The Original Les Paul 50's Reissue

The Original Les Paul 50's Flame Top Reissue?
THE REAL STORY!
CIRCA 1974-78

If you are a Les Paul lover and believer, you have GOT to Read This Article! If you do, you will know some things about Les Pauls that even George Gruhn doesn't know-- (unless he reads this too!)

During the early 70's we spent alot of time trying to get the factory Les Paul Standards to look and play like the originals. Finally, I contacted the Kalamazoo factory and they put me in touch with the shop foreman who's name "I am ashamed to say" I don't remember at this time. We talked about the original late '59 Les Pauls for quite some time. He definately remembered the originals but from a shop guy's perspective rather than a player's. It was wood and construction to him which was fine with me.

He told me he had the original blueprints somewhere and he would locate them for me and call me back. Sure enough, a week later, he called me back and said that he had found them and was going to forward me a set-- which I couldn't believe! Five days later I was holding an original copy of LP standard blueprints in my hands! WOW!

I called him back and we went over everything. The neck shape, the binding width (especially at the cutaway), the arch of the top and the quality of the flame needed for the tops. He told me that he currently had little or no flame maple and he would have to dig around and see what he could find. We went over the details one more time then we wrote up an order for two pieces and they started building.

Approximately two months later, we received the units at the store. We were extremely excited as we unpacked the two LP's. We tore open the boxes, pulled out the cases, unlatched and opened them, and there they were... Two Les Paul... "FREAKS"! -- They were wrong... in so many ways! Even the actual body shape was wrong! It was apparent from first sight that the body shapes were off, especially the cutaways. We were so disappointed and shocked. We expected that the sunburst might be off or the neck shape could vary, but the body shape?

So I called my shop buddy and told him what I thought. He immediately told me he thought that might be a problem because he had hand cut the bodies. He suggested that he would make a jig for the next ones and try again and told me to return them. So we did.

He went back to the drawing board and sure enough, two months later again, we received two more. I was afraid to unpack 'em this time-- I was not very optimistic to say the least. But it had to be done. So once again, we tore open the boxes, pulled out the cases, unlatched and opened them and there they were-- And they were Right as Rain! We were ecstatic! They could still do it! They were Awesome!

I called him immediately and ordered 6 more. He was concerned about having enough flame for the tops and warned us they might all look different and I told him that would be even better. He wasn't kidding. When we got the next six every top was radically different-- Cross cut, quarter sawn, fiddle back, they had it all. As this photo (left) shows, we ordered most of the six with all natural tops. The reason we did this was because the sunbursts Gibson had put on the first two was not "happenin". They wouldn't send them unfinished, so natural tops would be easy to strip and this would allow us to put the proper burst on 'em! We had a set price of $1,500 each and that's what they all sold for! That was a pretty high price in the mid '70's, but price was not the focal point on these guitars.

For you younger guys, let me put this into perspective. At this point in the history (mid 70's) of the Les Paul, Gibson had yet to reproduce any type of 50's flame top Les Paul. Even from the beginning of the Les Paul Reissue in the late 60's they didn't remake a Les Paul Standard for nearly three years, when the Standard was the only Les Paul anyone wanted to begin with. daa! They had quit making the original Les Pauls in 1960 and didn't make anymore again for nearly eight years.

By the mid to late 60's every guitar player who was anybody was playing a cherry sunburst 50's Les Paul. Eric Clapton, Dwayne Allman, Jimmy Paige, Joe Walsh and the list goes on! Just one problem!-- Gibson didn't make 'em anymore. Nobody really even knew what they were. The only way you could find them was in the pawn shops.

So to finish the story... We went on to do 24 of these guitars between the years of 1974 to 1978. Where did they go? Well, they went all over the world. Several were bought by local pickers. A Japanese guy bought one of them and two English guys took another pair across the ocean. I know where two are right here in Memphis, TN. Unfortunately, 3 or 4 of them burned up when our store was fire bombed during the Memphis fireman's strike of 1978. (We lost our entire stock in that fire and we will be featuring more information about that soon under our 'Articles' section of the website.)

If anyone thinks they may have one of these extremely rare instruments, please email us asap so we can help you identify it! One last note! Wanna know what happened to those first two LP "FREAKS" we mentioned? Well, Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley came to see us during one of their tours through Memphis. They said "check out these Les Pauls that Gibson built us!" They opened their cases and... yep, you guessed it... the LP "freaks". They never knew the difference and I wasn't about to tell 'em!You can read more KISS guitar stories on the "StarzGetarz" section of our website.