The Gibson Custom Shop model is revealed on the late guitar legend's birthday.
The Gibson Gazette reports that the $9,999/£8,999 model aims to be a "faithful recreation" of the '59 Burst Beck as it was when he used it with the Yardbirds before his own Jeff Beck Group and follows the 2009 signature Les Paul based on Beck's 1954 'Oxblood' model.
“Jeff was enormously proud to have owned the original of this guitar,” says his widow Sandra Beck. “He was aware and fully supportive of the amazing job and love that Gibson Custom provided to create this instrument and would have hoped that this guitar will give hours of pleasure to those who play it.”
For years, the Beck-Strat marriage has been fruitful and faithful with his alternately refined/skunky Strat tones. In the wake of Beck's mid-'60s stint in the Yardbirds, he formed the Jeff Beck Group, whose 1968 album, Truth, is a showcase for his brief love affair with the Les Paul electric guitar. (Guitarplayer.com)
In the December '73 issue of Guitar Player, Beck said that one of the things he dug about the Les Paul was its robust feel. "Fenders are cheap in feel," he remarked. "You pick up a Les Paul and it's heavy and it really means something – it means business."
“The Fender was nice because you could grip it like a weapon and really chunk out the chords, but when you came to the more subtle stuff it wasn't there. After a while I got so used to the Les Paul, there was no turning back. I picked up my Fender and thought, 'How the hell did I ever play this?'"
