Gibson has recently released the Jeff Beck 1954 Les Paul Oxblood tribute guitar. Gibson recently sat down with Beck in London to talk about the guitar, why he chose Gibsons early in his career, and what drives him musically:

For guitar collectors, Gibson Les Paul models made from 1958 through 1960 represent the holy grail of guitars. In the recent past, the value of Les Paul’s made during this period have skyrocketed, going for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. As of this writing, Gruhn Guitars here in Nashville has three 1959 Les Pauls each of which are in the $250,000 range and a fourth going for $325,000.

Growing up, I was always drawn to the Fender Stratocaster. Most of my guitar heroes played the Stratocaster at one time or another. However, in recent years, I’ve been drawn more and more to the history and sound of the Les Paul. Additionally, as someone who would love to build a guitar collection some day, I’ve been fascinated with these guitars and why they’re worth so much. So, I was intrigued when I saw Tony Bacon’s book Million Dollar Les Paul: In Search of the Most Valuable Guitar in the World in a local book store.

In the book, Bacon attempts to find out if one of these historic models has ever been sold for $1,000,000. In the process, he provides a thorough history of the Les Paul and some of its most famous players, including Les Paul himself. Bacon gives both competing histories regarding the origin of the Les Paul model, both Ted McCarty’s and Les Paul’s version. Regardless of which story is true, the first Les Paul model was launched by Gibson in 1952. The guitar had a gold top, which was Paul’s idea. Because the guitars were selling well, two more models were introduced in 1954, the Les Paul Junior and the Les Paul Custom. In 1958, Gibson decided to make a change to the Les Paul model; instead of a gold top, they offered a sunburst top, and the history of the Les Paul was forever changed.

Remarkably, by late 1960, sales of the sunburst Les Paul were declining and Gibson introduced the SG line of guitars, and the Les Paul became an afterthought for a number of years. Bacon postulates that approximately 1,450 sunburst Les Pauls were made between 1958 and 1960.

In the 1960s, the unlikely rise of British blues led to increased interest in the sunburst Les Paul. Players like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Peter Green helped solidify the place of the Les Paul guitar in history.

In the book, Bacon also describes the components of the guitar and how they helped shaped its collectibility. For instance, the Patent Applied For (PAF) humbuckers used in the late 50s model guitars have a mystique and collectibility all their own.

Due to demand, Gibson reintroduced the Les Paul Standard model in the 1970s. However, according to many players, it took Gibson a number of years to get the guitar “right” in comparison to the famous late 50s models. Even today, you’ll find arguments in Internet forums about whether they truly are reproducing the Les Paul accurately.

Throughout his exploration of the history of the Les Paul, Bacon interweaves insights into why the Les Pauls from 1958-1960 are so collectible from collectors and historians. It’s interesting to read the insights; you can tell that the people interviewed in the book are passionate about the guitar.

A nice addition to the book is the photographs of some famous Les Pauls, including guitars played by Duane Allman, Jimmy Page, Billy Gibbons, Paul Kossoff, Peter Green, Mike Bloomfield, Keith Richards, and of course Eric Clapton. Additionally, the book includes an interview with an owner of an early sunburst Les Paul, and interviews with guitarists Billy Gibbons, Joe Bonamassa, and Les Paul himself.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. If you’re interested at all in the history of the Les Paul, I think you’ll enjoy Million Dollar Les Paul, too. Ultimately, he didn’t find definitive proof that a sunburst Les Paul model has ever sold for $1,000,000, but his journey provides for an excellent history of the Les Paul and its famous players.

Frank Montag has a fun Flash application on his Web site that you can use to design your dream Les Paul. It’s surprisingly fun. You can pretty much customize any feature of the guitar, including the type of top, whether to include graphics, whether to use gold or silver hardware, and just about anything else you can think of.

There’s little practical value to the application, as you can’t order the guitar, but perhaps you can use this application to design your dream guitar that you can then post up on your wall to help inspire you. Here’s what I came up with:

You can check out the application here. Note that due to size it takes a few seconds for the application to start. Have fun!

Gibson has recently released several new guitars in their Inspired By series, including the Joe Bonamassa Aged Les Paul Goldtop. The guitar includes a carved maple top, 2-piece light mahogany back, cream binding, 1-piece mahogany neck, 1959 neck profile, Bonamassa Truss rod cover, and BurstBucker 2 and BurstBucker 3 pickups. The pictures of this guitar look fantastic. I can’t wait to see one in person.

Other new guitars in Gibson’s Inspired By series include a Steve Jones Les Paul Custom, a Mick Jones Les Paul Custom, an Alex Lifeson ES-355, a Lee Ritenour ES-335, and a Johnny Winter Firebird.

* Photo credit: Gibson.com

Solidbodies: The 50 Year Guitar War is a DVD by Guy Hornbuckle that chronicles the history of two of the earliest and most popular solidbody guitars: the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul. The DVD features interviews with some of today’s top guitarists including Joe Bonamassa, Derek Trucks, Henry Garza, Gary Hoey, and some great playing by Wes Jeans, John Roth, and Steve Selvidge. Additionally, the DVD features interviews with vintage guitar expert George Gruhn and author Richard R. Smith.

It’s obvious that Hornbuckle is a fan of the guitar. Both the Strat and Les Paul are given equal time with no real “war” being depicted other than the struggles of Fender and Gibson to become the dominant guitar manufacturer throughout the years.

The Fender story goes all the way back to when Leo Fender was repairing radios during the depression. It was interesting to find out how Fender was not really even a musician, he was just a great tinkerer and inventor. The Stratocaster was largely developed in collaboration with Fender’s employees, who were guitar players.

The Gibson story goes back to when Gibson was producing only acoustic and hollow-body guitars. I found it interesting to hear that there are two stories to how the Les Paul came about: the Les Paul story and the Ted McCarty story. Les Paul states that he went to Gibson with the idea for the Les Paul, while McCarty claims that Gibson went to Paul with a more or less finished guitar. It was also interesting to hear that during the 60s, the Les Paul was discontinued due to the agreement with Les Paul running out and not being continued. According to the movie, it was largely the result of British bluesmasters like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck that re-sparked the interest in the Les Paul guitar. Of course, nowadays both Clapton and Beck are better known for playing Fenders than Gibsons, but they both were playing Gibsons in the 60s.

In addition to the great interviews, throughout the movie there are musical interludes and great soundtrack clips. After discussing the difference between humbuckers and single-coils, for instance, the viewer gets to actually hear the difference between the two types of pickups. At the end of the movie, Wes Jeans and Steve Selvidge play a very nice piece together with Jeans playing a Strat and Selvidge playing a Les Paul.

The DVD also features some special features: a slide show of the vintage guitars featured in the movie and a feature on vintage guitar values. These are a nice addition to the DVD; who doesn’t like looking at near-mint vintage guitars?

I really enjoyed watching this movie. You never know what to expect with a guitar documentary. Some are very cheesy. However, Solidbodies is a very well done movie. My wife, who is not a guitar player, even enjoyed watching this movie, which I consider to be a triumph since she rarely wants to watch any of my guitar-related movies. I think Guy Hornbuckle and Lightning Lab Productions have done a great job. If you like the guitar, I think you’ll like Solidbodies: The 50 Year Guitar War. You can watch a trailer for the movie at the Solidbodies Web site.