Gibson Custom 1959 Les Paul Standard Reissue Electric Guitar - Murphy Lab Light Aged Dirty Lemon Reviews

Just a simple , quick review! I bought two Dirty Lemons and one Cherry Teaburst Murphy Lab Les Pauls. These thing (all three) are all simply amazing … each in there own unique right! The setup on all three guitars is the best setup on any new guitar I've ever
purchased. All three guitars have the tone you'd expect out of a 59' Les Paul … near perfect in my book! I've been playing my early (1997) Custom Shop Les Paul since purchasing it new and the transition was absolutely seamless. I had no idea how close my Custom Shop LP neck was to the real deal … playing my Murphy Labs LPs confirms it! That's where the similarities end. These guitars are the real deal! Find a dealer and check-out what the rage is all about! And then, call your Sweetwater rep and buy one … thank you Kent Sallaz for all the assistance throughout the past years!

In short, I think that this is a beautiful, unique, astonishing guitar (and it smells amazing, and the case even more so!). The tone is woody, throaty, roaring, growling, singing, depending on knob settings (amp, effects, etc.) and technique (I tend to strike robustly with a dime). And, as expensive as this guitar is, I think that on the whole it's worth it.

However, I do understand the point of view of the anti-relicing camp. When I first saw the Fender Custom Shop relics, I confess that my initial reaction was negative. That's changed now, but at the time I guess it was a default reaction to just the very idea of something taking cheap shortcuts, using surface appearance or fake theatrics, in order to pass itself off as something else (usually something of greater value).

That was a few years ago. In the intervening time I've grown to love the idea of, as well as the look of, reliced guitars. I even considered applying myself to learning how to perform the relicing process, just out of interest. But I gave the idea up after a while, realizing it'd be more of a time sink than I wanted to invest.

My point of view these days is that ordinary production-line instruments are the only natural guitars (ones that are completely unaffected in the sense of trying to be something they're not). If you want a true, natural, vintage guitar, then buy a perfectly regular, unassuming, off-the-shelf model today and then wait 60 years. That's natural. And that's the only thing that's natural.

Everything else is artificial to some greater or lesser degree. The moment you start going out of your way, doing unnatural acts, that's when things become artificial. Any reissue with a VOS (vintage original spec) is unnatural, by that standard. The parts and processes you'd use naturally are whatever modern parts and best practices you can afford, and/or are appropriate for the instrument's price point. But with a VOS, someone's gone out of their way to use parts and processes that they wouldn't otherwise use. So that's a new guitar pretending to be something it's not, already.

So, in the spirit of being hung for a sheep just as well as for a lamb, it seems to me that once you've gone off of the beaten, natural path, then you might as well just go the whole hog and relic that VOS instrument, too. In other words, not only pretend it's from 1959 by making it out of 1959 parts and processes; but pretend it's from 1959 by also making it look as beat up as it would be if it really were from 1959.

So that's where my head's at right now in terms of my attitude towards this kind of thing. I can see both sides of the argument. But I'm in the pro camp now. Back to the guitar.

The maple top's figuring is sublime; in terms of the way the striped grain morphs depending on viewing angle (the 3D effect), I'd say that it rivals and possibly exceeds the beauty of a Paul Reed Smith 10-top. My Les Paul is Dirty Lemon, although these Murphy Dirty Lemons are 'bursts (of a kind) because there's a lovely gradient, taking you from a bright golden honey lemon yellow in the middle out to more of a caramel color toward the binding.

My Les Paul is Light Aged, and the lacquer checking doesn't jump out at you unduly; it reveals its glory in the right light. And the checking is everywhere (except the fretboard). It runs right across the neck joint, for example, revealing how late it was done in the build. And it makes the back of the neck feel distinctly textured to the touch. Not enough to affect speed; in fact I'd hazard a guess that it'll be a little less prone to getting sticky than a regular perfectly smooth gloss neck. Anyway, the checking looks very natural (it's not natural; it just looks natural), and it's very pleasing to behold. I think my favorite place is the front of the simple, undecorated, black-painted headstock, where of course there's also the subtle chipping and paint flaking you find elsewhere on the body. Looking at that plain-but-beautiful vintage-design headstock, you could easily imagine you were looking at a 60 year old guitar.

This lacquer is reportedly the same formula as the nitrocellulose stuff used in the 50s. And that stuff was "imperfect and brittle", they admit. Which is a necessary quality for the checking technique (whatever that is, but you can be sure it's not done with a razor blade any longer). But it makes me wonder whether this artificial (to use my previous definition) finish will in fact start falling off at an accelerated rate. Time will tell. And, tbh, I doubt it.

In terms of weight, I'll compare it to two other guitars that are also homages to the 1959 LP. It's about the same weight as the Paul Reed Smith McCarty 594, and lighter than the Yamaha SG2000.

This is a near-perfect guitar, I'd say. The only two nits I'd pick (so far) are these. One, the bridge pickup cover is appropriate tarnished to simulate age, while the neck is completely pristine. So those look incongruous side by side. Two, I think that the cavities could have been shielded better. I don't know whether this guitar is shielded at all, since I haven't taken off any covers yet. But I am hearing a small amount of RF interference with the guitar pointed in a particular direction (in the direction of a cell tower, maybe). It goes away when I touch the strings/bridge/whatnot. So if there is shielding I'd guess it's that paint stuff, and not copper tape. The RF buzz is very mild, though, so I'm in two minds as to whether I'll feel like doing yet another proper shielding job. I've had to do it on the PRS and on two Strats, so cases like this (manufacturers selling insufficiently shielded guitars) aren't unusual, even for premium-priced guitars.