Cardinal Black guitarist Chris Buck has opened up about playing one of the most famous – and expensive – Gibson Les Pauls in history, as he paid tribute to its former owner, Bernie Marsden, during a festival tribute show.
The Whitesnake founder’s 1959 Les Paul Standard ‘Burst helped inspire some of the most well-known and influential rock songs of all time, and was put up for sale for a sizable fee of $1.3 million last year, shortly before Marsden’s passing at 72.
Marsden ultimately decided against the sale, and so it has remained in his family’s possession since his death, affording Buck to borrow the legendary guitar at the UK’s Steelhouse Festival late last month.
Talking on his YouTube channel, Buck explained how he first crossed paths with Marsden a few years ago, with the pair playing together several times.
Such was the level of their friendship, he once stayed with the guitarist’s family while he took part in the Bernie Marsden Guitar Mojo Experience. That foundation paved the way for the instrument to get its first live airing for a good while, under Buck's care.
Marsden wrote himself into the festival’s folklore when he stepped in last minute to replace an act that had dropped out in 2021.
And so this year’s edition’s first night was dubbed Bernie Fest, with an all-star band delivering a tribute set charting Marden’s entire career. Buck featured as part of that band, which primarily comprised of FM’s Jim Kirkpatrick and former Skin vocalist Neville McDonald.
“I was incredibly flattered to be invited up for a couple of tracks,” Buck reflects. “Incredibly kindly, a few weeks before the event, I had a text off Fran, Bernie’s wife, asking me if I’d like to play Bernie’s ’59 Les Paul, aka ‘The Beast.’
“Aside from its inherent value as a guitar, it’s just a fantastic guitar with an incredible documented history as the guitar that birthed one of the most famous rock songs of all time in Here I Go Again.”
The Buck and The Beast pairing stepped on-stage to perform Place in My Heart and Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City, with Buck recalling a stirring evening.
“Honestly, it was a truly wonderful night and a little bit emotional,” he continues. “In a bizarre twist of fate, Bernie actually passed away on the same day as my father last year, so I didn’t really have the chance to pay homage to Bernie in the way that I would’ve liked at the time, so this felt like the best possible outcome.”
Speaking to Guitarist back in 2012, Marsden revealed he had bought the guitar for £600 – a meager sum considering its now much-inflated value.
“A guy produced it [for me] at a gig at the Marquee, tuned it up and said ‘use it for the encore,’” Marsden said. “I had already said I couldn't afford it, but he tuned it up for me and I plugged it in, and it was stupendous. As I came off the stage, I said ‘How much do you want for it?’ – he wanted the princely sum of about 600 pounds, which I could not afford.”
Hindsight is a powerful thing, though, and he went on to admit that the price tag was well worth it in the end. “[It was] lot to me at the time,” he said, “but I think, in hindsight, I probably did the best thing.”
Its value increased through just how prominent over the course of Whitesnake's history it became.
“This [The Beast] can be seen in all the Whitesnake videos (from 1978-1982, after which Marsden was let go from the band), and [heard on] every song on the Whitesnake albums if it's me playing,” he explains.
Marsden's silky fingers weren't the only famous digits to trace its fretboard either. As Marsden revealed, Jeff Beck once played Scatterbrain on it, while Steve Lukather and Joe Bonamassa also took it for joy rides.
According to Marsden, Bonamassa, usually, a man of great articulation, could only say “that thing is sick.” Only a very special guitar, we reckon, can take words out of the gear guru's mouth.
