PRESS RELEASE:

The passing of the incomparable Les Paul in August 2009 broke the hearts of guitar enthusiasts around the world.

What can never be broken, though, is the legacy of innovation and creativity that he built during 94 years of constant musicianship.

Though the original guitar he designed in 1952 has informed every Gibson guitar since, our engineers were inspired anew to handcraft a guitar just the way Les demanded it nearly 60 years ago. Never before has a Les Paul guitar been so completely designed to Les’ original specifications.

Until now.

Anchored by a golden mahogany body, maple top and rosewood fingerboard, the Les Paul Tribute 1952 is equipped with an all-new bridge that’s an exact replica of Les’ original 1952 patent. Our luthiers have also added historical interest with details like stamping “prototype” into the back of the peg head and staying true to Les’ preference for P-90 pickups.

The Les Paul Tribute 1952 honors the most important figure in all of guitar history and the guitar he designed and loved.

Click on the guitar photo to link directly to GIBSON USA.

The NFL made the OFFICIAL announcement!

With singer Roger Daltrey, and songwriter and guitarist Pete Townshend, the band is known for their big hits in “Pinball Wizard, “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Who Are You,” and, “You Better You Bet.”

More than 151 million viewers in the U.S. watched last year’s show. The Super Bowl and halftime show will be broadcast worldwide in more than 230 countries and territories. The band has sold over 100 million records worldwide. Those are some VERY BIG numbers!

Past performances at the Super Bowl have included Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Paul McCartney and U2.

Gotta love the NFL for rockin’ out the big bowl game!

I am always on the lookout for new guitar related web sites. There are thousands of them out there and it’s a full time job keeping track of the new ones!

While it’s true that any web site focused on the guitar will grab my interest, some of them will hold my interest longer than others.

I think I found one of those today.

Click on the image to link to Guitar Scales V2.

It appears that the site is still in development, but the product that is online now is absolutely killer. Virtually any scale you can imagine is available – Pentatonic, Major, Minor, Dorian, Chromatic, Mixolydian and more.  Did you know there was a Persian scale?  I counted 58 variations in all – viewable in any key you want!  You can configure the display to show dots or notes. You can even set it up for alternate tunings.

Best of all – it is 100% free!

Looks like I may be selling all of those scale books I own on eBay…

If you know of another cool guitar web site, let me know!

I’m in the middle of reading the book “Million Dollar Les Paul ” by Tony Bacon (a full review will come in a future post).

It’s a fascinating read about “The Burst” as it was known in the late 50′s and how it was the axe of choice for guys like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. If you can find one of those around today, it could fetch up to $1,000,000.00 – even in our current depressed economy.

Many high-end guitar dealers admit that while there is no logic as to why the value continues to rise on these vintage classics, they still do.

It appears that there is no end in sight as to how high they will go. As long as people are willing to pay more to own one of the few remaining early LP’s, the prices will still skyrocket.

Well, how about a 1960 Burst?

The picture above is a stunning 1960 Gibson Les Paul cherry sunburst that is for sale right now on eBay. Click on the picture and you will link to the auction – as long as the auction is still there…

The auction says: From Norman’s Rare Guitars: Here’s another one from Norm’s personal stash. This is a 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard Sunburst with original hard shell case and all of the hang tags in dead mint condition. Yep, that’s about all I can say about that. If you have any questions on this guitar or any other guitar we have listed, please feel free to contact Mark at Norman’s Rare Guitars 818-344-8300

The “Buy it Now” price is $325,000. Sounds like a steal to me! It’s a few years “newer” and hey… you can save over $600,000.00!! So tell me, who do you know that has a $325,000 limit on their Visa or Master Card?

Maybe you should just start with the book…

Last week, Guitar Center held the finals of their “King of the Blues” contest at the House of Blues in Hollywood CA. Congratulations to Kirby Kelley of Sherman, Texas who beat out more than 4,000 guitarists to be crowned the winner!

There was a “who’s-who” panel of celebrity judges that included Jimmy Vivino of the Tonight Show Band, Elliot Easton of The Cars, accomplished session musician Blues Saraceno, blues legend Hubert Sumlin of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, renowned blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Grammy Award winner Pete Anderson, Steve Lukather of Toto, Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World Brad Tolinski, and Dweezil Zappa.

Following the contestants’ performances was an electrifying performance by Joe Bonamassa, who invited many of the judges to join him throughout the evening during his full concert set.

Here are 2 videos (both in HQ) that allow you to stand in the 2nd row and watch Joe play with Steve Lukather… (thanks to libbysvideos)

GuitarBuzz readers know that I am a HUGE fan of Joe Bonamassa. I also admire and have a ton of respect for Steve Lukather. Steve impressed me as a judge in the Guitar Player Magazine “GuitarSuperStar 2009″ competition with his passion and direction as he addressed the final competitors. He continued that same line of mentoring at “King of the Blues”.

What I noticed in these 2 videos was the different styles that Joe and Steve have when playing blues solos. If Joe played 300 notes, Steve played 3,000. Steve blistered the fretboard, Joe left it dripping with pure Mojo.

What a great night that must have been. Wish I could have been there!

By the way, this is my 100th blog post to “TheGuitarBuzz” and I want to thank ALL of the readers, followers, commenters and supporters.  When I started this blog about a year ago, I doubt I could have come up with 100 things to write about. Now that I have the first 100 behind me, it’s on to the next 100… -GuitarDaddy

One last thing… I am trying to track down Kirby for an interview. Until I do, check out his winning performance on this video:

After last weeks post about young Tallen Latz, I went searching for other young prodigy guitar players.  (No disrespect to Tallen, I just figured there would be others.)

I found numerous videos of young Quinn Sullivan, who was introduced to a national audience when he appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show in 2005 when he was 6 years old.

In the next few years he followed with appearances on stage alongside Buddy Guy and BB King.  He played in venues such as the Beacon Theatre in New York, the Orpheum Theatre in Boston, and Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago.

In 2008, he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In 2009, Sullivan was featured on The Today Show and opened for Buddy Guy on his East Coast tour during the summer in addition to playing his own set at the Austin City Limits Festival in the fall.

All that before turning 10 years old!

This is the video that started it all for Quinn.  A young boy, with no fear, stand up and nails the Beatles and the Blues.  Be sure to watch until the end when Ellen presents Quinn with a gift that blows everybody (especially Quinn) away!

A brand new Gibson ES-335!

You knew it… I knew it… it was bound to happen.  And it finally has.

You can now follow TheGuitarBuzz.com on Twitter!

Click the image to the left, or link to http://twitter.com/TheGuitarBuzz and you will receive short notices (tweets) that a new post has been added to TheGuitarBUZZ.

And so that my “tweets” are not just duplicates of my RSS Feed, I promise to throw in a few extra tidbits of guitar related stuff every few days.

Thanks for your support and encouragement about the blog.  I hope you enjoy reading it and following it as much as I enjoy writing it.

Most industries have a trade show.  The music industry is no different, and the “guitar portion” of the music industry trade show is a massive event in itself.

The show is called NAMM, which stands for National Association of Music Merchants.  The long form of the name is no longer used. Today, they simply say that NAMM stands for the interests of the global music products industry.

Admission to the trade show is restricted to companies that meet the association’s Membership criteria; in general, those companies that manufacture, distribute and/or retail musical instruments/products — in other words… the show is not open to the public.

Today, I received approval to attend the show as a result of the industry related content I write about on TheGuitarBuzz.com.  I will participate as a member of the media and will report about the events at the show on TheGuitarBuzz.com.

I will be traveling to Aneheim, California, January 14-17, to fill my head with the latest and greatest our industry has to offer.  I plan to meet with all of the major manufacturers to better understand what they are doing to break ground with new technology and add value to current product offerings. While I am there I will have the opportunity to visit with literally hundreds of people who are influential in the growth of the music industry.

Along with industry heavyweights, there will be many artists in attendance — many of whom endorse the products of exhibitors.  For example, last year Eric Johnson was at the Fender exhibit and Steve Vai was at the Ibanez exhibit.  With free concerts every night, I think I am heading for a 4-day stretch with 6 hours of sleep!

For Funny Music T-Shirts, Mugs and Bumper Stickers, Visit the Buddy and Hopkins Online Store!

I am sure “it” has happened to you.  “It” happened to me last month.

I was in the neighborhood of my local guitar store (which will remain unnamed) and I had some free time .  Whenever I get a chance to stop in and browse, I do.  It was the perfect “kid in a candy store” opportunity, and I wanted to see the newest candy.

For the record, I don’t just write about guitars… I also play the guitar.  For further record, I am still a beginner.  On a good day, I am somewhere between a beginner and an intermediate player.

(My challenge is the same as so many other guitar players I know.  I work full time and have to balance the remaining free time between family, household chores and sleep.  I practice and play guitar in the remaining time — which is not very much)

So… back to the candy store.  I mean… guitar store.  I walk in and do what I do every time I walk in that store.  I stand there and stare, gaze, dream, covet and drool. There is eye-candy everywhere and the first decision to be made is where to start looking.

Since I wanted to check out the new Taylor T3, I strolled over to the “high-end” guitar wall where the Taylor electric’s were hanging.  Sure enough, they had the guitar of my dreams — today’s dream at least — and I asked Ted (not his real name) to pull down the T3 so I could hold it.

It was a simple request, but that’s when “it” happened.

Before Ted could honor my simple request and hand me the guitar, he subjected me to a :30 second “Ted the Shred-Master” concert featuring Ted on lead guitar.  No offense, but I personally am not a shred-fan.  I can tolerate some of it, but not for long.  And :30 seconds was about :25 seconds longer than I cared to listen to Ted shred on a T3.

I just wanted to hold the guitar.  If it felt right, I may have wanted to plug it in to a Fender Twin Reverb and practice my 1-4-5 progressions.  Heck, I may even buy one some day!  But no, Ted had to show me what he can do.  He had to show off his chops.

The problem with that is that while I am not a shred guitar fan, Ted was clearly a better guitar player than me.  And when he did what he did, he intimidated me to the point that I was not going to play one note in front of Ted.

So when I came across this comic of Buddy & Hopkins, it reminded me of that Saturday afternoon in the unnamed guitar store… It also reminded me that I need to go back and play that T3 for myself…

OK… this post is bound to bend the E-Strings of a few guitarists, but for the life of me, I don’t understand the attraction to “relic” guitars.

To me, buying a relic guitar is like buying a beat-up car… or an old house with cracked walls and paint peeling from the ceiling… or a pair of blue jeans with holes in the knees. I know, I know… jeans with holes in the knees have been a hot-selling item for years… but I am talking about a guitar!

I’m a lot like Ed Roman.  I like SHINY GUITARS!  (No flames, please.)

I don’t gig (yet) thus most of my guitars are in the “excellent to mint condition” category.  I can’t imagine taking my Les Paul and etching, staining, dinging, bumping and cracking it – all in the name of creating a “Vintage Guitar” look.

There are dozens of books you can buy and videos you can watch that will give you step-by-step instructions on how to make your brand new Fender look like it has traveled with the Rolling Stones since 1962.  A simple Google search for “Relic Guitars” returned a few hundred web sites — all designed to transform your brand new Gibson into something my parents would toss in the trash if I wasn’t watching.

One of the most popular relic guitar sites starts out with this quote: “In our opinion, nothing is more beautiful than a vintage guitar that has been heavily played and has that “dragged behind a truck and through a fire” appearance.”

HUH?

To each his own. Some like blues; some like jazz. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I actually take pride in wiping down my guitars after I play them.  I rub out the fingerprints.  I polish the finish.  I buff the humbucker covers when I change the strings.  I almost cried when I bumped the headstock of my strat against a music stand (and it didn’t even leave a mark). 

Just call me the “anti-relic” GuitarDaddy!

That’s my opinion, what’s yours??