Gretsch launches Bono guitar
Special edition electric joins fight against disease

Gretsch and U2 star Bono have launched a special (RED) edition of the double-cutaway 5623 Electromatic to raise funds for the global fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
The guitar, which is optimised for high-gain playing, features a spruce centre-block inside the bound archtop, thinline body. Tone-wise, the guitar is kitted out with a pair of 'Black Top' Filter'Tron pickups with conventional three-position switching plus master tone and volume controls.
It also promises to be as playable as other guitars from the Electromatic range, with a 22-fret bound rosewood neck featuring vintage-vibed thumbnail inlays. The retro-theme continues in the hardware spec, which equips this sharply styled guitar with Grover Deluxe tuners, 'G' cutout tailpiece and anchored Adjusto-Matic bridge.
Five per cent of proceeds from the sale of these special-edition guitars goes towards the (RED) charity, co-founded by Bono and philanthropist Bobby Shriver in 2006, which has so far raised $275 million for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. www.red.org.
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Jamie Dickson is Editor-in-Chief of Guitarist magazine, Britain's best-selling and longest-running monthly for guitar players. He started his career at the Daily Telegraph in London, where his first assignment was interviewing blue-eyed soul legend Robert Palmer, going on to become a full-time author on music, writing for benchmark references such as 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and Dorling Kindersley's How To Play Guitar Step By Step. He joined Guitarist in 2011 and since then it has been his privilege to interview everyone from B.B. King to St. Vincent for Guitarist's readers, while sharing insights into scores of historic guitars, from Rory Gallagher's '61 Strat to the first Martin D-28 ever made.

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