Pictures and physical details of the late 50's Les Paul Bursts
588063
Great book but most pictures are very similar; this is basically a logging of these bursts for just the few years when they actually ended production of the first Les Paul and tried to only make the SG style in it's place, then everyone discovered the guitar so they brought it back!
4225025
This is a guitar I had to see in person so I snagged one used. I got it in great shape and just dropped a little over 200 bills, shipped. I was intrigued by the overall design because it really doesn't fit the Paul Stanley mold of signature guitars. It's rather, how shall I say? FRILLY!!! It's not his usual modified explorer shape. It's not a Les Paul-ish thing. It's nothing less than unique. The headstock is so wacky but on closer inspection it's rather cool. It's bizarre but it does work nicely and it's not as flimsy as it appears in pictures. The neck position markers are another oddity. They're a cross between fleur-de-lis and bats. Not very Stanley-ish. Actually, I could see this on one of Gene's basses before I would imagine it on Paul's instrument. Again, frilly but it's better than dot inlays in my book.

The Egnater pickups do the job just fine. Egnater?!?!? Eh??? Doesn't that company make amps? Anyway, it's a rocker for sure. The neck is nice and easily playable. No complaints there. Where it gets tough is in the shear weight of this beast. The words to describe this guitar is "built like a tank!!!" The thing weighs a ton!!! If you're a believer in the "Les Paul has a lot of mass so it sustains more" theory then you'll probably love this guitar. I personally don't believe that and it's a good thing that this guitar can be played seated. If you had to rock-out with this on your back you would become old before your time. This isn't Paul's US made PS800 but apparently he had the same problem with his original PS800 guitar. According to one source, he rejected the first version of his own stage guitar and requested lighter woods for its replacement. He switched-out for the exact same reason the PS600 is so cumbersome. Too much WEIGHT!!! Adding to the impression that this is just too much of a chunk is that there is no arching of the top or body sculpting. This all lends itself to a feeling of being blocky, although the various points on the silhouette are anything but squarish. My other small, but irritating gripe, is the binding person did a poor job with the inside arch of the bass side of the body. It is quite noticeably zagged and not the smooth line it should be. I own the Washburn PS1800 cracked mirror finish guitar and there is some plain horrible binding on that instrument too. The curves cause some difficulties for the overseas Washburn workers.

This is a very nice studio guitar and will make you happy in that environment. It's also a fun piece of Kisstory because I don't think Mr. Stanley really thought this one through. It makes for a nice conversation piece. Kind of like the proverbial argument did Frank Lloyd Wright make a mistake when he built the Guggenheim Museum? Take this puppy out for a walk and you're asking for aches and pains. For what I paid, it's a cool item to own. Back in the day, circa 2007-ish, they were asking over $500 for this hornswoggler. Don't go anywhere near that price. If you buy it do it for the fun-factor but not as your main instrument. That is, unless your a power-lifter looking for a workout.
3621938
My Tele came with pretty hot pickups, I was looking more for a vintage sound. These guys did the trick!
3760077
Marc Norberg's compilation of photographs of Blues performers provides us with a snapshot of blues artists who for the most part are still alive and performing today.  Luckily, he was able to capture some notables who are no longer with us as well.  Among those are Luther Allison, Charles Brown, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Rodgers, and Junior Wells.  He includes drummers, pianist, vocalists, harp masters, guitar whizzes, saxophonist and even an accordion player.  His photographs represent artists from Chicago, Louisiana, Texas, The west coast, deep south and England.
The pages of the book are approximately 11 x 11 inches, with most photographs spanning the entire page.  The book was meant to be opened flat with a photograph on one side and a verbal sketch on the other page.  The brief biographies of the blues artists are uneven in length and detail.  B.B. King rates a scant few sentences and accordion player Buckwheat Zydeco a lengthy description.
It is tied together nicely and fittingly by starting with Honeyboy Edwards, the musician who played with Robert Johnson the evening before he died and ending with Robert Jr. Lockwood, Robert Johnson's stepson and only person he was known to have taught his guitar skills to. Throughout the book we are able to see the influences of blues greats as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Elmore James among others.
Some of the pictures are quite outstanding.  I am particularly fond of the one of bare chested John Winter in all of his tattooed splendor.  Another notable one is of Luther Allison holding his USA shaped guitar with a truly devilish expression on his face.
The blues world today has many extremely talented female musicians and few were included in this work.  Notable omissions are Bonnie Raitt, Irma Thomas, and Rory Block.  Marc Norberg made an effort to include some of the more obscure blues artists and it would have been nice to see some female ones as well,
Norberg stated that it was a continuing work and one hopes that he has since photographed some of the notable artists missing in this work.
This is a well done blues coffee table book .  Do not mistake it for a blues history or a blues biography.  It is a definite plus for the serious blues fan.
3684435
Now you'll understand why I call myself a "guitar enthusiast"...

In 1960, Jim Burns founded the Burns guitar company.  In 1963, he brought onboard the U.K.'s number one instrumental group, The Shadows, who were having difficulty with their Fender Strats. The result was the Shadows Marvin model (named after lead guitarist Hank Marvin) and they played these models through the end of the decade. After selling out to Baldwin and some lean years, player/designer Barry Gibson bought the Burns company and set about recapturing the vintage quality. in 2010, Burns marked 50 years in the business and commemorated it the "50th Anniversary Gold Dream Special Edition".  Originally only 50 were made, but high demand made it a production model. I already owned 2 Burns guitars, and I really wanted one of these. I'm glad I got one...

The guitar's Basswood body is painted Gold, body, neck and all. A striking visual effect...The guitar's hardware, including locking tuning machines, the strap pins and the Rez-O-Tube tremolo. The model's name is certainly justified.

As to the sound and playability of the guitar, the new, improved Rez-O-Matik pickups while clean, still manage the have a fuller sound and really cook when overdriven. the single volume, bass tone and the treble tone switch in conjunction with the 5-way pickup selector give a great range of tones, as well as the "push/pull" blend switch built into the treble tone pot adds new sounds by mixing the pickups in different combos.  The 22-fret ebony fingerboard is the fastest Burns board I've ever played and has beautiful simulated tortoise-shell binding, while the Rez-O-Tube tremolo system is easy to handle, especially as it's adjustable. The guitar is factory equipped with .010. gauge strings.

Quite a flexible sound and plays like, well... a Dream !  Whether you're playing the Shadows' sound or anything else needing that clean sound or want that burning single-coil sound, go for the "gold"...The Burns 50th Anniversary Gold Dream.  5 Stars.
3344356
Great book, especially the appendices with production details. Prior to this booking coming out Vintage Guitar Magazine had several articles (1992 to 1994) with "Factory Tour" pictures and interviews with employees. Would have been nice if these had been included. The few color photos are  from these articles. Just makes you wonder who did the "real" research for the book.  There may be a clue in Bill Kaman's Acknowledgements.
1156951
This is a comprehensive book with descriptions of the principals of electronic pickups, pots and capacitors, as well as specifics such as wiring diagrams for specific models. This is not a glitzy looking book, but rather, some diagrams appear to be hand-drawn. But the technical information is all there, few detals omitted.
3094329
I have owned a lot of amps over my 35 years as a semi-professional guitar player. Including: 70s Fender Champ, 70s Acoustic 450 Head, Fender Dual Showman, 70s Fender Pro Reverb (hot rodded with master volume), Lab Series by Moog, Fender M-80 Stereo Chorus, Pignose 30 watt tube, Marshall JCM 900 with 1960a 4X12 cabinet, Peavey 130 Special, Peavey Prowler, Peavey Classic 30, and dozens of analog and digital effects.  This 20 watt Jet City designed by Michael Soldano, blows them all away. PROS: Having 2 foot switchable channels of Crunch, and Overdrive, with independent Gain, and Master Volume, gives you the ability of playing every genre. It has a tube buffered Effects Loop, that I utilize for modulation effects, allowing me to use the amp's tube gain.  The closed back cabinet is loaded with a quality 16 ohm Eminence speaker.  There are 3 speaker outputs, 1-16 ohm, and 2-8 ohm, to add an external 16 ohm speaker. I use 2 8 ohm 12 cabinets in series, and it's LOUD, and bleeds EL84 tube tone!  Cons: No reverb, and no on board channel switch.
2002369
There are pictures of only around 40% of the instruments and amplifiers. In a book of this format, I find this disappointing. Also, on many of the classics he uses pictures of modern reissues rather than the original instruments. Lazy. One other nitpick is that the eras are grouped into decades, but the instruments don't seem to follow a timeline. The first instrument of the 1960's era is a 1965 Ovation. And there's no picture of it! A lot of work probably went into this book, but not quite enough to make it a true classic. This is the "Epiphone" of guitar books!
3665177
Not as detailed as I would have liked; however, as a guide to the ideas behind the Blue Guitar effort, it exceeded my expectations.  Would have been nice if the excellent graphics and photography were supported with coffee table book sizing.
1408678
I have one of these that I bought from Morrell Music in Bristol, Tennessee for $125 about 6 or7 years ago. I added a tone knob, moved the jack, and put a Seymour Duncan JB Jr bridge pickup in it. My father made a custom fretboard for it as well. Now these are definite upgrades, but it still isn't worth what the asking price is here. It is a fine instrument without the upgrades. Very well made with decent tuners and a hot single coil pickup. I know they don't make these anymore, but they make a similar one and many other 6 and 8 string models that aren't this expensive. What gives? Just curious.
1552898
I retrofitted the Fender Tex-Mex pickups into an old Indiana S-Type guitar that I bought used for $59.  They fit perfectly, and produce much more sound than the original pickups.  In fact, the guitar volume and tone controls started working for the first time after installing the new pickups.  That shows you how weak the original pickups actually were.
260881
First electric in a long time, but I have always wanted a Les Paul, and the 50s neck was the closest to my acoustics so I found one remaindered and bought it.  A little shop worn and in need of a modest fret dressing, but it is a fantastic guitar.  I think the gold top is a great look, and the sustain and overall sound on both pickups is great.  You can see how Gibson saved money on the fit and finish, but an American guitar of this quality for this money is a fantastic deal.  No comparison to a Chinese Epiphone, it is a far better guitar.  Bought an $80 hard shell case to replace the gig bag, which is just a head-stock break waiting to happen
445151
This is a collection of rare Beatles' photos taken from pre-1964 to a period 'after the Beatles.' Each chapter of the book is titled after a Beatles' song (e.g. chapter four is titled "Hello Goodbye").
The photos have descriptions beside them giving an explanation of what is going on in the pic, where it might have been taken, who is in the pic, and other facts that might pertain tom the pic such as record stats, radio shows, TV programs, etc.
Periodically throughout this book a chronology of a certain year (i.e. 1968) will be shown. The chronology explains what happened on certain dates or days in that year. For instance, in the 1968 chronology, on 23 August it states "Ringo quits the Beatles during the recording sessions for the White Album."
The book contains 600 photographs selected from the archives of the 'Daily Mail." The book contains over 200 photographs from negatives never previously printed and are said to be printed here for the first time.
The pictures in this book are pics taken at parties, vacations that each Beatles member took alone, or together, recording studio shots, candid shots (some of these are just plain terrible, but fun to see), and many other various settings. This is a great book for Beatles' fans, and a must for hard core Beatles collectors.
1965894
My guitar is an '06, custom shop '58 Les Paul Reissue. The guitar came stock with Burstbuckers #1 (neck) and #2 (bridge) The guitar itself has a fantastic "woody tone" to it, (plugged & unplugged) that you don't find in the Gibson USA models. (I also own a  2013 Les Paul Traditional which I love, but it doesn't compare to the '58 RI) From day one, I found the stock pups to be very harsh sounding, even with the guitar volume on 6 and plugged into a very clean amp, but I was fighting to leave the guitar "stock." When I bought the LP Traditional last year it came stock with the '57 pups, WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!!! Clarity, harmonics, note detail .......................... it was all there and yet it still had the "Les Paul Balls" that we've all come to know.

I was so impressed with the '57 pups that I said; "Screw keeping the '58 RI stock, I'm putting these '57's into it," and so I did. I bought the '57's from Amazon, (best price out there!) and brought my guitar and new pups to the Luthier (Cris Mirabella) that works on all of my stuff. I SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS YEARS AGO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When Cris handed me back the guitar he looked at me, smiled and said; "I think you're really gonna love this."

Love this  .................................. is an understatement! The guitar still sounds "massive," but the clarity, harmonics and note detail that come out of it are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! I put the '57 Classic in the neck and the '57 Classic Plus into the bridge, a PERFECT MATCH! Don't make yourself crazy with all these "hi end" pickup manufacturers,  these are definitely "boutique quality"
pups, made by Gibson for Gibson Guitars.
4496580
This is a well written book and also the quality of the pictures are fantastic. I own just about all of the books written about the Gibson Les Paul and this one by far is the best.
1803153
During the mid 60's, Michael Bloomfield was THE American guitrist, and one of two men responsible for the resurrgence of interest in the Gibson Les Paul.  This collection goes a long way to demonstrate why.  It follows Bloomfield's carreer during this period.  It includes five previously unreleased tracks recorded with blues legend, Charlie Musselwhite, some tracks, including some live tracks, with Alan Kooper, and some of Bloomfield's most energetic performances.  At his best, Mike Bloomfield simply exploded accross the fingerboard, with a fat and salty tone.  Blues at its best!!