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McCartney with 1950's leftty goldtop

Steve Craw

Formerly Lefty Elmo
Joined
Sep 9, 2004
Messages
5,294
Scott, I'd be curious about your impressions of the various 50s' Les Pauls that you've played. The 59' that MacEnroe owns has a reputation for being a tone turd, and when I played it in 1985 at Guitar Tader, in New Jersey, it didn't seem any better than the Norlin era Les Paul Deluxe that I was using at that time. I've never played the others, so which ones are the pinnacle of tone, and which ones ho-hum? BTW, It's great to see the Jeff Vietch image again. I used to get your flyers, and also remember the ads in Vintage Guitar Magazine, and Jeff's pics were beautiful.
 

dlmorley

Active member
Joined
Oct 25, 2002
Messages
1,558
The 59' that MacEnroe owns has a reputation for being a tone turd

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!

mc-enroe.jpg
 

guitarvoodoo

Formerly fishnose, Les Paul Forum Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2006
Messages
2,000
Re: McCartney with 1950's lefty goldtop

LH_LPs.jpg


Ahh..... lefty heaven! :applaude :peace2

/GV
 

route66guitars

New member
Joined
Aug 4, 2001
Messages
21
Scott, I'd be curious about your impressions of the various 50s' Les Pauls that you've played. The 59' that MacEnroe owns has a reputation for being a tone turd, and when I played it in 1985 at Guitar Tader, in New Jersey, it didn't seem any better than the Norlin era Les Paul Deluxe that I was using at that time. I've never played the others, so which ones are the pinnacle of tone, and which ones ho-hum? BTW, It's great to see the Jeff Vietch image again. I used to get your flyers, and also remember the ads in Vintage Guitar Magazine, and Jeff's pics were beautiful.


I'v been trying to get Jeff to allow me to do something with his images for years. It's a shame, really.

I played the '59 (McEnroe) back in 1988 or 1989 in a hotel lobby adjacent to the Arlington, TX guitar show. I didn't have an opportunity to plug it in. I walked away from it with the impression that it was a very heavily played guitar with a split top seam that was set up poorly. I never had any interest whatsoever in owning it.

My all time favorite is the clean '57 in the photo above. Hands down one of the best Les Pauls I've ever played or heard, including many right handed ones. I've had reissues that were nicer than all three of the left handed Bursts I've played. Granted, I haven't played the one that turned up in Germany…

There's an amazingly clean 1960 Les Paul Custom with 2 PAFs that used to keep me up nights. I never did acquire it, as the price went up relative to the interest I showed in it, but it was up there with the Gold Top in tone, and had that '60 neck I always liked.
 

Steve Craw

Formerly Lefty Elmo
Joined
Sep 9, 2004
Messages
5,294
Thanks for that pic, OT. Other than the image in a couple of Bacon books, we never get to see this guitar.
 

Richard Gozinya

New member
Joined
Jan 31, 2016
Messages
5
I remember reading that the guitar came fm Route 66 Guitars and had been previously owned by Cesar Rosas, anybody know for sure?

I saw that same guitar at California Guitar in Santa Barbara. The owner of the store said that Linda McCartney had bought it for Paul. This was around 1980.
 

Richard Gozinya

New member
Joined
Jan 31, 2016
Messages
5
I remember reading that the guitar came fm Route 66 Guitars and had been previously owned by Cesar Rosas, anybody know for sure?


I saw that guitar hanging in California Guitar in Santa Barbara circa 1980. The store owner said Linda McCartney had bought it for Paul.
 

Richard Gozinya

New member
Joined
Jan 31, 2016
Messages
5
Scott, thanks for the excellent and informative post!

I would like to comment on this:
"Too bad it's in a non-working collection now, along with the Stroup Burst and my '53 Telecaster."

Non-working collections helped preserve many golden era violins a few centuries ago. This collector is likely to cherish and preserve these guitars. As for their fate and whether they get played soon, I suspect they will live longer and survive other vintage guitars getting used now.

Alan Rogan has stated that Paul's burst came from Pete's Guitar in Minnesota. Pete died in an auto accident. I think that's the accurate story.
 

Bedoubleyou

New member
Joined
Oct 22, 2015
Messages
2
I’ve been a “passive” user for some time but as I’m not only a Les Paul guy but also a big Paul McCartney fan this is the right thread for my first post :eek:la

The Goldtop and the Burst are both featured in his 1990 World Tour concert film “Get Back”.
I took some snapshots. Sorry for the bad quality. It’s not Full HD
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There is some gear info as special feature on the DVD (always cool for us guitar nerds, isn’t it?). But they only mentioned the Goldtop as “1957 Goldtop”. By the way it is a cool film for guitar enthusiasts but the sound editing and the cut are not that good. Often the picture doesn’t match to the music or they change the venue within a song including changed cloth and guitars. :##
There are also some photos of the Goldtop in the CD booklet from the same tour. Here is one of them. On the other photos you can only recognise the Goldtop by the Grovers.
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Axelorox

New member
Joined
Sep 12, 2018
Messages
83
I wonder why he doesn't play this one live anymore. These possibilities come to mind:

1. It was a gift from Linda, and he wants to keep it safe from the rigors of world touring. I wonder if this goldtop for some reason is more prone to wearing down than his '60 burst. In the Bacon book you can see it's already greening and checking, while the '60 burst still looks pretty damn mint for an instrument that's been touring the world since the 90s.
2. Too heavy (not sure how likely it is that a '57 would be much heavier than the '60 he uses regularly).

Personally I think #1 is more likely. It's hard to tell but it seems in the goldtop's earlier days it was also quite mint. See this video from 1987. Though in this other performance from 1987 you can maybe see a hint of greening at the top already. Given that certain guitars just seem to age with use more easily than others, it's possible Paul's goldtop is just more fragile than his burst.

He definitely still uses it in the studio. You can see it in this video from 2013.
 
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