Happy Birthday, BB King

Danny has an excellent post to mark BB King’s 83rd birthday. AS I said in this post about the Epiphone BB King Lucille, BB is one of my favourite all-time guitar players. I saw him live a couple of times, once in 1989 and once in 1993 and both nights were amazing. Sadly, he’s retired from touring outside the US, but there are plenty of live recordings available from over the years. In particular, Live at the Regal, and Live at San Quentin are very worthwhile checking out.

Epiphone Les Paul ‘56 Goldtop

The
Epiphone Les Paul ‘56 Goldtopis a replica of the very first Gibson Les Paul guitars. Its Goldtop finish and P-90 pickups set it apart from the rest of the Epiphone Les Paul range.
The P-90 was originally introduced in 1946 and for a while, until the introduction of the humbucker in 1957, was Gibson’s standard pick-up for the Les Paul.

Epiphone Launches Slash Les Paul Goldtop

Epiphone has announced the introduction of its second Slash signature Les Paul, the Slash Les Paul Gold Top.

Like the Slash Les Paul Standard Plus Top, the Goldtop was designed and built in collaboration with the Guns n Roses and Velvet Revolver guitarist and is limited to only 2, 000 units worldwide.

Epiphone Dot

The Epiphone Dot is based on Gibson’s ES-335 hollow-bodied electric guitars which were first produced way back in 1958.

The Epiphone Dot has a laminated maple body, glued-on maple neck, a dot inlaid rosewood fretboard. The Alnico Humbuckers are controlled by volume and tone pots whose bonnet knobs are period accurate. There’s chrome hardware and a Tune-o-matic bridge with stopbar tailpiece. The f-holes and shaped pickguard complete the look.

Epiphone BB King Lucille

For as long as I’ve been able to play the guitar, BB King has been my favourite guitar player. There’s something about his style which manages to capture the joy and misery of the blues in one note. And the way he wrings the neck of his beloved Lucille to extract every last ounce of vibrato and sustain from it is sensational.
I’ve been lucky enough to see him live twice. On the first occasion, at the Edinburgh Playhouse in 1989, the theatre was absolutely jumping. Everyone was dancing by the end and there was a couple in front of us who looked they were having a particularly good time.

Two great Slash Les Paul videos

It’s been a while since I posted any videos, so I thought I’d make up for it by posting two great videos today.

They both feature Slash. In the first — which is an Epiphone promo, so is a little ‘in your face’ — he talks about the Epiphone version of the Slash signature Les Paul and how he suggested it to Gibson as a way of making it available to those of us who can’t afford to drop $4,000 on one guitar.

The Epiphone Sheraton and that gorgeous Vampire Weekend guitar tone

Columbia University graduates, Vampire Weekend are one of a seemingly endless stream of bands to have come from nowhere and gained huge popularity almost overnight thanks to the internet. In Vampire Weekend’s case, it was indie music blog, Sterogum that played a crucial role.

Video: Learn to play the Slash way

Whatever your view of the man or his music, there’s no escaping that Slash is an icon. One of the most recognisable guitar players on the planet, both physically and in his playing, Slash has built an army of fans and would be imitators over the last 20 or so years.

His influence is so great, he’s the cover star for one of the biggest vide games of teh decade, Guitar Hero III, and has had a Slash signature model guitar made in his honour by both Gibson and Epiphone — and very fine guitars they are too.

The anatomy of an Epiphone guitar. Part 1: The Humbucker

The humbucker, or humbucking pick-up, is a feature of most of the electric guitars made by Epiphone and its parent company, Gibson.

The humbucker is a two-coil pick-up with coils of reversed polarity, reverse wound, and connected in series. The name is derived from the fact the design of the pick-up significantly reduces the noise and interference associated with single coil pick-ups used in other guitars, such as Fender’s Stratocaster. In other words, they ‘buck the hum.’

Epiphone Riviera

The Epiphone Riviera is a hollow-body electric guitar, based closely on the Gibson E335 and originally manufactured between 1962 and 1969. It has a maple side and top, one-piece set mahogany neck, and a rosewood fretboard with trapezoidal pearl inlays.