This Holy-Grail ’58 Les Paul Custom Will Always Be a Player’s Guitar

Brian’s serial number is 8 4224—not far from another LPC from 1958 which belonged to Eric Clapton until he gifted it to Albert Lee (8 6320). While clearly a special build, the feature that kept this model from becoming a household name is the “Fretless Wonder” frets that Les Paul loved to play on. These were designed for jazz and Les Paul’s style of playing with heavy flats—a style with more gliding and sliding across the fingerboard as opposed to bending notes.

The pot codes date to the eighth week of 1958 (February), meaning the PAFs are still a proper example of Seth Lover’s original humbucker design, without being potted. All the frequencies and the overtones are still intact.

The capacitors are also rare: .02 uF Phonebook Spragues that were only used in top Gibson models like the Flying V and Explorer. The Brian Custom also came with the patent pending Grover tuners (instead of waffle backs) which were the highest quality of tuner hardware at the time.

But it was the factory Bigsby, cast by Paul Bigsby himself in his workshop in Southern California, that put me over the edge. In my band, Caveman, I only use guitars I’ve made with a Bigsby. It’s become a part of my signature sound. The Bigsby on the Brian Custom is an early example—you very rarely see them with the green felt, tapered shape, and texture in the cast aluminum like this.