Roy Buchanan's Gold Top Les Paul | Random Guitar of the Day

Here's an interesting find.

The late Roy Buchanan established a unique voice with his blazing work on his 1953 Fender Telecaster.  In his hands, the Telecaster was rock, country, blues, soul and gospel; transcending genres.  Roy Buchanan pushed the boundaries of the instrument well past its traditional country role. 

But back to this guitar.

Roy apparently purchased this 1983 Gibson Les Paul 30th Anniversary Gold Top from a music store, recorded with it, and appears with it on the cover of his album Dancing On The Edge.  

In a Guitar Player magazine interview from August 1985 he had this to say about his Les Paul, "I was in a music store to buy some strings and they had this 30th Anniversary gold-top Les Paul that looked great.  I fell in love with it.  So I went home, came back and bought it -- right off the rack.  In the 60's, the trouble was that they stopped making the model early in the decade, so they were really hard to find.  The ones I found were usually beat up.  Plus they had these little bitty frets, and now they have big frets.  Mine's a Standard with humbucking pickups.  I like it because it's entirely different from the Telecaster -- a nice big, fat sound.  On the album, I used the Gibson for the fat sound on the rockers."

According to the seller, this Gold Top Les Paul was sold by Roy Buchanan's widow after his death to Gil Southworth of Southworth Guitars.  Thorough documentation from both Roy's widow and Gil Southworth accompany this guitar -- and it even retains the original strings that Roy installed himself!

You can check out the eBay listing for this guitar here.  As always, ask the necessary questions and do the research before committing.

Twilight's Robert Pattinson Signs Telecaster To Raise Funds

Robert Pattinson, taking a break from his role as vegan-vampire Edward Cullen from the Twilight series, recently stopped by Norman's Rare Guitars in Tarzana, CA to pick up a guitar for himself and also signed a Telecaster to help raise funds for Midnight Mission.   Midnight Mission provides education, job training and transitional housing for the homeless.  

Looking rather dishevelled himself in this pic, Pattinson is one of several celebrities who play the guitar some and invest in vintage instruments for their personal collections -- old guitars are gold, baby!  Why else would he be hanging at Norm's right?

(Pic Source:  www.fender.com)

Fender American Special Prototype Guitars Giveaway

Fender has announced a special giveaway for three lucky winners to win one of three Fender American Special Stratocaster and Telecaster prototypes.  To up the cool factor, Fender promises that these instruments have been "roughed up pretty good in the test-pilot phase".

Pegged by Fender as 'value-conscious guitars-for-the-times', the current American Special series includes three models -- the American Special Telecaster, American Special Stratocaster and American Special Stratocaster HSS.  All three US-made models feature Fender Texas Special pickups, alder bodies, urethane finishes, 9.5" fingerboard radius and jumbo frets.  Interestingly, the Telecaster models feature the vintage-style bridge with 3-piece brass-saddles.



Go to http://www.fender.com/promos/2010/americanspecial/, fill out the contest form online and hope for the best. 

This giveaway ends 22nd April 2010 and is for US residents only.

IKEA Butcher Block Guitar | Zachary Guitars

Country superstar Brad Paisley allegedly once said, "a Tele is nothing more than a cutting board, a baseball bat and strings".

And stepping up to the plate to meet that challenge is Zachary Guitars with this Ikea butcher block (SPÅR) Tele-style. 

Once this gets out, Ikea could become the next Stewart-MacDonald for those on a shoe-string guitar-building budget. 

Also check out my earlier article on the Bambusa solidbody for a guitar that unintentionally looks like a chopping board.

(Pic Source: www.zacharyguitars.com)

(Guitar parts and accessories resource:  www.stewmac.com)

For the less adventurous DIY'er, may I suggest the Saga Tele-style guitar kit below.

Steel Inserts For Bolt-On Necks On eBay

Steel inserts for bolt-on necks are not a new idea, but they serve their purpose nonetheless.  (eBay Item #: 220544764793)

The Fender Japan Yngwie Malmsteen Stratocaster features steel inserts in the neck as a stock feature on the high-end model. And virtuoso country guitarist Jerry Donahue has used these to faciltiate repeated dismantling of his Telecaster as he packs the neck and body in between clothing in his luggage, which he reckons is a safer way to check-in his guitar. 

Finally, these steel inserts are available as an after-market item.  And with airlines really clamping down with even more limitations on carrying-on your prized instrument , installing a set of these steel inserts would give the travelling guitarist the option to 'do like Donahue does'.

The seller claims the supplied stainless screws will not strip like conventional wood screws allowing the neck to be torqued for maximum neck to body contact and sustain.  The outer threads of the steel inserts also feature an epoxy thread-locking compound which sets immediately upon installation, ensuring that the inserts are permanently secured.

Just bear in mind that modifying that original '58 Stratocaster with steel inserts in the neck will seriously depreciate its value!

On a remotely related topic, Stratoblogster has a wickedly funny post about disembodied guitar necks that could probably benefit from these steel inserts here.

Birthday Salute -- Susan Tedeschi

Born 9th November 1970, Susan Tedeschi received her blues calling in her early 20's after listening to T-Bone Walker, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, BB King, Otis Rush and Muddy Waters.

After graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1991 with a degree in music composition and performance, Tedeschi bought a Fender American Standard Telecaster and took a few slide guitar lessons from a local blues guitarist.

Forming the Susan Tedeschi Band, her debut recording Better Days was released in 1995.

Her critically acclaimed 1998 album Just Won't Burn won Tedeschi a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, the first of several nominations that were to follow in the coming years.

In 2001 Tedeschi married slide guitar virtuoso Derek Trucks.

In this Austin City Limits clip from 17th June 2003, Tedeschi is backed by a band that included drummer Jeff Sipe aka Apt.Q258, best known for his recorded work with the late progressive fusion guitarist Shawn Lane.

Build A Custom Guitar Online

Design My Guitar is a new website that enables the user to design and have their dream axe built.

Launching on October 1st, the Belgium-based company offers Strat, Tele and Les Paul body-types as a starting point, with the option of further customization. Or a complete redesign.

Users will be able choose from a variety of standard tone woods for the bodies, necks and fingerboards, with pickup choices that include models from Fender, EMG and Seymour Duncan.

And here's the best part, with a base price of 200 Euros, a fully-loaded model will not exceed 1000 Euros. And turnaround time for delivery is 14 days.

I'm really looking forward to this one. It's about time I got that fretless guitar built.

And if this guitar manufacturing model works, it could well be the alternative way guitars will be marketed in the future.

(Source: Harmony Central)

It's Golden -- The Birth Of The Gibson Les Paul

The Broadcaster, Fender's first widely marketed solidbody, was a runaway success. With a retail price of $170 in 1950, the utilitarian design -- little more than a maple neck bolted to a plank of wood with simple electronics -- was easy and cheap to manufacture.

And the Broadcaster -- soon to be renamed the Telecaster -- was to be something of a thorn in the side of Gibson's president, Ted McCarty.

On the one hand, he was eager to have Gibson launch their own solidbody electric guitar. At the same time he was being pressurized by his compatriots at other companies who were strongly advising him not to do so as this would legitimize the abomination that was the solidbody electric guitar!

Realising the enormous sales potential of a Gibson-made solidbody, McCarty set the engineering wheels in motion in November 1950 for what was to become the first Les Paul model, soon after the Broadcaster appeared on the market.

Seeking to produce a solidbody of a higher calibre than Fender's, McCarty and the engineers at Gibson decided on a glued-in set neck and more sophisticated electronics. It was also decided that the guitar was to have a carved arched top, much like their hollowbodies -- Gibson had a special shaper that could carve the arched top, a machine that Fender did not have. In effect, they took most of the features of their hollowbody archtop line and incorporated them into a solidbody instrument.

Mahogany was decided upon as the body wood, but by itself it was dark sounding. Solid maple was also considered but it would have been too heavy and bright sounding used on its own. With a carved maple top glued to a solid mahogany body, the characteristics of both woods were fully realised, with the darker sounding tone of the mahogany countered by the bright sounding maple cap.

A few years earlier, Les Paul, the late guitar legend, had approached Gibson with his 'Log', hoping to sell them the concept of the solidbody electric and had been unceremoniously dismissed. With Gibson's new solidbody in the works, McCarty decided to approach Les Paul for design input as well as for an endorsement deal.

The final design included a 24 3/4" scale with 22 frets on a rosewood fingerboard, Kluson tuners and a 3-way toggle switch for selecting between the guitar's two P90 pickups. Each P90 had two Alnico 5 magnets wound with 42 gauge enamelled wire, producing a DC resistance of 8.66 k ohms. A cream plastic casing enclosed each pickup.

McCarty presented the prototype to Les at a recording session in a mountain lodge in Pennsylvania. An endorsement agreement was reached that night, and Les would receive a 5% royalty for every guitar sold for a period of 5 years.

The Les Paul model, as it came to be known, was launched in mid-1952 and priced at $210.

At Les' suggestion, the guitars were available only with a gold-finished top, further characterizing it as a luxury instrument.

At Les' suggestion also, the bridge with a trapeze tailpiece (as shown in the pic) was installed as a standard feature. But because these early Les Pauls were made with a very shallow neck pitch, the action was too high, even when the bridge was set at its lowest. To counteract the problem, Gibson started wrapping the string under the bridge instead of over it, which helped in lowering the action. But it also meant that Les Paul, the guitar's sole endorsee, could not incorporate his trademark palm-muting technique with this setup. Intonation was also inaccurate with these early bridges.

According to Les, these design flaws were the result of a gap in communication between himself and Gibson's engineers. When Gibson sent him some of these guitars, he immediately called them to stop production and fix the problem, which was primarily the result of the neck pitch being incorrect.

In January 1954, the trapeze was replaced with a single bar tailpiece design that was held by two bolts set into the guitar's top. The neck pitch was also increased which meant the guitar became more playable with lower action and improved intonation. In 1955 the tune-o-matic bridge was introduced on the Les Paul goldtops, allowing for extremely fine intonation adjustment, delegating the stud tailpiece to the sole purpose of anchoring the strings.

Like the Broadcaster, the Gibson Les Paul model was a huge success upon its release, and in its many marketing incarnations, proves to be golden til today.

John 5's Telecaster Collection

As guitarist for Goth/shock-rock artist Marilyn Manson, John 5's choice of axe seemed a little unusual.

Eschewing the guitar weaponry of the typical goth-rock guitarist -- jagged, angular or bearing a resemblance to the letter 'V' -- John favored Telecasters (albeit equipped with mirrored pickguards and humbuckers) for Manson's outlandish stage performances.

Before joining the Manson circus, John 5 aka John Lowery, was an up and coming session guitarist in Los Angeles, touring or recording with artists as diverse as k.d. lang, Rick Springfield, Lita Ford and David Lee Roth. And since leaving Manson in 2004, he has been caught up in a whirlwind of projects, including the release of four solo albums.

An avid guitar collector, his penchant for the Telecaster remains clear. And his collection of mint or near-mint Teles must surely rival some of the best collections in the world.

Not bad for someone who got into guitar collecting after selling his collection of KISS posters for $75,000.

This Bich Is Rich -- B.C. Rich

Bernie Rico, the late founder of BC Rich guitars was the son of one of the first owners of a guitar shop in America.

A Mexican immigrant, his father Bernardo worked a variety of jobs upon coming to the US. An entrepreneur at heart, he eventually started up various businesses, including at one point, a couple of chili restaurants.

In 1946, and knowing next to nothing about guitars, his father purchased a small guitar shop in California. Changing the name to Bernardo's Valencian Guitar Shop, this was where the young Bernie Jr. spent most of his youth, learning about guitar building and repairs.

In the 50's the shop was building acoustic guitars on a custom basis. Taking the helm of the business, Bernie Jr. was soon also building a line of classical guitars in Mexico, based on designs originated by Ramirez guitars of Spain.

A die-hard flamenco enthusiast whose interests lay solely in nylon-stringed guitars , Rico eventually bit the bullet due to flagging sales, and started custom-building solidbody electrics that were copies of Les Pauls, Stratocasters and Telecasters in 1969. The first BC Rich original design, the Seagull, appeared in 1971.

With the help of Neal Moser, whom Rico hired as guitar designer, the company started producing many more original models. Moser was the designer behind the now-famous (infamous?) Bich, Eagle, Ironbird, Warlock and Mockingbird models.

The 10-string Bich shown in the pic featured 4 extra strings, which essentially doubled up the high E, B, G and D strings (the E and B were tuned in unison while the G and D were doubled an octave higher) for a 12-string type sound. The extra strings were anchored through eyelets in the headstock and tuned by tuning pegs mounted into a cutaway on the lower bout of the body.

Moser also came up with the names of some of the models --the Mockingbird was so named because it could emulate the tones of other big-brand guitars, thanks to its elaborate switching circuitry.

The company's provocative designs were only outdone by their controversial -- some would say downright sexist -- marketing campaigns. One of which, an advertisement featuring the lower half of a scantily-clad woman posing with a BC Rich Bich, drew a fair amount of flak from feminist groups in the '80s. The ad was also made available as a poster for $3.00, and according to Rico, several tens of thousands of these posters were sold.

Another point of controversy was the company's use of the term 'Bich' for one of its (guitar) models.

According to Rico, "We didn't even mean it in a feminist sense. It's just that whenever anybody says something is good, they say 'It's a bitch'. So we decided to use 'bitch,' meaning a 'great thing,' but spelt without the 't.'"

Bernie Rico passed away in 1999. His son and successor, Bernie Rico Jr., started Bernie Rico Jr. Guitars to carry on his father's legacy.

Les Paul And The Origins Of His Namesake

Lester William Polsfuss, more famously known as Les Paul, is widely credited with inventing the solidbody electric guitar. Believing that a solidbody instrument would give him added sustain while eliminating unwanted resonances, Les commissioned two custom solidbody instruments to be built for him in 1937 by luthier August Larson.

In the early '40s he built his third solidbody himself using a 4” x 4” center block of pinewood attached to an Epiphone neck and fitted with a single pickup. Dubbed ‘The Log’, a pair of sides was cut from an old guitar and attached to the center block to make it look more like a guitar.

He approached Gibson’s parent company, CMI, in the late ‘40s to discuss marketing a solidbody instrument based on his design -- Gibson was producing predominantly hollowbody archtops and acoustic guitars at the time.

Les Paul had very definite ideas as to the design of the guitar that was to later become his namesake. Type of wood, choice of pickups and even the idea of finishing the guitar in gold paint were all in Les' design proposal to the corporate bigwigs at CMI.

Unfortunately, bringing ‘The Log’ to the meeting did not work in Les’ favor. The CMI boss dismissed his idea, calling him ‘the guy with the broomstick’.

But things were to change a couple of years later when Gibson began developing a solidbody guitar following in the wake of Fender's successful solidbody, the Telecaster.

Les Paul had become a huge music celebrity as one-half of the Les Paul and Mary Ford duo, and hoping to leverage on Les’ popularity, Gibson’s president Ted McCarty contacted him with the proposal of an endorsement deal. Signing a 5-year contract, Les was to play the guitar that bore his name exclusively, in return for a five per cent royalty on sales.

The first production models, sporting a gold finish, combination bridge/tailpiece and cream P90 non-humbucking pickups were delivered to Les in May 1952. He used them onstage the following month at the Paramount Theatre in New York.

In 1954, the high-end black Les Paul Custom was produced. Featuring the newly designed tune-o-matic bridge and stop bar tailpiece for more accurate intonation, the Custom was decked out with pearl inlay on the ebony fingerboard and headstock and multi-ply binding around the body and headstock.

Interestingly, Les Paul never kept any of his original endorsement guitars from the ‘50s – he had no idea at the time that the guitars that bore his name would become such collector’s items.

Seymour Duncan -- Pickup Tonemeister

Seymour Duncan started playing the guitar in bands in 1963, but it was meeting legendary guitarist Les Paul that fired his interest in guitar electronics. Little did he know at the time that, like Les Paul, his own name would also become part of electric guitar history.

Duncan also befriended the late guitarist Roy Buchanan, turning up at his gigs to hear the Tele-master in action. But because Duncan was underage, he would hide behind the bar at Buchanan’s gigs.

Stumped by the tonal difference between Buchanan’s ’53 Telecaster and his own ’56 model, Duncan started writing to Bill Carson at Fender. Carson was a gigging western swing guitarist and fellow Telecaster player who worked with Fender on an ad hoc basis, acting as road-tester for Fender’s new guitar and amp products.

Duncan made several important discoveries by tinkering with his guitars and trying to make improvements.

For example, frustrated with the microphonic squeal from the pickups on his Telecaster, he disassembled the pickup on an older guitar and found paraffin wax encasing the windings. Paraffin wax, he discovered, held the windings of the pickup solidly in place, virtually eliminating microphonic feedback. Duncan had found a critical element that he was to faithfully implement in his own line of pickups later on.

One night during a gig, the lead pickup on his Tele suddenly stopped working and, out of necessity, he rewound the pickup using a record turntable the following day. Experimenting with the different tones that different windings could produce he started rewinding pickups with a machine he had built, using a sewing machine pedal to control the speed of the turns.

He inadvertently set the machine to wind in the opposite direction, an error which led to another discovery – reverse winding also reversed the pickup’s polarity and when used in combination with a regular wound pickup both became hum-cancelling. This was an important discovery especially when applied to single-coils.

In 1968 Duncan took a job at a television station where he managed to meet and talk guitars with celebrity guitarists like Glen Campbell, Jerry Reed and Cal Collins.

A four-year stint in England followed, where he immersed himself in studio recording at night while doing repair work at the Fender Soundhouse R&D and Repair Department during the day for Peter Frampton, Marc Bolan, The Who, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck.

Upon returning to the States, he began manufacturing pickguards, bridges and knobs and selling them to Schecter, Charvel and Mighty Mite who were pioneering the guitar replacement parts industry.

In 1976 Duncan moved to Santa Barbara to set up a pickup rewinding service which soon blossomed into a replacement pickup business, hot on the heels of a certain Larry DiMarzio.

As mentioned above in the Seymour Duncan ad from 1979, Duncan’s business was also based on creating pickups built to his customer’s specifications, in addition to selling his own stock line of custom pickups.

Feeling that he had more to learn, Duncan started consulting with Leo Fender, Seth Lover, the inventor of the Gibson humbucking pickup, and Doc Kauffman, Leo’s early business partner and fellow tinkerer.

Seymour Duncan keeps meticulous records of every pickup he has ever taken apart and scrutinized – electrical readings, number of windings, layer patterns, magnet types – and he keeps one of each of these pickups in the company’s archives for future reference.

As he puts it, “I’ve just looked at a lot of small details that other people might have overlooked.”

Buy Seymour Duncan Pickups Here!

Magic Guitars and Inspiring Guitar Rigs

This post is a sequel to my earlier article, How To Choose A Guitar That's Right For You.

Memory permitting, these are the guitars or guitar/amp setups I've played on over the years that I found inspiring.

1981 Ibanez AS50 semi-solid through an orange Roland Cube 60(!)
This was the guitar I talked about in that earlier article. What an epiphany!

'70s Fender Stratocaster through a '70s silverface Fender Twin Reverb
I also talked about this guitar in that earlier article. I had only my Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer in the chain -- classic setup.

1949 D'Angelico archtop into a vintage Standel amp
This guitar was on display at the Fine Guitar Consultants booth at NAMM 2000. Not one of D'Angelico's much prized instruments, this was actually a student model with a plywood spruce top. Knowing that John D'Angelico and Jimmy D'Aquisto worked on building it is enough for me.

It was jazz guitarist Ron Eschete's primary axe for 30 something years and he sold it for some reason. This guitar 'forces' you to play sweet chord melodies and bebop lines. The guitar now belongs to a friend of mine.

Carvin Allan Holdsworth through a Carvin amp
I tried this at the Carvin shop on Sunset Boulevard. I can't remember the exact model of the amp, but it was one of the 2x10 tweed covered ones with the beige chickenhead knobs.

This particular Holdsworth signature was one of the first ever released -- if not one of the actual prototypes. Super low action on a wide, flat fingerboard, a perfectly balanced Wilkinson trem and the warm overdriven amp made Holdsworthian legato lines a breeze.

Early '80s Fender Vintage Telecaster reissue
This one has an interesting story to it. I tried out this guitar at a local used guitar shop. I didn't ask to try it -- one of the shop guys just foisted it on me. And it felt and sounded amazing. It was a well-played instrument with lots of wear in the nitrocellulose finish on the neck and fingerboard. I put it back on the shelf to go home and think about it.

The next day, I got a call from a friend of mine who said he was at the shop looking at the guitar, and asked if I had tried it. I told him it was a fine guitar and to go for it if he wanted it. I was really looking for a reason not to buy yet another guitar.

Long story short, my friend bought the guitar, found it buzzed too much in the recording studio and attempted to shield the control cavity with aluminum foil that caused the guitar to short out intermittently. He called a week later to ask me if I wanted to buy it off him.

Sure. Thanks Josh..

But this guitar really is amazing. It has all the vibe and personality you could ever want in a guitar. Other than high gain, high volume situations where the pickups squeal microphonically, the guitar is otherwise really versatile. And it sometimes 'pings' and twangs mysteriously on my guitar stand at night. Spooky.

Mid '90s Tom Anderson tele-style through a Matchless 2x12
A friend of mine had a serious collection of Tom Anderson guitars at one point. Of the lot, I really cottoned to this particular instrument, a rather plain-looking hollow T-Classic in a sunburst finish. I can't remember anything about the Matchless amp except that I think it was a 2x12. And it was brown.

Another one of those instruments that forces you to play a certain way -- and it all feels and sounds effortless while you do it. Think Brent Mason, James Burton, Albert Lee -- twang for days.

And there you have it. 30 years of playing experience, and only 6 magical guitars.

Rare gems indeed.