Gibson and Gary Clark Jr have unveiled a limited edition ES-355, fresh from the Custom Shop in a Cobra Burst finish – and it completes the circle for the Texan blues guitar maestro with a signature model inspired by his childhood hero.
“When I was a child, I had a poster on my wall of BB King playing his signature Lucille,” says Clark. “As a kid, I always wanted one of those guitars. I would go to the music shop. I would see them on the wall and I liked the way that they sounded. I just wanted to be a part of that world.
“Here we are, years later, and I'm holding this Gary Clark Jr. signature model, Gibson ES-355, and it’s a dream grown true.”
At £6,999/$7,999, this is one of those Custom Shop releases we might find ourselves hoping that there might be a Gibson USA production model further down the line, or that – maybe – there just might be an Epiphone guitar bearing Gary Clark Jr’s signature, a mainstream option for a semi-hollow in Cobra Burst. It happened with Kirk Hammett's Greeny. But that’s for another day.
This is a special build, everything you’d be looking for in a high-end electric guitar. It has the three-ply build of maple/poplar/maple on the top, back and sides, figured maple outer layer popping under that finish and multiply binding holding it together, and under the hood there is the maple centre block to control the squeal of feedback when playing at high volume.
The mahogany neck is fashioned into a Rounded Medium C profile, topped with a bound 12" radius ebony fingerboard with block mother of pearl inlays. You'll find more of that finery on the split-diamond headstock.
There are a pair of Custombuckers, a three-way pickup selector, dual volume and dual tone controls – and, the pièce de résistance, a mono Varitone control with a black chickenhead knob, and a Bigsby B7 vibrato.
“I can explore all of the sounds that inspired me as a kid, and even now to this day, it is one of the most versatile instruments,” says Clark. “It’s semi-hollow. You can play it acoustic. It’s my go-to instrument… And it’s gorgeous. I can get all the different tones that I want… As kid who grew up staring at a BB King Lucille, to be sitting here telling me about my signature model is pretty amazing.”
These electric guitar pickups are hand-wired to the controls, with 500K CTS pots, paper-in-oil capacitors. You’ve got a Switchcraft pickup toggle and 1/4” output jack, VOS nickel Grover Rotomatic tuners with ‘kidney bean’ buttons.
And the whole thing ships in a brown hardshell guitar case with Gary Clark Jr’s logo. The bad news? Well, they’re only making 100 of them.
For more details, head over to Gibson.
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