Interestingly to the guitar boffins and aficionados out there this instrument is very much how Gibson started out after the really started with mandolins! Double even triple necks as in here . . . . and my guess would be this is how they would have sounded.
Wonderful!
As James here says: one of the most beautiful guitar songs EVER!
Since first gaining attention as a great guitarist while playing for the legendary Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Gary Lucas has gone on to be named one of the top 100 guitarist by performing with many known artists in several different genres. In two podcasts, Gary traces his work with T Morgan that has made him an international figure. This is Part I of II.
LISTEN: PODCAST TWO HUNDRED NINE — "Interview with Gary Lucas - Part I”
Since first gaining attention as a great guitarist while playing for the legendary Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Gary Lucas has gone on to be named one of the top 100 guitarist by performing with many known artists in several different genres. In two podcasts, Gary traces his work with T Morgan that has made him an international figure. This is Part II of II.
LISTEN: PODCAST TWO HUNDRED TEN — "Interview with Gary Lucas - Part II"
20 NOVEMBER 2025 | STARTING AT 14:00 GMT
Born in Belfast in 1952, Gary Moore rose to fame with his million-selling 1990 album Still Got The Blues and the 1978 hit single Parisienne Walkways. Alongside his successful solo career, he played guitar with the legendary rock band Thin Lizzy and was also a member of the jazz fusion group Colosseum II and the original Skid Row line-up. This auction celebrates Gary Moore's legacy, marking the last of a series of sales of Moore's collection to take place at Bonhams. The Final Encore collection includes guitars, amps, studio equipment, stage-worn clothing and accessories. The sale is led by a Fender Stratocaster Electric Guitar from 1960, one of Gary's longest-serving instruments and probably the second most associated with him, used both in the studio and in live performance.
Available via Private Sale is Gary Moore's 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard Electric Guitar also known as 'Stripe' and became Gary's most recorded guitar, famously used on Still Got The Blues, After The War, Oh Pretty Woman, Walking By Myself, and more.
Bonhams would like to thank The Gary Moore Estate, together with key auction partners including Guitarist Magazine and Gibson.
Click here to browse The Gary Moore Collection Online running 7-21 November
The Gary Moore Gitar Collection | Bonham's Auctioneers
Number One is quite possibly the most iconic guitar in the blues, belonging to the great Stevie Ray Vaughan.Stevie played many guitars over the years, but there was just something special about the Fender Stratocaster that he played in every show and on every album from the moment he acquired it. His relationship with Number One was almost romantic in nature — he even called the guitar his “first wife.”He received the guitar in 1973 from Ray Henning, the owner of the Heart of Texas music shop in Austin. The story goes that SRV saw the sunburst Fender in Ray’s shop and immediately knew it was special, without even playing it. He arranged a trade with the owner, switching it out for a 1963 Stratocaster. Henning happily traded guitars, since the ’63 was in much better condition than the soon-to-be Number One.In an interesting twist, the previous owner of SRV’s new Strat was a big name in music at the time, Christopher Cross. He supposedly traded the instrument for a Les Paul because he was looking for a thicker sound. (Stevie, by contrast, had no problem finding a thick sound with it!)The guitar itself was a mix-and-match affair. It comprised a 1962 body, a 1963 neck, and pickups from 1959. The instrument was also well used by the time Stevie put his hands on it in ’73, notwithstanding the nightly abuse he put it through over the next 17 years.Stevie Ray and his guitar tech, Rene Martinez, modified the guitar quite a bit over the years, usually because of necessary repairs. SRV was quoted as saying, “[Number One] was rebuilt more times than a custom Chevy.”After his death, Rene reinstalled the original 1963 neck and gave the guitar to SRV’s brother, Jimmie Vaughan, who still has the iconic instrument.
Gary Lucas is BRAVE and shared this article about ‘Lead Zeppelin’ (sic) with the comment
"WAS I NAIVE OR WHAT?? from my high school underground newspaper COGITO Spring ’69”
Bless him it WAS 1969 so those were different times . . . . . worth a read and so self aware and self effacing too! Gary goes on to say "
at this point, the depths of Page's rampant plagiarism were still unplumbed. But there were inklings. Case in point: the last Yardbirds single "Think About It" (B-side of "Good Night Sweet Josephine") --where in Page plays an appropriately stuttering manic guitar solo he was to repeat note for note verbatim a year later on Led Zeppellin's "Dazed and Confused"--he was plagiarizing himself!!"
"When I saw Jimi we knew he was going to be trouble. And by ‘we’ I mean me and Eric [Clapton], because Jimmy [Page] wasn’t in the frame at that point. I saw him at one of his earliest performances in Britain, and it was quite devastating. He did all the dirty tricks – setting fire to his guitar, doing swoops up and down his neck, all the great showmanship to put the final nail in our coffin."
Buddy Guy:
"Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page didn’t think a Strat could play the blues. But then they all went to buy Strats after they saw me because, as a matter of fact, one of ’em told me I threw the guitar, and I caught it back in the right key."
“And I don’t even remember that, man, because I think somebody flashed a light, and I missed the damn guitar. But they surprised me because they thought back then that the Strat was for Texas, Tennessee and country/western; they were always playing those kinds of guitars."
“But I just liked the Strat. Even if it was busted up and had a few scratches on it, it played like somebody stole it.”
"It’s like an Edsel car from 1959. You get in there to drive, and it just feels a certain way. It’s like my old friend Junior Wells would say, ‘Man, you can pull your woman so close to you in the car that you could kill her headache,’ and with the guitar, it’s the same way."
“It’s still got that tone, but a lot of people forgot about the tone. And a lot of people ask me about that tone, and it’s still got it. But they start looking at the looks, and just like a car, the looks sell it more than the ride; it’s about how pretty it looks. But I don’t care how pretty it is; if it don’t run, I don’t want it.”
Andrew Daly / Guitar World Interview
Photograph
By the legendary Jim Marshall
so what in the hecken freck did everyone play before the strat! the comments section reckon Telecasters but they were associated with Country music too and limited in range before the Stratocaster! I’m confused!
Billy Gibbons: “I had phoned Jim O’Neil, founder of Living Blues magazine – he now lives in Mississippi – and accompanied him to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale. It so happened that Sid Graves, the director, said he was making a trip to Stovall Farms, where Muddy Waters was raised, to inspect the cabin that was in danger of being taken down upon request of the Highway Department for safety reasons. The cabin had been hit by a tornado and they figured, well, it might fall down.“As we were looking about, the director picked up a piece of scrap lumber and said, `Why don’t you take a souvenir, here.’ There was quite a large beam left over, and we loaded it into the car.“I drove back to Memphis and I was speaking with Rick Rayburn and Rick Hancock, the proprietors of the Pyramid Guitar Co., and mentioned having this piece of wood. I said, why don’t we make a guitar out of it? They said sure, let’s have a look.“I unloaded it and left it with them, and two weeks later they called and said they had a couple of things in mind, why don’t I stop by?“I drove back, spent about 20 minutes doing the design. It was humble beginnings for what really is an offering to the Delta Blues Museum. The guitar can be a focal point for modern blues musicians to pay homage to the museum, which has been doing a fine job of preserving this art form we now know as American music.”What kind of wood was this?“It was a piece of cypress wood that was apparently part of the roof. It was a difficult piece of wood to work with. It was filled with knotholes and nails. In fact, there are actually two instruments from this effort – the first being kind of the test piece, the experimental piece, and the final, finished piece being the one presented to the museum. I kept the first one, which I’ll probably end up using on tour. The second piece is the one presented to the museum and leased to the Hard Rock.”What factors did you take into account in the design? Did Muddy play a similar guitar?“Yes, in the beginning I said let’s try to keep this design aesthetic as an instrument that would be usable as we might expect from Muddy Waters. And as we got near to the completion of the project, the decision was made to make it a donation to the museum. Rather that paint the instrument blue, we decided against that because it was just too corny. The Mississippi River paint scheme was applied to the instrument as a symbol of the power of what the river has come to be known and interpreted as. Certainly, it was the Mississippi River that gave the initial rise to the Delta, which of course became the fertile ground for the invention of the blues.“The museum guitar is really the `player.’ There was just something about it upon completion. It not only sounded great, but it played like melted butter.”
Ry Cooder on his custom guitars
Somebody That I Used To Know - Mike Dawes - Live At Cedars Hall
A bit didactic but hey maybe that was the point I don’t know so its fascinating anyway and he sure can play
David Gilmour:
It's always been different guitars, different amps and different effects. Sometimes you go in the studio and one guitar will sound great and you play well because it sounds great. The next day you go back into the same studio and plug in the same guitar into the same amp which has not been touched and it sounds awful. So you have to try a couple of other guitars and find one that sounds good on that day.
All guitars are different from each other. Some I buy because they are old and beautiful. But the new Fender Vintage Series guitar I bought is probably as good as any Fender I own, old or new. There is something to be said for working in a guitar over time. They may be in my imagination but it seems to feel like that to me. I also tend to like guitars without the new sticky varnish on the neck. In fact I've had Charvel make me a few necks without varnish.
: I usually go over my mistakes so I don't have to go back and cringe a few years later. On very few occasions have I left a clunker. There are some mistakes that you like. If there's a mistake that I don't like, I change it before it gets out. I've got to live with this for years, but a lot of solos come out of clunkers. I tend to go for a solo by just putting on a guitar without even thinking about the key or anything. I just hammer through it until it feels right. I try to get disoriented, if you like. That helps me find an approach which I refine and work on.
I don't try to get it right at all -- I'm not interested in that. I'd much rather just be wild and forget any sense of getting it right. I have time to get it right later. Out of those wild moments come good ideas that I work on, so I punch in a fair amount. Most of the solos start with doing ten different tracks. I wind up taking parts from three of them and sticking them together. I look for certain moments and if these moments match up with other moments that are right, those are the bits I keep. I'm looking for feel and a sense of movement. I don't think about it, I just say what's right is right. Performing live you try to get it right and you also try to be brave. It doesn't matter if you drop a clunker. The record lasts, the performance is transitory. They have different priorities. I'm an enormous fan of Jeff Beck because he is not afraid to screw up. People who are tend to get boring.
David Gilmour - DW
+ 3 David Gilmour Pink Floyd, Amsterdam Rock Circus - Olympisch Stadium Amsterdam, Netherlands on May 22 1972
Luck & Strange - David Gilmour new single and new release SEPT 2024
