Page 95 - Guitar Classics Magazine - The Les Paul Bible 2019

VINTAGE BENCH TEST

VINTAGE BENCH TEST

CUSTOM FIT

The black-lacquered, jazz-club
sophistication of the earliest LP
Custom takes more of its styling
cues from Steinway than Stromberg.
We step out with a grand ’56 model…
WORDS HUW PRICE PHOTOGRAPHY ELEANOR JANE

ntroduced in late 1953, the first Les Paul Custom
differs from the standard Goldtop model in three
ways – an all-mahogany body, a fully intonatable
I bridge and a ‘staple’ single-coil pickup in the neck
position. The latter seems to have been an attempt
to keep the man whose name was on the headstock
on-brand – early photos of Les Paul using his
signature model reveal that he’d installed a
DeArmond Dynasonic in the neck position of his
Goldtop, and Gibson was not pleased.
Les Paul was such a superstar, the fact that he felt
the need to mod his new signature solidbody with an
aftermarket pickup was obviously an embarrassment worn into a rollover that runs evenly along both sides, ABOVE The Custom was
for the company, so something needed to be done. and some plectrum damage to the bass side binding created by Gibson in response
It may have rectangular rather than round adjacent to the neck pickup. The control cavity to Les Paul’s desire for a more
polepieces, but the staple single-coil was essentially contains oil-filled bumblebee capacitors and nothing luxurious-looking guitar
Gibson’s version of the Dynasonic, with individual has been touched since it left Kalamazoo.
screws for adjusting polepiece height. The diagonal
fixing screws are a throwback to the earliest Goldtops IN USE
and all the magnets are alnico V. The all-mahogany body doesn’t have as much effect
Complete with its original gold-lined black case, on the acoustic resonance as you might expect. It’s
this 1956 example shows few signs of age, although possibly a bit richer in harmonics than most Les
the waffle-back tuners are a little vague and some of Paul Standards, but nowhere near as loud or lively
the shafts have been bent over the years. The neck when unplugged as a ’54 Goldtop equipped with a
carve doesn’t quite have the palm-fitting comfort wrapover tailpiece. On balance, our experience seems
of some of the finest 50s Gibsons we’ve played, but to indicate that the ABR-1 bridge arrangement has
it’s still a very nice rounded profile, with very little more influence on the tone than ‘tonewood’ does.
shoulder and less depth than you might expect. Although identical in dimensions and similar in
There are a few lacquer chips on the back of the looks, the pickups on this guitar are sonically quite
neck and headstock edges, but the body is remarkably different. The commonly used term ‘staple P-90’ is
unscathed. Lacquer-checking is minimal and besides perhaps a misnomer, because this is very much its
some slightly opaque cloudiness on the front, the own thing. Comparing the staple with a neck P-90 in
finish looks remarkable. The ebony fingerboard and a ’54 Goldtop demonstrates that the former is a very
pearl inlays are in perfect condition and there’s still powerful pickup.
some height left on the skinny, flat-topped frets. Despite being set significantly lower than the
The only telltale signs that this guitar has seen a P-90, the staple matches its output and then some.
lot of action are the way the neck binding has been But for a high-output pickup, there’s no shortage of

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