A Good One

R7 Les Paul Custom Black Beauty

Bluntly, I am very darn fortunate. Over the 47 years or so since my first guitar, I have been able to slowly buy, and occasionally sell, a lot of guitars. I’ve been selective and mostly successful. Sometimes not, but when there is a good one, it’s awesome, so the purpose of this is to remind us all, that there are good ones out there, all we have to do is find one.

We were in Florida on a family trip. It came about that this long booked trip to take our daughter to Disney was nearly derailed by the sudden death of my father just a couple of weeks prior. To say that my psyche was not in optimal condition is obvious, but our daughter was only 4 ½ and didn’t know what was happening, and my Mom needed to get out, so instead of my Dad, her sister came with us instead. One day, my Aunt and Mom said that they would stay in the townhouse that we had rented with our daughter so my wife and I could get some time together. We went for a drive and ended up at a guitar store somewhere in Orlando. The details remain fuzzy.

While there, I poked around the different guitars, and my wife gave me the time and space to do so. She has always been very supportive of my guitar habit, for which I am truly grateful.

As I wandered, I found some higher end guitars on floor stands off in a corner section. Up front was the expected cherry sunburst Les Paul Standard, and off to one side, there was a black Les Paul Custom. At that time, the only Les Paul I had was my early 70’s blind cherry that started as a Deluxe but modified by the first owner. I call it the blind cherry because the sunburst looked and still does look, like it was sprayed by someone with optics issues. In other words, a typical Norlin era instrument.

As I wandered, the staff graciously giving me lots of space, I kept coming back to the Custom. Eventually I asked if it was ok to play it, having never been that guy to just pick up a guitar without asking. The sales fellow, was a younger guy and said no one ever asked and which one was I interested in. The black one I said and he smiled and said “oh the Black Beauty” At the time I was ignorant of this description for a guitar and the image that came to mind was the Green Hornet’s automobile. It seemed to fit. The guitar was shiny and elegant with a cream coloured binding and really nice inlays that didn’t look like the so common mother of toilet seat.

I bought a pick, a rare time not to have one in a pocket and sat down on an amplifier of some kind and started playing it. This guitar was really heavy and while the neck was chunky, it felt really good in my hands. The strings were factory stock but were at least fresh and the guitar rang really nicely. I also noticed a lot of sustain. The sales gent came by to ask what amp I wanted to use, and I declined, as I prefer to try electric guitars acoustically. He gave me a nod and a sort of look that suggested that he thought I was some kind of weirdo. Generally correct I suppose. I played for about 40 minutes or so and my wife suggested that we had been gone a while and should probably get going. I agreed and took some paper towel from the counter to wipe the strings down and put the guitar back in the stand. I waved a thanks that was returned and we left.

That night I thought a lot about that guitar. It was really nice and the Canadian dollar was not so weak against the US dollar as it has been for so long since. A couple of days later, after a visit to an Alligator attraction, we stopped at the shop again. The same fellow was working there, and gave a wave and asked if I was back for the Black Beauty. I told him that I wanted to have another quick look at it. Nothing had changed. He asked me what amps I used and I told him I had a Marshall combo (non-valve), a Fender Blues DeVille (tubes) and a Fender Princeton (solid state). He assured me that it would be great in any, but would really sing in the DeVille when it was turned up. As there were five of us, we did not stay long. I asked if it came with a case, he looked surprised and said of course it did. I compared its weight against some of the other Les Pauls there and it was definitely at least a pound heavier than the rest. One of the others was another Black Beauty but with three pickups and a Bigsby. I did try it, but it needed a good setup and didn’t feel good.

When we got back, I called the airline to inquire about transporting a guitar. It was one of those travel charters where the passengers are crammed in pretty tight, but the person on the phone said that one of the crew would let me put the case in the overhead.

I was sitting at the table and my wife came by and said that I should get the guitar. I told her that I was concerned about the cost and she said that she would buy it for me. The next morning we went out together and after some discussion and a bit of haggling, we left with the guitar in a brown case with pinkish maroon plush lining and a fold over cover cloth used before closing the lid. I made note of the serial number on a piece of paper in my wallet and remarked that the first number was a 7 and separated from the other numbers.

At the airport I carried the guitar on, but the flight crew was not having any. No overhead for you, it would have to go in the belly of the plane. I was quite upset as I feared arriving home to a busted up guitar. The Captain was out of the cockpit, this being long before the pilots were locked behind doors and heard my complaint that the airline had assured me that the guitar would not go into the cargo hold. He stepped in and politely suggested to the flight attendant, that the guitar case could go into the flight crew closet area. The Flight Attendant did not look happy but agreed and pointed me to where to put the case.

We arrived home and as we deplaned, the Captain was standing saying goodbye to the passengers and when he saw me he reached into the closet and pulled out my guitar case and handed it to me. I thanked him for interceding and he asked what Gibson it was, the Gibson name being visible on the case. I told him it was a Les Paul Custom Black Beauty. He nodded and smiled and wished me well, saying he understood, he was a guitar player too.

We cleared Customs and dropped Mom and her sister off then went home. Travel can be tiring for a family, my daughter had ear issues and was cranky and my wife was tired from the stress of doing all the things that she did on the trip home. I put the guitar case in the room with my other guitars and amps and kind of forgot about things.

It was the next day before I first plugged the guitar in. The sales person had been right. The Les Paul sounded best in an overdriven tube amp, but I had to be respectful because that amp was really loud despite having a master volume, which went from dead quiet to loud in about a millimetre of turn.

I played the guitar pretty regularly for several years but started to notice that when I played cowboy chords, the guitar would go out of tune. I mentioned this to the repair specialist I knew called Eric (who sadly passed from a heart attack a few years later) and he asked me to bring the guitar in so he could look at it. He quickly diagnosed that it just needed a good setup. We put new strings on it after cleaning the fretboard and giving the frets a quick polish with #0000 steel wool, and the problem was gone. Eric made mention of the weight and as he was finalizing the service ticket for payment made note of the serial number. This is when I first learned that this guitar is what is now called an R7, a special 1957 reissue of the Les Paul Custom of the day. It has aged very well and been well maintained so there is no checking yet and the gold covers have not oxidized although there is a bit on the bridge. It’s about 28 years that I have had it, and it still plays wonderfully.

I was so impressed by the quality of this instrument, compared to the regular Gibsons that I tried, I started to focus my attention only on the then not yet super fashionable vintage reissues. I found a ‘54 Black Beauty, then a ‘56 Goldtop with P90s, and then another R7 this time with the 3 pickups and Bigsby. It’s nice but not as good as the 2 pickup version. Over the years I got an R8, then an R9 which plays nicely, but the finish work is pretty lousy, and then a white ‘61 3 pickup custom like the one pictured so often with Sister Rosetta Sharpe. This is the model with the SG body style. The last Les Paul I got was in 2020, a Custom Shop R0. This one is really well built and has excellent quality but I think it was three times what my wife paid for the R7 so many years ago. It’s also due for a professional setup now that it has had some time to settle.

Over the last few years, I have played a lot of new Gibsons and come away underwhelmed. I own that Norlin thing from the seventies and it has never been great. The reissues go from good to great. However, most everything else has needed a lot of work to make them playable when they were even good enough to consider buying. Gibson solid bodies today do not impress me. Gibson is less a guitar maker today than a fashion brand as I have lamented elsewhere. My point, is that there are good Gibsons out there, but they are increasingly hard to find, and now pretty stupidly expensive. However, when you do find one, hold on to it because those guitars are spectacular.

Thanks for reading and until next time, peace.