enjoy it? Yeah, absolutely. I would say, is this guitar worth the $1,500 I paid for it? No way.

“I would put this guitar in line with an import Harley Benton that you would buy for 500 bucks. That's what I think his guitar should go for. It's like a collector piece at this point.”

In a more recent video comparing the Trump guitar to a Harley Benton, HW clarifies that one of his main reasons for the low price is the quality of the pickups, which he says are “really not up to snuff for a $1,500 guitar.”

He also notes that the knobs are in the “wrong color,” adding, “They're not like the gold that's on a Les Paul. They're this bright, weird color, like someone did it kind of from memory. And so that bothers me, too.

“I would just say to someone, it's on par with maybe a $250 to $300 guitar in terms of what I'm playing right now – the quality control [and] the playability,” he concludes.

By early December, Trump Guitars had already made changes to the models advertised on its website after Guitar World broke the news of Gibson's cease-and-desist. However, the contested model is now back on sale.

Guitar World has reached out to Gibson for comment on this latest development.

Update 1/3/24: This article has been updated to include comments made by ToneJunkie TV in a recent video update.

Stories of disastrous, but ultimately successful, auditions abound in rock lore. Adrian Belew's difficult audition for Frank Zappa is a particularly good one, and another happens to be that of Scott Gorham's tryout for Thin Lizzy.

Now, it wasn't a disaster due to Gorham being unprepared; it was because the guitarist's bootleg Les Paul almost seemed to have a vendetta against him.

Having sold his Stratocaster to Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson, Gorham was left with, as he described in a recent interview with That One Guitar, only a “horrible black, Japanese Les Paul-ish” guitar with which to audition for Thin Lizzy.

The glory of The Boys Are Back in Town couldn't have been further away at that moment...

“[The guitar] really, on the day, started to fall apart, right in front of everybody's eyes, which was very embarrassing,” Gorham told That One Guitar.

In particular, the screws on the guitar's pickguard came out, leaving that part “dangling down.”

“Both Phil [Lynott, Thin Lizzy's bassist and frontman] and I, we were both on our knees trying to find this damn screw,” Gorham recounted, “And I said, ‘Ah, forget it,’ and I just ripped the scratchplate off.”

It may not come as a great surprise, then, that Gorham never wanted to be put in that situation again. Even once he had the means to acquire the best of the best genuine Les Pauls, Gorham would do the same thing with each subsequent example that he played.

“Afterwards, I looked at that guitar, and I went, ‘You know, that looks so much better without the scratchplate,’” Gorham said. “So, every Les Paul I had after that, if it had a scratchplate, that was the first thing that went. I took that scratch straight off because I love that shape of the Les Paul. And I just thought the scratchplate ruined it.”

In an interview with Guitarist earlier this year, Gorham went into further detail about the fateful audition.

“I had no idea who Thin Lizzy was,” Gorham recalled. “I’d never seen a picture of these guys, never heard any of their music. But I was told they’d had a hit with Whiskey In The Jar and asked if I wanted to put my name forward. ‘Hell, yeah. I got 30 more days left on my visa then I gotta go home.’

“The audition was at a dinner club. Phil stuck out that bear paw of his and shook my hand. We walk in and Phil says, ‘Hey guys, this is Scott.’ Robbo [Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson] just looked up and went, ‘Yeah, okay.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, let me warm my hands on that welcome.’

“But the reason they did that was because they’d already auditioned 25 guitar players. And here comes number 26, and guess what – he’s a fucking Yank.”

Trump Guitars – the series of guitars endorsed by the incoming 47th American President – has made changes to the models advertised on its official website after Guitar World broke the news that Gibson issued a cease and desist order to Trump Guitars owner 16 Creative.

“We can confirm a cease and desist has been issued against 16 Creative as the design infringes upon Gibson’s exclusive trademarks, particularly the iconic Les Paul body shape,” a Gibson representative confirmed on November 25.

The statement referred to the line's initial single-cut electric American Eagle and Presidential series models, which infringed upon Gibson's trademarks and the legacy brand's Les Paul design.

As a result, Trump Guitars updated its Presidential series. The new 22-fret design, available in black, gold, and red, features a mahogany body and neck, a rosewood fretboard with “Make America Great Again” inlays, and, keeping in line with the brand, “Magabenders” strings and Maga 45 “Trumpbuckers.” The guitars are currently available for pre-sale.

Regarding the actual designs, the website states: “All of the guitars featured on GetTrumpGuitars.com were custom designed and developed by a veteran-owned company with the help of a master luthier.” It also asserts that the guitars have been manufactured by multiple providers and “include parts/features that are both domestic and international.”

The previous, contentious models have been marked as sold out, with large banners entirely obscuring the guitar mockups. Furthermore, photos of Trump with the LP-style guitar seem to have been photoshopped and now feature the line's acoustic guitar instead.

Additionally, a disclaimer has been added to the website's FAQ section, stating: “GetTrumpGuitars.com is not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with Gibson Brands Inc., or any of its subsidiaries or its affiliates, nor does it represent itself as a dealer, manufacturer, or distributor of Gibson, Les Paul Standard, Les Paul Custom, or any of their products.”

Guitar World has reached out to Trump Guitars for comment.

Along with the likes of the Stratocaster and Telecaster, the Les Paul is one of the most legendary electric guitar designs of all time. Beloved by countless big-name players (from Slash to Jimmy Page) and adored by quite literally millions of guitar fans across the globe, Gibson’s iconic single-cut is one of music’s most enduring symbols of rock ‘n’ roll.

However, they are also rather expensive, meaning many of those aforementioned fans will unfortunately never get the chance to own one of their own. That’s why, if you’re looking to finally get your first Les Paul – or if you just fancy adding another LP to an existing collection – you need to take stock of the following deals.

Why? Well, with Cyber Monday only hours away, retailers are slowly starting to slash the prices of their Les Paul inventory, meaning now is the best time to get a Gibson or Epiphone LP at a wallet-friendly price.

Across the board, Guitar Center, Sweetwater and other retailers have knocked off as much as $600 from the price tags of their Les Paul stock, with savings to be made on a load of Standards, Traditional Pros, and Holy Grail 1959 ‘Burst-inspired models.

Remember, Cyber Monday hasn’t technically started yet, so we’ll be updating this round-up as and when more Les Paul deals drop – and you can be sure that more certainly will drop over the coming hours.

In the meantime, check out the models below (you might find the Les Paul of your dreams) and head over to our dedicated guide to Cyber Monday guitar deals for even more bargains.

Les Paul Cyber Monday deals

Shop more Cyber Monday guitar deals

• Amazon: Guitar gear deals
• Fender store: 50% off guitars
• Guitar Center: Up to 50% off
• Musician's Friend: Up to 60% off sale
• Positive Grid: Save on Spark
• Sweetwater: Save up to 80% on gear
• Waves: Plugins just $19.99

After being played by Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Yungblud, it was time for Sum 41's Deryck Whibley to take Steve Jones' 1974 Les Paul Custom out for a spin on November 23 – in front of 42,500 fans at Paris' La Défense Arena, a performance which also marked the band's final European show.

The historic guitar, currently in the possession of Matthieu Lucas from the high-profile vintage guitar emporium Matt’s Guitar Shop, first caught Whibley’s attention when Armstrong played it a few months ago.

“Deryck messaged me on Instagram,” Lucas tells Guitar World. “I knew and respected Sum 41 and their legacy, but I didn’t realize at the time they were gearing up for the biggest headline show of their career here in Paris.

“In the weeks leading up to the show, Deryck and I talked about our mutual love for the Sex Pistols. That’s when we planned the special moment: Deryck would play the iconic 1974 Gibson Les Paul Custom – the very guitar Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols used on Never Mind the Bollocks.”

In a video provided exclusively to Guitar World, Whibley acknowledges the guitar's punk legacy while addressing the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very excited right now to be holding this guitar [because it belonged to] Steve Jones, from the Sex Pistols, and was used to make a record that inspired all of us back when we were teenagers, and we have it here for you tonight to enjoy it,” he says, right before launching into Dopamine, a song the band released earlier this year.

Lucas describes the moment the pop-punk royalty took the stage with the guitar as “incredible.”

“As someone seeing Sum 41 live for the first time, it was one of the best performances I’ve ever witnessed,” he continues.

“For Deryck, it was a dream come true, and I think he’s one of the rare artists who truly did justice to that guitar’s history. He matched its energy in a way I’ve never seen before.”

In May, Steve Jones' storied Les Paul was sold at auction for $390,000, far surpassing its $100,000-$200,000 estimate.