What`s especially great amongst this set of old gems  is the (SG shaped) 1961 Gibson Les Paul seen here. If you want to sound like Eric snap this baby up pronto!

Yes, that`s right, in 1960, Gibson experienced a decline in electric guitar sales due to their high prices and strong competition from Fender’s comparable but much lighter double-cutaway design: the stratocaster.

In response, Gibson changed the Les Paul line. The 1961 issue Les Paul guitar was thinner and much lighter than the earlier models, with two sharply pointed cut-aways, a vibrato system and looking like what was to become an SG rather than the traditional 57 Gold Top single cutaway design.  Because of the redesign Les Paul left Gibson and it wasn`t until 1963 that the guitar’s name was finally changed to SG standing for Solid Guitar.

On an even more interesting note my friend Lee over at Rare Star Guitars has some interesting information regarding Clapton`s choice of Les Paul for that classic “woman-tone”, Cream-era, psychedelic sound – that`s right  – E.C. likes his Paul’s fresh from the `62 vintage. Here`s Eric talking “woman tone” plus an interview featuring the unmistakably wry loitering of drummer Ginger Baker, a lucid, talkative and  obviously highly amused Clapton and some rather finely dressed German journalists.

Beatles, Hendrix, Floyd, Zappa, Buddy, Otis, B.B. !!

Good on ya Eric!
Here’s a taste of Eric’s more luminescent and florid period playing with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in Cream – some very, very bluesy licks soaked in lysergic acid and heavy rock afro-polyrhythmic jazz goodness!

FAR OUT Maan.

Cream pioneered  the American blues – British psychedelia crossover but with a pendulum like swing from the highs to the lows of the great Anglo-American acid wave and you can almost see the high tide mark and feel the dichotomy in the music. Both Disraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire are records that distill this fervent mixture of poetry, lyricism, one-upmanship, blues power guitar licks, psychedelia and weirdness. Of course just after Disraeli Gears, The Beatles’  Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was released….so…….Wheels of Fire…

Click continue reading below if you`d like to see some of the great guitars from DiPinto Vintage.

Call me old fashioned but the only thing I`ve ever thought was a great romantic, gothic and truly bluesy use for used guitar strings involved a tall tree, and a precariously balanced stool to dance with the devil upon…for a short while. Emo huh?

Or maybe I`ve just been listening to too much Beck Hansen…for awhile there he was definitely throwing down some Dylanesque skills both lyrically and instrumentally. I draw your attention here to Beck`s rough house cover of Dylan`s Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat in all it`s steampunk lo-fi, harp-dog magnificence. It`s great but covering Dylan is a bit like trying recreate Picasso with your local painter and decorator…scruffy!

With the rerun shows
And the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slop
He hung himself with a guitar string…

Anyway if you head over to Wear your music.org you can help out a large range of charities whilst decking yourself out in the old guitar strings of the famous.

Some of the guitar playing artists featured include Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Gregg Allman, Keith Richards, Les Paul, Pete Townsend, Peter Frampton, Steve Vai, and Slash. Let`s presume they clean these things first. I completely dig Clapton and all, and I grew up in the same village – you can read alot more about him here, but I`m not sure I want his microbes.

IF on the other hand you think this kind of thing is just a little too emo or skater boi and just not damn bluesy enough then why not throw your strings in the trash and give some money to charity anyway.

You have to ask yourself though what really happened to PUNK and ROCK and did Sid Vicious really have to die so the bourgeois could listen to Fall Out Boy?