Les Paul Custom Epiphone Black Beauty Guitar #0. Les Paul custom Epiphone Black Guitar owned for many years not in great condition but all works could do with a good clean and service. At some point it has had its volume pots replaced (gibson ones arnt great) and the replacment job is very neat. Find great deals on eBay for gibson les paul custom black beauty and gibson les paul standard. Shop with confidence.
It was the executive model that raised the spec of the Goldtop and armed a roll-call of seminal players. 60 years since the iconic ’57 incarnation, this is the true story of the Les Paul Custom - with testimony from the stars who wielded itTo the window-shoppers of London’s Tin Pan Alley, it was a new arrival to quicken the pulse. The jet-black lustre of the hourglass body. The shimmer of 24-karat hardware. The twinkle of the diamond headstock inlay. It was 1959, and with the lifting of restrictions on US imports, the mythologised Gibson Les Paul Custom was suddenly a tangible reality.I used to think anyone who’s got a Les Paul Custom has already made it Steve Hackett“When I was a kid,” Steve Hackett tells us, “I used to walk down Shaftesbury Avenue and Denmark Street, staring in the windows, looking at instruments I couldn’t afford. And I used to think anyone who’s got a Les Paul Custom has already made it.”And that, of course, was what the Gibson boardroom wanted players to conclude when faced with the Custom.
The firm had already planted its flag deep into the solidbody sector with its inaugural Les Paul release, the 1952 Goldtop. But within two years, Gibson had spotted the potential for a higher-spec executive model, priced a princely $325 to its predecessor’s $225 (and in a different league to the $99 Junior).“You have all kinds of players out there who like this and like that,” Gibson president Ted McCarty noted in 1992. “Chevrolet had a whole bunch of models, Ford had a whole bunch of models. So did we.”It was dubbed the ‘Black Beauty’, and lived up to the billing. While Gibson had identified the Custom’s demographic, it was Les Paul himself who insisted the ’54 original should be high-gloss black, for reasons of unabashed showmanship.“Everybody wanted to know, why black?” he reflected in his book. “And I said, ‘Because you can see your hands move when you’re on the stage and it looks good with any outfit you wear.’” Prev Page 1 of 6 Next Prev Page 1 of 6 Next.
Even the rising stars of prog-rock were in thrall to the Custom, with Robert Fripp recalling that a ’59 example drove all of King Crimson’s output from 1969’s In The Court Of The Crimson King to 1974’s Red.I walked out with the Custom for £375. It remains, to this day, the finest Les Paul I’ve ever played Robert Fripp“The salesman was pretty loathsome,” he noted of acquiring the guitar in London. “But we’d been given a loan and I had a briefcase with a large sum of cash inside.
I asked about a discount for cash and was refused. So I opened the briefcase and showed the manager the money.
I walked out with the Custom for £375. It remains, to this day, the finest Les Paul I’ve ever played.”It’s a sentiment echoed by Steve Hackett: “I bought two Les Paul Customs in 1971. Black with the three gold pickups.
I’d just joined Genesis. I did some shows with a Melody Maker, but it fed back and wasn’t really loud enough to cut through the sound of Phil Collins in rehearsal. Just the sound of him acoustically laying into the kit - I’d never worked with a drummer that loud!“I needed something with more power,” Hackett continues. “And so, when we were rehearsing for Nursery Cryme 1971, I acquired the stuff I needed, including those first Les Paul Customs. Unfortunately, those guitars were both stolen, within two weeks of each other. From 1973, I used a Goldtop.
I wish I knew what happened to them”If the Custom was a target for thieves, by 1968, replacements were readily available. Having shelved the Les Paul at the start of the 60s, Gibson had sensed the demand for secondhand models sparked by Eric Clapton’s tenure in the Bluesbreakers, and began a new production run that included a Custom reissue.“The revival of these instruments answers a pressing need,” explained the firm’s Jim Tite. “It will no longer be necessary to search for used models that auction for $700 to $1,000.”Now priced $545, with twin humbuckers, a maple cap and a wider palette of finishes, the Kalamazoo-built ’68 Custom had arguably lost a little of the original’s identity, but it was still a magnet for influential players. Prev Page 3 of 6 Next Prev Page 3 of 6 Next.
Mick Ronson would use a stripped-finish ’68 for his Ziggy Stardust-era work alongside David Bowie, and his choice caught the imagination of a young Randy Rhoads.“In 1972, Bowie played at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium,” recalled the late Ozzy sideman’s brother, Kelle Rhoads. “That’s where Randy saw Mick Ronson with that Les Paul. At that time, Randy had a black SG. When he got rid of the SG, he looked for a guitar like Mick’s, and he found it at a Guitar Center - a ’74 Custom.”In 1972, Bowie played at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. That’s where Randy Rhoads saw Mick Ronson with that Les Paul Kelle RhoadsIn the late 70s, while KISS’s Ace Frehley shot fireworks from a three-pickup Custom, British punk took the model back to basics, with Mick Jones using his Beauty to power The Clash’s Give ’Em Enough Rope and Steve Jones bringing snarl to the Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks with his 70s example.“Malcolm McLaren was managing the New York Dolls for a while,” he noted.
![Beauty Beauty](/uploads/1/2/4/0/124097390/295074503.jpg)
“When he finished managing them, he brought this guitar back to England. It had a Bigsby, but I took it off because the thing kept going out of tune.”While the classic Les Paul Custom has rolled on through the decades - its spec sheet broadly sticking to the ’68 reissue - Gibson has spiced the product line with variants, some more successful than others.In 1972, the Custom ’54 Ltd Edition tipped its hat to the founding father, complete with P-90 and Alnico pickups. In 1974, we welcomed a 20th Anniversary reissue, and in 1987, Gibson unveiled the Custom Lite, with a weight-cutting contoured body that meant it cost more than the regular model (at $1,249 compared with $1,170).Confusingly, the 35th Anniversary Custom of 1989 featured the ’57-era three-pickup format, while the 1991 Custom Plus debuted a higher-grade figured flame top, and the 1994 Custom ’57 Centennial had gold/ diamond trimmings that verged on gaudy.
![Beauty Beauty](http://blackdot.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Gibson-Les-Paul-Custom-1957-Historic-Reissue-2003-Black-Beauty-1.jpg)
Just as Gibson’s production line has never stopped rattling off the Custom, so the roll-call of noted exponents has kept on growing.Rewind to the 90s, and James Dean Bradfield unleashed the fieriest licks of the Brit-rock scene on a white 1990 example, nicknamed ‘Faithful’ and picked up from Macari’s on Denmark Street after the Manic Street Preachers signed with Columbia. “Getting this Les Paul was Shangri-La to me,” reflects Bradfield, who had previously played a Tele Thinline.“A white Les Paul Custom is not many people’s lead guitar,” he continued, “but I just thought, ‘Steve Jones! Lindsey Buckingham! Mick Jones!’ When I bought it, I remember thinking, ‘I can’t wait for this guitar to be old.’ And now it is. It’s weathered, been on all 12 albums. The neck’s been broken twice, once live, and during recording The Holy Bible 1994. It’s had four pickup changes” Prev Page 4 of 6 Next Prev Page 4 of 6 Next.
A buyer’s guide to the Les Paul Custom.Now, as in 1954, the Les Paul Custom is an aspirational choice with a price tag to match. Head to the Gibson website in 2017 and - putting aside the signature guitars - you’ll find two choices.The top-dollar option is the True Historic 1957 Custom, putting period-correct features and twin-humbucker performance in your handsOf these, the top-dollar option is the True Historic 1957 Custom, putting period-correct features and twin-humbucker performance in your hands for circa £5,500. That’s undercut by the stock Custom, which offers a credible 490R/498T configuration and a choice of finishes for south of four grand.If that’s still a little too ‘executive’ for your liking, the answer could be an Epiphone. Priced around £440, the Les Paul Custom Pro looks the part, approximates the roar of PAFs with its coil-splittable ProBuckers and is available as a lefty.Epiphone is also your cheap ticket to triple-humbucker action in the form of the Les Paul Black Beauty (£540), while P-90 purists should consider the Inspired By 1955 model (£580). Prev Page 6 of 6 Next Prev Page 6 of 6 Next.