Gibson has teamed up with Neil Young, Promise of the Real and Willie Nelson & Family guitarist Lukas Nelson to create the Lukas Nelson ’56 Les Paul Junior.
Based on Nelson’s own '56 Junior, this guitar features a single-cutaway slab mahogany body, fat ‘50s-style mahogany neck and a rosewood fingerboard with medium jumbo frets and dot inlays.
Sonically, it has a specially-voiced dog-ear P-90 with Alnico III magnets and single volume and tone gold speed knobs, hand-wired with orange drop capacitors and original spec 500k vintage audio taper pots.
Elsewhere, the Lukas Nelson ’56 Les Paul Junior features a ‘50s-style wraparound bridge with an intonation-improving compensation contour, aged nickel-plated hardware and original-spec Vintage Deluxe strip style tuners.
“The beauty of this guitar is that it is very versatile with the sound," Nelson said in a statement. "In fact, I can get a lot of different tones just from the P90 and the way that I attack the strings and through the intonation and the vibrato that I give.
“If I hit it lighter, it doesn’t break up as much. If I get into it, it gets a lot of grit and dirt and breaks up. It’s a versatile tone, which I’m pretty grateful for. Frankly, Gibson has been nothing but incredible to us - to me - since I’ve met them. And this guitar has taken me on a long journey. It’s taken me to some amazing places, and I hope that a lot of other people get the same opportunity with their version of my guitar.”
The Gibson Lukas Nelson ’56 Les Paul Junior is available now - in a deluxe satin Vintage Sunburst finish - for $1,599.
For more info on the guitar, stop by gibson.com.
“The structural integrity is pretty amazing for cardboard. You can totally rock it.” Robby Krieger plays slide guitar on the world’s first cardboard Telecaster
“I’ll just do a little bit of it and show you what got me in the Beatles.” Paul McCartney reveals the song he played for John Lennon that earned him a spot in the band
