✳️ Les Paul SG

It was time to re-string and clean up my old guitar. This Les Paul SG Custom has been with my for about 15 years and seen a lot of action. I played in a rock/punk band for about 12 years and this guitar has been through a lot :)

Although I'm retired from playing in a band, I still love to bust the ol' SG out rock out for a bit.

Keep on Steemin on.

"The Gibson SG is a solid-body electric guitar model that was introduced in 1961 (as the Gibson Les Paul SG)[1] by Gibson, and remains in production today with many variations on the initial design available. The SG Standard is Gibson's best-selling model of all time."
"In 1960, Gibson Les Paul sales were significantly lower than in previous years.[citation needed] The following year, the Les Paul was given a thinner, flat-topped mahogany body, a double cutaway which made the upper frets more accessible, and a contoured body. The neck joint was moved by three frets to further ease access to the upper frets. The simpler body construction significantly reduced production costs, and the new Les Paul, with its slender neck profile and small heel was advertised as having the "fastest neck in the world". However, the redesign was done without knowledge of Les Paul himself (who had nothing to do with it). Although the new guitar was popular, Les Paul was going through a public divorce with Mary Ford and his notoriety was dwindling in popularity as music tastes had changed in the early 1960s. Les asked friend and former Gibson President Ted McCarty to withhold his $1 royalty per guitar. Gibson mutually agreed to end the contract. This is from a 1992 interview with former Gibson President Ted McCarty who wrote the contract and was a life long friend of Les Paul. [3]

Gibson honored Les Paul's request, and the new model was renamed "SG", which stood for "Solid Guitar". Les Paul's name was officially deleted in 1963, but the SG continued to feature Les Paul nameplates and truss rod covers until the end of 1963.

In the early-to-mid 1960s Gibson's parent corporation, Chicago Musical Instruments, also revived the "Kalamazoo" brand name for a short time. Later models of the Kalamazoo KG-1 and KG-2 featured a body style similar to the Gibson SG, effectively creating a budget-line model until the brand was dropped in the late 1960s. Gibson currently releases lower-cost, internationally sourced versions of the SG through their subsidiary, Epiphone.

Because of its ease of play, holding comfort, popularity and vintage heritage, the body style of the SG is often copied by other manufacturers, although much less frequently than the Les Paul and the Fender Stratocaster."

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