Picky Guitar Player's Guitar Picking

I have a little confession to make as I write this story. It was not bad enough to want a new guitar so I sank even lower... I organized a trip to an out-of-state guitar store and disguised my intentions by dragging the whole family into it under the false pretense of planning a road trip to visit some National Parks we hadn't been to yet (and it worked, bwah ha ha)!!!

On Our Way to the Store

On our way to the store where I was gonna try a bunch of Les Paul guitars, Mrs. Rhino got all teary-eyed because we were reminiscing about our encounter with the man in 1993. We attended one of Les Paul's gigs at the Fat Tuesday in NYC and he chatted with us like we were long-time friends. His warm-hearted soul and good humor were as unmistakable as his genius, what a gentleman he was!

Mr. Polfus must have been smiling upon us as we did find "the one"…

The Quest

I have been longing for a good Les Paul for what seems like forever.

Most of the specimens I had tried at different stores didn't have the feel I was looking for; I felt nothing while playing them (aside from feeling disappointed, which does not count). For a guitar that costs as much as a good Gibby does, I expect not only stellar tone, but also top-notch feel and responsiveness. I was also looking for a LP that was as close as possible to good old instruments as far as tone, construction style, finish and electronics (although I was willing to replace the electronics after the fact if I was happy with the rest). I also did not want a weight-relieved or chambered guitar but I wanted a fairly light instrument, at least as far as LPs are concerned, which was complicating my quest even further.

I came to the conclusion that what I wanted was one of Gibson's historic reissues. After playing a few in stores that had only one or two in stock at a time and not finding one I loved, it felt like it was a futile exercise trying to find "the one"… until I discovered a cool little store that had gobs and gobs of these historic models in stock all at once (I didn't discover this place on my own, a friend pointed it out <thank you Tobin!> and once I saw their website, I kept dreaming of that place)! Guitars of the same make and model are notoriously different from one another and I believe it is even more so with Les Paul guitars. Having several specimens to compare side by side at once was important to me.

What Year Is It?

While I appreciate nicely figured wood, I was not looking for anything fanciful and I appreciate the regular grain of a standard maple plank without flames. For that reason, I concentrated my search on the Historic '58 model (the Historic '59 and '60 models feature highly figured maple tops and add $2K to the price of a '58). I tried a '59 to see if its slightly slimmer neck and slightly taller frets would make a positive impression but the differences were too subtle to matter to me, the '58 and '59 were equally comfortable.

Are We Finished Yet?

Generally speaking, I like the look and feel of a satin finish instrument so the first one I tried was a Historic VOS (while Gibson's VOS designation officially stands for Virtual Original Specs, VOS is only a finish spec and the VOS model is the exact same thing as the Gloss model aside from the finish). The instrument looked beautiful, like a nicely aged model, but the back of the neck was extremely sticky and was full of finish gunk. After the store personnel cleaned it off a bit, the gunk was gone but the drag of the finish was a real put off. I had read on the web about that gunk repeatedly appearing on the VOS models; apparently, you can polish them up and end up with a Gloss finish. I decided to concentrate on the Gloss models that felt better right away.

Testing, Testing…

I compared four guitars at a time acoustically, picked the best two to bring to the amplifier and picked the better of the amplified two before adding three more and repeat the process (acoustically, then amplified). The best guitar acoustically was always the best one plugged in and the winner from the first batch kept winning against the others. A clear winner was emerging!

It was very difficult to stick to my ears and hands to pick the winner as the best sounding one was the least good looking of the bunch; however, it sounded and felt soooo much better than all the others that I had no choice but to stand by it.

Mrs. Rhino was with me during most of this process and, if one would be prone to pick a guitar for the looks first, that would be her (she still thinks my Tele looks like an old crippled dog waiting to be put out of its misery and shakes her head with a big grin every time she sees it). I was playing one of the better looking ones (a beautiful tangerine colored Amber Honey Burst model) through the amp and, as I switched to the "winner" for the first time, she exclaimed after just the first couple of notes I played: "Wow! This one sounds much better!" And while I couldn't agree more, I was both surprised and impressed that my non-musician spouse could readily identify this.

And the Winner Is…

So who is the winner (well, with a new axe, that would be me, of course, but which one is the winning guitar)? A 2009 Lemon Burst Historic '58 Gloss Les Paul and, as a bonus, it was pre-owned (although you could not tell by looking at it), which saved me a bunch of change! As a side note, I have been listening to and playing some of Gary Moore's music lately and it seemed fitting that I would fall in love with a Lemon Burst.

Click on the photo above for more pictures...