Name That Guitar

[Barry Daniels]

I had to search high and low to identify a very cool looking and sounding semi-hollow that was on Austin City Limits last week with Robert Plant's new band, The Sensational Space Shifters on Whole Lotta Love. It comes in at about the 1:00 minute mark. Has anyone ever seen one of these in person?

https://youtu.be/iDnwUavXEyM

[Steve Sawyer]

Looks like there is something on the headstock, but I can't make it out. I could download it and zoom in with Video Surgeon, but I don't think it's going to show up clearly enough to see.

Looks like an ES-335 but with assymetrical horns.

Okay - I pulled it down. It's a Gibson. Says "Les Paul" on the headstock!?!?!

Mystery 1.png (147.47 KiB) Viewed 12435 times

Mystery 2.png (160.07 KiB) Viewed 12435 times

[Barry Daniels]

Yes it does. The copy on my DVR of the broadcast is a bit more clear. There is a word after "Les Paul" that is the real identifier. I'm being coy here and and waiting to see if anyone else wants to play.

The guitar seems to have almost nothing in common with a "Les Paul". It also seems to be fairly rare. But I really like the shape and the tone is nothing short of amazing. This may be going on my project wish list.

[Edgar Jessop]

Yep, it's a Les Paul:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1975-Gibson-Le ... 2915657914

[Barry Daniels]

Good find, Edgar. Apparently only 118 of these were made and most of them were gold tops. They say the sunburst version is quite rare.

[Steve Sawyer]

That IS nice. I prefer that profile to the symmetry of the 335 (not a big fan of symmetrical guitar bodies, e.g. the SG)

[Barry Daniels]

Yeah, me too. I am also crazy about the P-90 like tone. I don't think a solid body guitar could every produce that tone without serious post-processing.

I am also a bit surprised that this model never became popular. I am having to resist the temptation of buying that guitar in Edgar's link. It looks like they have had this guitar listed for over a year! I would think that a guitar that rare would be somewhat valuable, from a collector's standpoint. But I haven't bought a guitar since 1972 so this probably won't happen.

[Chris Richards]

It's a Les Paul Signature from the 1970s I think, they came with low impedance pickups and two output jacks, a great looking guitar I think but I'd have preferred to have the normal Gibson humbuckers on it. Most were finished with a gold top and only a handful in a burst. I'd love to find one that was a bit butchered so I wouldn't feel guilty sticking the normal pickups in it. Although on the face of it it seems more like a 335 but the layout is like a standard Les Paul..

[Pete Halliday]

Chris is correct. I actually have one of the gold tops that I found for a decent price after seeing Kyle Ryan from Kacey Musgraves's band play one and going through the same thing you're doing now. The electronics are acually pretty cool-the pickups are low impedance and their signal is split out to a jack on the side and through a coil tapped transformer to the jack on the face. There is a three position switch that accesses those taps and provides three sounds that go from a bit clearer with less mids/lows to much fuller. The lazy comparison is strat/p90/humbucker but that's not quite accurate IMO. There is also a phase switch for dual pickup mode and a master volume and master tone. But mostly it looks cool as shit!

[Greg McKnight]

You don't see many signatures nowadays. I remember really liking the goldtop version Michael Ward played in the Wallflowers many moons ago. He's probably still playing it, I just haven't seen him since their breakup.