BORN AGAIN

It’s hard to imagine, but back in the late 50s, the fabled Les Paul Standard wasn’t a hit and soon disappeared from Gibson’s catalogue. We find out how it took more than 20 years for Gibson to get the magic formula right

When the first version of the Les Paul was launched in 1952, its bullion-gold finish, arched top and glued-in neck signalled to the upstarts at Fender that while they might be content to bolt Telecaster necks to slab bodies, Gibson did things with a little more sophistication.

But by 1958, the game had moved on: the Stratocaster had rocketed into the heavens of guitar design in ’54. Four years on, Fender’s new Jazzmaster was fully in tune with a jet age dominated by chrome, switches and slender, contoured design. By contrast, the Les Paul seemed closer to the bulky, traditional archtops of the 40s – and sales were flagging. In an effort to freshen things up, Gibson replaced the goldtop finish with a Fender-like sunburst, dubbing it the Les Paul Standard and tweaking its spec (see p38). But few famous players, in that pre-distortion era, adopted the ’Burst, and in ’61 Gibson changed the body shape to the outline we recognise today as the SG, and that iconic maple-top, mahogany single-cut vanished from the company’s catalogue altogether – along with Les Paul’s personal endorsement.

There was a saving grace, however. Les Paul, with his buttermilk-smooth jazz licks, probably didn’t intend it, but if you plugged one of those old ’Bursts into a fully cranked valve amp its honeyed growl was sensational. It was a point not lost on emerging British

and American blues guitarists by the mid-60s, however. When Eric Clapton was pictured on the back of the Bluesbreakers’ electrifying ‘Beano’ album of 1966, the trickle of interest in old Standards became a levee-breaking flood, while other ascendant guitar heroes such as Jeff Beck, Peter Green and Keith Richards all acquired ’Bursts, too.

By 1967, the reversal of fortune was complete: Gibson’s flagship solidbody, the SG, was selling poorly – but guitarists were frantic to lay their hands on the old ’Bursts and Customs that had been discontinued due to lack of interest just a few years before. As Gibson historian and Guitarist contributor Tony Bacon recounts in The Les Paul Guitar Book, one anxious British reader of Beat

Instrumental magazine complained of “having great difficulty in obtaining a Les Paul Custom guitar”, and implored other musicians to help him lay his hands on one.

les is more

Despite this upsurge in interest in 50s Les Pauls, Gibson was struggling with solidbody electric guitars. The company’s market share was crumbling and it had lost faith in the SG. But Les Paul, who had withdrawn his name from the redesigned SG/Les Paul solidbody of ’61, now returned at the hour of need. He had put a divorce behind him and his business interests were clear of legal entanglements. He contacted Maurice

When Clapton was pictured on the back of the Bluesbreakers’ ‘Beano’ album of 1966, the trickle of interest in old Standards became a flood

Berlin, president of Gibson’s parent company CMI, in 1967 and persuaded him that reissues of the original single-cuts bearing his name would sell. By the time Stan Rendell was appointed president of Gibson the following year, with a mandate to lead the company out of its mire of production problems and poor sales, the decision had already been taken to reissue a P-90 Goldtop and a black, twin-humbucker Les Paul Custom. There was to be no super-accurate ’Burst reissue, however, leaving enthusiasts disappointed for the moment. Despite that, the Goldtop and Custom reissues – launched at NAMM in June 1968 – proved an immediate hit.

But just as prospects brightened, CMI merged with a brewing company, ECL, to form Norlin Industries in ’69. The change of ownership brought with it a new style of management focused on efficiency rather than period-correct luthiery. Thus costeffective but compromised guitars, such as the Les Paul Deluxe of 1969, prevailed. It was offered in a sunburst finish – the first deliberate nod to the growing interest in ’Bursts – but fitted with mini-humbuckers. These slotted into the P-90 pickup cavities of the Goldtop reissue it replaced, meaning no expensive new tooling was required: plus Gibson could use up a surplus stock of Epiphone pickups. The bean-counters were pleased, players less so. Worse, as Norlin squeezed the business harder as the 1970s unfolded, quality dropped. But then an unexpected chink of light appeared.

REALER DEALER

Norlin executives may not have been vintage guitar enthusiasts, but lots of Gibson dealers were, and many remembered how glorious the late 50s ’Bursts had been. With no prospect of Gibson making a full-production reissue, some commissioned limited runs of Les Paul ‘Standards’, built to a decently period-correct spec. Gibson realised there was a market for such instruments, but was hesitant to go down the route of full historical accuracy. The Les Paul Standard of 1976 had a ’Burst top and full-size humbuckers, but also sported glaring anachronisms such as maple neck construction and a ‘pancake’ body made by gluing two shallow slabs of mahogany together, one on top of the other with a thin sheet of maple in between.

A change had to come, however. At the start of the 80s, Gibson’s R&D team began to ask in earnest what they needed to do to make a ‘real’ Les Paul Standard. The result was the Heritage Series: with a three-piece mahogany neck and a top carve modelled on an early 50s ’Paul, the Standard 80 and Standard 80 Elite guitars were Gibson’s best effort yet to revive the spirit of ’59. These special-order guitars set a precedent for increasingly accurate reissues to follow, including the 1983 and 1984 Standard Reissues – and this renaissance of interest in ’Bursts was buoyed further with hot new players such as Slash – although, ironically, he favoured a replica built by Kris Derrig.

Things improved further when Norlin decided the musical instrument companies in its portfolio, including Gibson, had to go – and they sold the company to Henry Juszkiewicz, David Berryman and Gary Zebrowski in 1986. A shake-up of Gibson’s management followed, as the company began to haul itself into profitability with a renewed focus on its heritage. Further research resulted in the reintroduction of period-correct details such as a 50s-spec neck tenon – while showpieces, such as the ’59 Flametop of 1993, upped the ‘wow’ factor considerably.

The final big step in the evolution of the ’Burst reissue was to follow shortly after, in the form of artificial ageing, which saw aged parts and finish applied to guitars such as the Custom Shop’s Standard ’59 Aged model of 1999. The ageing process, currently known as VOS or Vintage Original Spec, also proved useful for replicas of famous ’Bursts, starting with the 2002 replica of Gary Rossington’s ’59 Standard nicknamed ‘Bernice’. This has grown into a range of guitars closely modelled on those owned by top players, including wear-marks from life the road. Ironically, a process that began with indifference to Gibson’s sunburst Standard back in the 50s has spawned a branch of luthiery devoted to making ’em just like they used to.