Or is there? If you are really a "Guitar Nut", you Must Read This One! This is the story of the most beautiful Les Paul that has ever existed and never been produced. The most perfectly balanced, the most esthetically pleasing and the most tone-correct to ever exist.

A friend of mine named Mike Ladd had gone to the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo and was allowed to root around in a room that had piles of prototypes and various other guitar experiments. They let him buy whatever he wanted and he bought a bunch. He had them shipped back to Memphis, TN. There was some Really Bizzare stuff! There were strange Les Paul personal prototypes, 2 of which I came to own. From what I understand, only Les Paul himself owns one of these. There were wierd SG's and Basses and on and on...

But!! There was this one guitar that was the coolest one of the bunch. It was an Epiphone. A Kalamazoo USA made Epiphone that was shaped somewhat like a Les Paul. It looked beautiful and it had two cutaways. Two perfectly symmetrical cutaways! It really got us going. We wanted to do a double cutaway Les Paul... WE HAD TO! We couldn't make a Les Paul, so we would have to modify one, but the 3-way switch cavity was exactly where the cutaway needed to be, and it went through the mahogony and into the maple top. ugh! But we had to do it!

An "older guy" friend of ours named Plug Luker was a pattern maker. We talked him into doing the maple and mahogany plug job on the switch cavity and the cutaway too. He did it perfectly! We then rebound it and put a new finish on it and the Les Paul Double Cutaway was born.

We built only 6 total over 10 years because it was such a hassle to do, but as the photos below attest, they are incredible! Where did they go? Who got 'em? Well, the guitarist for the group "America" got one and Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake and Palmer got one and recently, I saw one in Guitar World magazine with Pat Travors! And yes, Ace Frehley got one too! Find out more about that one in our Starz Getarz section!