A Slow Iced Tea Fade finish and humbuckers voiced to the ZZ Top guitarist’s specs feature on a 50s style Les Paul due this December.
Billy Gibbons bought his near-mint 1959 Les Paul Standard in 1968 with the proceeds from selling a Packard called Pearly Gates, and the name passed to the guitar, which has appeared on every ZZ Top album. After building replicas through its Custom Shop, including a VOS model in 2009, Gibson has now put together a Les Paul Standard in tribute to it.
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The mahogany body has no weight relief, so anyone used to a lighter modern Les Paul should expect some extra heft on the strap, and a AAA figured maple top caps it off. Gibson has carved the mahogany neck to a 50s Vintage profile and fitted it with a bound rosewood fretboard, 22 medium jumbo frets and acrylic trapezoid inlays, with a 12-inch radius and the 24.75-inch scale length Les Paul players know well.
Gibson developed the pickups specifically for this guitar and voiced them to Gibbons’ own preferences, using historic-spec plain enamel wire on both humbuckers, with Alnico 3 magnets in the neck and Alnico 5 in the bridge. They run through a hand-wired 50s-style circuit with 500k vintage audio taper pots and Orange Drop tone capacitors.
Each guitar leaves the Nashville factory with its strings wrapped over the aluminium stop bar, which is how Gibbons sets up his own, and an ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic handles intonation at the bridge. Up at the headstock, Historic-style Gibson Deluxe tuners with brass posts, press-in bushings and keystone buttons work with a Graph Tech nut. The smaller vintage touches include a blank cream switch washer, a single-ply unbevelled cream pickguard, medium and X-high pickup rings and gold Top Hat knobs with dial pointers.
Slow Iced Tea Fade is the only finish on the list, a burst that starts from a Korina Yellow base and has Faded Cherry on the back and sides. Gibson sprays it in the same vintage gloss nitrocellulose lacquer it uses on its Custom VOS models, and a hardshell case comes with the guitar, which is due in Australia in late December.
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