Gibson Les Paul (’53 conv. to ’58-’60)

The ex-Townshend, ex-Marr Sunburst Les Paul (Photo: That Pedal Show)
Model: Gibson Les Paul
Color: Cherry Sunburst
Year: 1953 (no serial number is present)1
Used in...

- 1994-1995

- Noel's main live guitar between March and April 1994

- subsequently played live in 1995

- used during the Definitely Maybe recording sessions

- featured in the videos of Live Forever, Supersonic (US Version), Whatever and Some Might Say
Details

The iconic Sunburst Gibson Les Paul has quite a bit of background.

The guitar started life as a 1953 Goldtop, with a trapeze or wrap-around tailpiece and P90 pickups: at a later date it was converted to the coveted 1958-1960 "Burst" specs. This means that it was stripped of the Gold paint and repainted in Cherry Sunburst, the tailpiece was replaced with a stopbar, a tune-o-matic bridge was added and the pickup cavities were rerouted to make space to two full-size humbuckers. This seems almost a sacrilege now, but it happened a lot with early Les Pauls.

The bridge humbucker is uncovered with cream bobbins and the guitar bears no serial number. It also has a unusually thin neck, a feature that Noel loves on electric guitars.2

This Les Paul was once owned by Pete Townshend, The Who's guitarist - made infamous also by the countless number of broken guitars!
Then, possibly in 1985, Johnny Marr bought it - among other guitars - from Townshend's guitar tech Alan Rogan. It was one of Johnny's main live guitars in 1986, during the gigs of The Queen is Dead tour.3

According to Johnny, he used it to write and record The Smiths songs Panic, London and Sweet and Tender Hooligan.4
In late May 1993, Noel met his guitar hero Johnny Marr. The former Smiths guitarist immediately showed interest in Oasis and watched a few of their early live gigs. When they were about to record Definitely Maybe at Monnow Valley, he sent a few of his guitars to the studio.
Among them were the legendary The Smiths Rickenbacker, a 1980 Gibson Flying V and this very Les Paul:5

“I opened the other case, which contained the Les Paul: it was a moment not unlike Vincent Vega opening Marsellus Wallace's briefcase in Pulp Fiction... Having never actually seen a real [Gibson] Les Paul before, I kinda stared at it for ages. I remember making a cup of tea, taking it to my room upstairs and taking it out of the case. I literally wrote Slide Away in about twenty minutes. It was a pretty freakishly magic moment. One I'll never forget.”

So, Slide Away was written on this guitar one night in January 1994 - and Noel credits the Les Paul for the inspiration:6

"The first thing that I've played in the bedroom was what became Slide Away. […] Not the words obviously, but the entire kind of structure of it. […] I’m one of those people who thinks that there’s music inside of these things: Slide Away was in there."
Noel instantly fell in love with Johnny's Les Paul. Not only it was used throughout the recording sessions of Definitely Maybe at Monnow Valley and at Sawmills studios: it also replaced the Epiphone Les Paul as Noel's live guitar since March 1994.

"So I’m like… I fall in love with this guitar, and I love the way it looked… so he [Johnny Marr] said ‘You can have it’. […] He wrote Panic on this guitar. This is a Smiths guitar. And at that point I was like: ‘He fu**ing ain’t getting that back’ […] It’s the best looking Les Paul I think I’ve ever seen. […] There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t give thanks and praise to Johnny for giving me this guitar. I used it on all of the Definitely Maybe recordings, and I used it for years."7

The first recorded appearance of the Sunburst Gibson Les Paul coincides with Oasis's TV debut on 18 March 1994: a live performance of their first single Supersonic, filmed at Teddington Studios for Channel 4's late-night entertainment show 'The Word'.8

By the way, Johnny never had his guitar back:9

"I got it from Pete Townshend… So I thought, I’ll lend him that, it’s all right. […] I said to him: ‘You can borrow this guitar for a bit till you get some money’. Anyway, he fell in love with that guitar and I really didn’t have the heart to ask for it back!"
On 9 August 1994, during a gig at The Riverside in Newcastle, the Les Paul was damaged:10

"We were about thirty minutes into a gig in Newcastle when some lad got up onto the stage and started a minor fracas that turned into a brawl. During the ensuing chaos, he might have got himself clattered on the head with what has now become a very famous guitar! He should be very proud. I'm not exactly sure how, but the Sunburst Les Paul got damaged at that gig in Newcastle... clearly, it wasn't designed to be wielded like an axe!"

The amount of damage is unknown, but it was severe enough to require a delicate repair. Noel had it fixed in New York (probably in October 1994), where he uncovered some interesting tidbits about the guitar's past:11

"Something got damaged and I took it to a guitar shop in New York, and they had to take the neck off. When I went back to pick it up one of the guys said: ‘Where did you get that guitar? The neck doesn’t belong to the body’. And I was like, thinking… Townshend smashed it up probably, d'you know what I mean? It's a Frankenstein of a guitar!"
After the Newcastle gig, Johnny Marr gave Noel another Les Paul as a temporary replacement for the damaged Sunburst: it was the black 1978 Les Paul Custom that was used on The Queen is Dead.
Needless to say, Noel ended up keeping that one too!

The Sunburst reappared - repaired! - at the Whatever video shoot on 5 December 1994: it can be seen in the background right in front of the amps, alongside other Oasis guitars including Noel's Antique Sunburst Riviera, the Firebird, and the Hofner.12

It had also appeared in other videos before: most famously, Live Forever (filmed in New York on 24 July 1994) and the US version of Supersonic (filmed in California in October 1994).13

There is a peculiar easter egg on the sleeve of the Some Might Say single: a couple of shots of the Les Paul can be seen covering the windows of Cromford Station. The sleeve photo and the guitar pictures were taken by Michael Spencer Jones.14
The last live appearance of the Sunburst Les Paul was on 22 December 1995, when Oasis recorded five songs for the New Year Special of Channel 4's 'The White Room': Noel played it for Round Are Way.15 His main guitar at the time was the Wine Red Matsumoku Riviera.

The guitar reappeared after almost two decades at the Chasing the Sun exhibitions in Tokyo, London and Manchester between 2014 and 2016, where it was put on display together with Noel's and Bonehead's Antique Sunburst Matsumoku Rivieras.

In 2023, Noel played it during the episode of 'The Pedal Show' featuring him and his gear. The interview is a goldmine of information for this website: check it out if you haven't already (the link is in the footnotes).

Many detailed pictures of the Les Paul, taken by the amazing Pat Graham, can be found in Johnny Marr's book 'Marr's Guitars' - also released in 2023.

DISCLAIMER
This is a fansite. It is not affiliated with Noel Gallagher, his management or his record label.
For informational and non-commercial use only. Please do NOT publish this content elsewhere.
Visit the “Info & About” page for contact details and more.

go back to the main guitars
GO BACK TO THE COMPLETE lIST
  1. Marr’s Guitars – Johnny Marr, 2023 ↩︎
  2. That Pedal Show, 2023 ↩︎
  3. http://www.smithsonguitar.com/2008/12/johnny-marrs-gear.html ↩︎
  4. Marr’s Guitars – Johnny Marr, 2023 ↩︎
  5. Marr’s Guitars – Johnny Marr, 2023 ↩︎
  6. That Pedal Show, 2023 ↩︎
  7. That Pedal Show, 2023 ↩︎
  8. http://www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk/?page_id=455 ↩︎
  9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkW1QsSIqGQ ↩︎
  10. Marr’s Guitars – Johnny Marr, 2023 ↩︎
  11. That Pedal Show, 2023 ↩︎
  12. Oasis: A Year on the Road – Paul Slattery, 2008 ↩︎
  13. https://www.oasis-timeline.com/#/timeline ↩︎
  14. https://www.michaelspencerjones.com/ ↩︎
  15. http://www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk/?page_id=455 ↩︎

Leave a comment