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Old 03-19-2012, 11:51 AM
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Peter Green’s Les Paul

The 1959 Gibson Les Paul of Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green has one of the most fascinating stories of any sunburst. When Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green bought his Standard, interest in ’bursts was rising again – partly due to Mike Bloomfield and Eric Clapton, whom Green had replaced in John Mayall’s Blues Breakers.

Green told Guitarist magazine in 1999, “I stumbled across one when I was looking for something more powerful than my Harmony Meteor. I went into Selmer’s in Charing Cross Road [central London] and tried one. It was only £110 and it sounded lovely and the color was really good. But the neck was like a tree trunk… It was very different from Eric’s Les Paul, which was slim with a very fast action.” £110 equals a still-considerable $2,500 today, but Green knew he had a bargain. Green’s Standard – very light in color, and what most now describe as “honeyburst” – featured on many of Mac’s late-’60s releases.

When Green walked away from music in the early ’70s with mental health problems, he sold the guitar to Gary Moore – the Irishman was a friend and close neighbor of Green’s in London. Green initially tried to give the Les Paul to Moore, but Gary insisted on paying the £110 it originally cost. There was also the understanding that if Green ever wanted it back, all he had to do was ask. But Peter never did.

The guitar was celebrated for its sweet tone. Some say Green tinkered with the neck pickup and accidentally refitted the humbucker reversed and “out of phase,” resulting in a more nasal sound. However, Jol Dantzig once had the chance to examine it and he said it wasn’t that the pickup being reversed that was the cause itself, but the actual magnets inside that neck ’bucker were out of phase with one another. Dantzig recalled, “This was the secret we’d all been searching for!”

In Gary Moore’s hands, the guitar featured on numerous tracks – notably the Blues For Greeny album of Fleetwood Mac covers dedicated to his hero. But Moore suddenly sold it in 2006. Why? Only Gary knew, but there were rumors that Gary – who had injured his hand and had to cancel a 2005 tour – was suddenly faced with huge insurance costs.

The guitar is now at Maverick Music in North Carolina. Probably in a vault.

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyl...sts-0319-2012/
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