Members Purplexi Posted March 16, 2008 Members Share Posted March 16, 2008 What a great guitar album. I know that Martin Barre has said he used a Japanese Les Paul but for some reason he's hushed up about the maker. I mean hey, Orville weren't making guitars then right? The year was 1969/70 and there were already quite a few decent copies out there; "Aria" is one that I know of but not sure about others like Tokai, Burny, Edwards etc. Any fair guess welcome, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dimmypage Posted March 16, 2008 Members Share Posted March 16, 2008 My guess would be either Aria or Ibanez:confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mister Crow Posted March 16, 2008 Members Share Posted March 16, 2008 Man I love that album. Great guitar work. Some of those twin electric passages are Barre and Anderson, ol' Ian I've read did some electric work back then. I'm surprised to learn Barre was using a copy of a Gibson. I didn't think the Japanese knock-off stuff was very good in the late 60's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dimmypage Posted March 16, 2008 Members Share Posted March 16, 2008 Theres accounts of Hendrix playing/owning an Ibanez back in 68:eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Purplexi Posted March 16, 2008 Author Members Share Posted March 16, 2008 I think I've heard that too and there's a pic somewhere of Jimi with a Swedish Hagstrom as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dimmypage Posted March 16, 2008 Members Share Posted March 16, 2008 Didnt Robin Trower use Japanese Strats from the early 80s for a while too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Buck62 Posted March 16, 2008 Members Share Posted March 16, 2008 In 1969, Martin Barre was playing a LP Custom which he referred to as a "fake", but it was still a Gibson. He only called it that because it wasn't an original Gibson in his opinion. The reason was because it was a new 1969 model, but that was the year Norlin bought out Gibson, so many players referred to the new Norlin Gibson's as "fakes", just like when Fender was bought out by CBS instruments in 1965 and they weren't real Fenders made by Leo Fender anymore. Here's a picture of him with the guitar in question... Note the Hiwatt stack behind him, which verifies that this was the actual Les Paul in question, because that was the amp he was using during that time period. Here's some discussion on this at the Les Paul forums... http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1159737 Mister Crow is right about there not being any decent Japanese knock-offs at that time. They didn't start popping up until 1971, and the first one's weren't very good. It wasn't until 1973 that quality significantly improved on Japanese copies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Purplexi Posted March 16, 2008 Author Members Share Posted March 16, 2008 Good homework there Buck62 and it does indeed match the one on the Benefit album cover. I'd still like to know why he really called it a fake but this looks to be the closer, thanks! BTW Japanese Les Pauls often exceeded typical Gibson manufacturing, especially post Norlin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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