JO'C

Yeah he definitely held things together for the band in the 70's. I was too young to see Duane live but caught most of the shows in the late 70's when they came around. Saw some cool iterations of the band including when they had Chuck Leavell on second keyboard and Bonnie Bramlett on vocals. Bonnie and Dickey had great chemistry on Crazy Love. Forgot to mention Jessica and Southbound earlier, two more of Dickey's great songs.

Cool. One of my favorite albums from the era is Taste: Live at the Isle of Wight. Rory Gallagher is one of my guitar heroes; along with Jimi of course. I'm happy that there is a lot of great video footage of that festival, the UK's answer to Woodstock. I was just 12 at the time. I remember hearing Clapton's Let it Rain in 1970 and the outro guitar solo is what made me want to become a guitarist. I just loved the high, tinny Strat tone and I played Strats for many decades before switching over to Gibsons in the last dozen years or so.

So sad, I agree. A major influence in my playing style. I love how he used country-style major scale phrasing in southern rock songs. Blue Sky, Revival, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed and of course Ramblin' Man. And he was the perfect compliment to Duane and later as the headliner he kept the band together while Greg was a mess, before he became a mess himself and got booted. A favorite memory is the acoustic set they did at Great Woods in 1992 with Dickey and Warren Haynes along with Gregg doing electric songs acoustically. RIP Dickey!

Hi Andy, Yes that serial number is correct for 1967. Finding a period correct pick guard will be quite expensive. Good luck getting it playable again. Many years ago I had a '66 ES-330 and I currently have a 1969 ES-335.

You beat me to it by a minute!

I'm calling the eclipse my Woodstock experience. As I was only 10 at the time of the first Woodstock so I was too young to go. But seeing the movie and having older friends and uncles tell me the horror stories of the closed NY State Thruway always stuck with me. My sister-in-law lives in Jericho, Vermont in the area of totality and she invited anyone who wanted to to come up for the weekend. We took the RV up on Saturday and it took 3 1/2 hours to drive the 189 miles to get there. There was snow on the ground but it was gone by Sunday afternoon. Eclipse day was perfect; sunny in the 60's. The eclipse was awesome! Definitely in the top 10 experiences of my life. The temp dropped at least 10 degrees and mosquitoes started coming out like crazy about 10 minutes before totality. Once it got dark we heard roosters crowing and owls hooting. Totality looked like this: My nephew's friend took the pic. We could look at it without the protective glasses for a couple of minutes. The coolest thing was the Prominence (my new vocabulary word) at 7:00. Wild purple colors moving around in a twisting loop. Totality was at 3:26 pm. We hung around until 4:45 and hit the road. A few others left right after totality and let us know that the interstate was clogged so we took low roads for the first 35 miles, which took 4 hours. It was like leaving a stadium concert parking lot that never ended. We sent texts to others for updates but they didn't send. My wife sent me a test text and even though we were 3' feet apart, it took 2 hours to get to me. Altogether it took 9 1/2 hours and it was bumper to bumper except for the last half hour. Definitely worst traffic experience I ever had but at least we have food and a bathroom right in the rig. And it was worth it! I did have to take an extra day off yesterday to unpack and unwind.

Hi Ron, I've had quite a few Custom Shop Gibsons. You are correct; based on the serial number it could be either 2003 or 2013. Looking at pics of the ones I have or had I'm leaning toward 2013. I had two 2008 CS guitars and one has the same Custom Shop decal as yours and the other is the older style. I had two from 2003 and one from 2000 and 2004 that also had the older style decal. So I think they changed the decal in 2008. Also none of mine had the Custom Shop badge on the back round access panel like yours. You could remove the other rear access panel and get a date code off one of the pots to be sure. Also my two 2008 CS guitars had the black booklet COA. My older ones from 2000-2004 all have a multicolored single page 8 1/2 x 11" COA. I also think it's a regular Les Paul Custom. The term Black Beauty was the original nickname for the 1957 LP Custom. Fretless Wonder was the name given to 70's LP Customs with low frets. A lot of people call black LP Customs Black Beauties. By the way, yours is a Black Beauty, based on looks and condition. If it was a reissue it would say so on the model number line on the COA. JO'C

My go to source for old Gibson serial #'s puts it as a 1968. 1962 would have a 5 digit S/N. This one has 6 and falls in the 1968 range.

Hi Mark, I was watching an auction back in Sept and they had a 1959 ES-355 Varitone. After checking out the market I decided not to bid due to the Varitone being a not so sought after feature. ES-335's from that era without the stereo/varitone are selling for 2-3X the 355 prices. The one at the auction sold for $19K plus 15% buyer's premium. My research showed selling prices of $20-30K for a stereo/varitone of that era in excellent condition. I saw a '59 hardtail mono 355 listed for $75K. 335's from that era go $50-100K. If yours is in good condition without electronics issues it is likely worth at least $20K.

Hi Brett, If it it already above your price point be aware that it will cost you even more. Beyond shipping you will also have to pay the import duty to get it released from customs as well as a customs brokerage fee. This will add another 5-10% to the total price plus maybe $100 for the brokerage fee.

My sister-in-law lives in northern Vermont so we have a free place to go. It will be too bad for all those who spent lots to go somewhere and it's a cloudy day. At least it will still get dark for a bit even if it's cloudy.

My source for serial#'s also says 1963 or 1967. You could measure the nut width. The '63 will be 1 11/16" and the '67 would be the narrower 1 9/16" width.

That's great, it's a wonderful phenomenon but... Remember even though nothing can compare to seeing it yourself, you must wear proper viewing glasses or you could go blind. We got some cheap ones on Amazon for $6 for a 5- pack.

Very nice and so close to the Howlin' Wolf original. And yes, Steven Tyler on the Harp. Tasty. Thanks for posting.

Great video! Lots of cool guitars and stories from Peter. A real history lesson. Can't think of a better way to kill an hour and a half on a Friday afternoon at work!