Les Paul's Black Beauty and Artistry In Guitars Auctions

The Associated Press
NEW YORK

The 1954 electric guitar that served as the prototype for Gibson's iconic Les Paul models is going on the auction block.

The Paul-designed guitar known as "Black Beauty" features gold-plated hardware. Paul made frequent modifications as he refined its sound over more than two decades of use.

Guernsey's Auctions is offering the guitar Feb. 19 in New York City. The auctioneer calls it the most significant electric guitar ever made. Its market value will be determined at auction.

The famous jazz, country and blues guitarist played it in concerts, recordings and on the "Les Paul and Mary Ford" television show. Paul, whose hits songs included "How High the Moon," died in 2009. He gave the instrument to his friend, guitar technician and builder Tom Doyle of Wantage, New Jersey.

In Les' own words, he wanted Gibson to build a guitar that was similar to the original Les Paul model, but this time in black, so it would match his tuxedo.

As you can see this is not a typical Les Paul Black Beauty. This one was customized to Les's specifications with Lo-Z pickups and special poteniometers and switches.

Another auction is taking place at Guernsey’s Auctions on April 2 and 3rd.

This is called Artistry in Guitar and features a collection of approximately 300 beautiful instruments.

This collection was assembled by one man over a period of four decades.

The auction will be held at New York City’s Bohemian National Center.

The instruments include 50 historic Martin guitars including an 1840’s Martin & Coupa, an OM-28, F-9, 00-45, D-28, D-45 and a very rare OM-45 Deluxe.

The Gibson line up includes Super 400’s, SJ-200’s, L-5’s, Nick Lucas models and a one of a kind Super 400 flattop. The auction includes a dozen D’Angelico guitars such as New Yorkers, Excels, a Special, a Style A and a mandolin.

The auction price list ranges from $244 to $366,000.

Lee Sklar's Bass Guitars

If you have listened to any Rock or Pop Music, you have heard Leland Sklar play bass. You just may not have known it was him that you were listening to.

Lee Sklar is an A-List Hollywood studio bass player and has been one since starting his career in the late 1960’s by playing on James Taylor’s recordings and concerts. He has played on more than 2000 albums and at 67 years old, he is still in demand.

Leland Sklar was the bassist on recordings of Linda Ronstadt, Hall and Oates, Jackson Browne, Phil Collins, Clint Black, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Hoyt Axton, Carol Bayer Sager, Roger McGuinn, Stephen Bishop, Bette Midler, Randy Neuman, Suzy Bogus, The Oak Ridge Boys, Sarah Brightman, Aaron Neville, Dolly Parton, Georgio Moroder, Bonny Riatt, Lee Retinour, Johnny Rivers, Dianna Ross, Helen Ready, the Doors, Barbara Streisand;...

...and the list goes on. And these are but a few of the performers for whom he has laid down the bass lines.

As you can see, he has been indeed a very prominent player. Additionally he has collaborated with film makers and television producers on soundtracks, such as Hill Street Blues, Knight Rider, Simon and Simon, Forest Gump, Kindergarten Cop, My Best Friend’s Wedding and many others.

Leland Sklar began playing piano at the age of four. When his instructor determined there were too many piano students, he asked Sklar if he would like to play string bass. He said yes to the bass and has never looked back.

Sklar went on to study music at California State University, Northridge and this is where he first met James Taylor. When they started playing music together they anticipated this would be a short-term gig. However when Taylor’s career took off with the song Fire and Rain (on which Sklar played bass) and Sklar became Taylor's go-to bass man.

Lee Sklar - Warwick Jonas Hellborg bass

With his foot-and-a-half-long gray beard, bassist Lee Sklar has been one of the most instantly recognizable musicians on stage or in videos for decade. His ability to play pop, rock, jazz, country and easy listening has made him one of the industry's first-call players. Besides who doesn't like a guy that looks like Gandalf.

At 68 years old, Sklar has no plans to slow down. He’s still recording and touring.

Sklar says his favorite bass is a hand-carved  1962 Fender Jazz Bass. He started his career using this Jazz Bass. He refers to it as a "total hippie bass" since he carved peace signs into the body. He was a huge Frank Zappa and the Mother’s of Invention fan, so he had Frank’s picture decoupaged onto the instruments back.

When he first started playing, he was using a little Univox amplifier that had a single 15” speaker.

I'm just taking a guess about his amp based on its age and speaker size

He stuck with the Jazz Bass and the Univox amplifier combination for the first few years of his career.

In 1973 Sklar had a bass build for him by John Carruthers. Sklar acquired a Precision Bass neck, but did not have a body for the instrument. Carruthers made a template by using the 1962 Jazz Bass body and then reshaped the neck to fit onto it.

Sklar also says that he ran across some nice Charvel bodies made out of alder. To choose which body he wanted, he hung wires on them and tapped them, much like a violin maker does. He eventually found one that resonated nicely, so he had Carruthers build another bass.

This one had a first generation EMG pickup on it. (which has apparently been removed) He has two sets of Precision pickups and placed them on the bass where the Jazz Bass pickups would normally set. The frets were stripped off of the neck and then replaced with mandolin fret wire, which is extremely thin. Sklar says this turned out nicely and this has been his go to bass since 1983.

Sklar also had owned a double neck bass that was made for him sometime in the 1970’s by Steve Helgeson. The upper neck is a piccolo bass and the lower neck is a standard bass. The body was made from a single block of burled Birdseye maple.


The lower fret board is made of ebony and the upper made of rosewood. The lower neck is inlaid with mother of pearl and the upper is inlaid with abalone.

The creator, Mr. Helgeson, is a falconer and this inspired him to create this instrument which is known as The Eagle Bass, which is also a remarkable sculpture. Sklar says the bird head-stocks are removable. They are in the shape of eagle heads and are hand carved by Helgeson out of walnut wood.

The eyes in the heads are made of Mexican fire opals with LEDs behind them and they light up.

Sklar’s only regret about this bass is its weight. He says it is very heavy. He had to have a special case constructed for it. But the bulk of carrying it around is too much of an effort. Sklar loves it is a beautiful instrument and he loaned it to the Boston Hard Rock Café. It has since been moved to the Hard Rock Café in Tampa, Florida. They have since purchased the bass from Sklar.

Gibson manufactured the Leland Sklar Signature Bass for only 1 year; 1997-1998. The bass was designed by Mike McGuire and the Gibson Custom Division. It resembled a Fender bass with its double cutaway solid body. It came with a bolt-on 21 fret neck with a rosewood fretboard.

The headstock had 4 on a side tuners with unusual beveling. The bass scale was 34”. The hardware was chrome plated. The 3 controls were volume blend and tone. The bass had two EMG split coil – P-Bass style pickups. The bass comes with a Hip Shot extender that allows the low E to be dropped to D with a flip of a switch.

Leland Sklar Dingwall Bass

Dingwall Basses asked him if they could build a signature model for him. This became his main touring bass. He used it with Phil Collins, Lyle Lovett and the James Taylor/Carole King reunion tour. The Dingwall is a five string bass with fan frets.

Around 2010 Warwick Bass Company contacted him and asked if he would endorse their products. The following year he showed up at the Frankfurt Musikmesse Show, demonstrating the Warwick Star Bass II.

They have produced several models for Lee including a fretted bass, a fretless bass, a double neck bass and an eight string bass. Sklar compares it playing a Hofner, but says that it is easier to play.

Leland Sklar does not utilize many effects. He likes his Boss OC-2 Octave Divider. He says he also has an older TC chorus-flanger pedal. For session work, Leland Sklar claims that most performers want a clean bass sound for their recordings.

He no longer uses his Univox amp. Instead he uses a high-end amplifier made by a New Jersey company called Euphonic Audio.

He claims their amps produce a very big and clean sound.

When asked about any advice he could give to players he says that when playing gigs, especially in places with big PA systems, do not play loud. Let the house guy mix you. You are going to get a better and more balanced sound every time.

Keith Richard's Guitars

Keith Richard is now 69 years old and no longer a young man. His fingers are swollen with arthritis and even he admits he is not the same player he was in his youthful days.

Years of alcohol and drug abuse have not helped his aging process. But this does not discount the fact of Keith’s accomplishments.

1965 Shindig Show

When the Rolling Stones first hit the scene in the mid 1960’s, Richards was a mere adolescent. The original core of the band was based on the members love for Blues Music. In fact I recall that when the band played on an old TV show called Shindig, they demanded that Muddy Waters be on the show with them or they would not play.

The Stones admired these old Blues-men and recorded their songs.

It was Brian Jones that put the group together. In the early days, he determined their musical path. Sadly he was fired from the group and tragically died soon afterward.

I remember seeing the Rolling Stones on several old television shows including Ed Sullivan, Shindig and Hullabaloo. Back in those early days Keith can be seen playing some very different guitars which included Epiphones.



Like other British Invasion bands their choice of instruments was based on the availability in the UK. In those years following World War II the tariffs on imported products, including guitars was very high.

The earliest photos I recall show Keith playing a Harmony single cutaway model and a Framus guitar.

After the Rolling Stone garnered some fame, Keith can also be seen on a TV show picture playing a 1959 Gibson Les Paul with a Bigsby Vibrato.



Those days are long gone and it is rumored that Keith Richards has amassed a collection of nearly 3,000 instruments.

Pierre De Beauport

Out of these the ones that he uses for concerts and recording include the following. These guitars are described by his guitar technician Pierre De Beauport.

Micawber is named after a Charles Dickens character. This is a 1953 blonde Fender Telecaster and a very unique guitar. Keith has it set up with only five strings. He tunes this guitar to G-B-D-B-D (low to high) and never uses a capo on it.

The guitar bares a lot of battle scars. You can see the plastic Tele selector switch cap has been replace with a plastic cap off of a Stratocaster.

This guitar sports a full sized humbucker in the neck position that has the pole pieces away from the neck. The bridge pickup is a Tele pickup with the pole piece removed that would go under the sixth string. The bridge plate and saddle appear to be made of brass. There are only five bridge saddles on Keith’s guitar. However there are six tuning pegs and they do not look like the original Klusons. The neck is maple.

Keith usually plays only the top five strings. Ernie Ball has even made a special Keith Richards string set that is .011 to .042 guage nickel wound strings, that contains an unwound 3rd string.

His back-up Telecaster is named Malcolm. It is a1954 model that is set up in a similar manner to Keith number one go-to guitar. This guitar is also kept in open G tuning.

Keith also plays a 1966 sunburst Fender Telecaster that he has named Sonny, because of its sunburst finish. This guitar is set up in the same manner as the others and is likewise kept in open G tuning.

Keith also owns and plays a 1957 double cutaway Les Paul TV model, that of course came with the original butterscotch finish (to show up on black and white TV and not cause the glare associated with a white guitar). It has a single bridge PAF pickup and is kept in standard tuning, but is capo’d at the 7th fret.

Keith’s 1964 white stereo Gibson ES-345 and is called Dwight. The story goes that Keith also had a black Gibson ES-355 and his guitar tech referred to this guitar as “the white one”, which got run together as “d’white one” or Dwight One which got shortened to Dwight. It is kept in standard tuning and uses all six strings. It has a Bigsby vibrato unit.

The 1959 ES-355 does not have a name. It also has a Bigsby vibrato and is kept in standard tuning. It is a monaural guitar. It is black, but based on another photograph it may have been red at one time.

Keith also owns and plays a black 1975 Telecaster Custom with the original Fender humbucker in the neck position and the stock Telecaster bridge pickup. This is the model with volume and tone controls for each pickup and a bullet truss rod.

Keith also owns and plays a gorgeous 1957 Mary Kay blonde Stratocaster with gold hardware. This guitar is kept in standard tuning.

Keith had an original Zemaitis guitar that was stolen in the late 1970’s. He has since replaced this with a new Zemaitis guitar that has one humbucker in the bridge position.

The guitar appears to have a mahogany body and has mother-of-pearl inlays of a pistol and dagger, a skull and a mask (cannot tell if it is Batman or the mask of comedy). The bridge has inlays on either side that look sort of like an old fashion mustache.

The original Zemaitis had skull and cross-bone designs engraved on it. The original Zemaitis came with the usual engrave metal body covering.

Keith was also given a newer model Ampeg Lucite guitar by Ted Kornblum. Ted was the president of St. Louis Music. His company owned the Ampeg name and built and marketed new Ampeg amplifiers.

Going back to 1966, Keith owned four black Les Paul Custom guitars, often known as Black Beauties. These were the 3 pickup models. The first was stolen in 1967. He went out and bought another at a London Music shop. He and girlfriend Anita Pallenberg painted that one. It is now owned by a U.K. collector.

He bought two more Les Paul Customs in 1969 for a Stones tour. He kept one in standard tuning and the other in G tuning for Jumpin' Jack Flash. These were both stolen in 1971.

He also owned some Gibson Hummingbird guitars. He played these at home or in hotel rooms on tour. These were songwriting guitars.

Keith travels with two acoustic guitars. One is a 1964 Martin that appears to be a 00-21s with a spruce top and rosewood back and sides. It has a slotted headstock, with the neck joining the body at the 12th fret.

The other is a custom made 2006 Guild ten string guitar that is fitted with what appears to be a Fishman sound hole pickup.

Keith prefers vintage Fender Twin amplifiers. In fact he owns and plays through one of the original Twins that has the serial number 00003. He plays through two Twins at a time. He also uses an old Oahu amplifier.

As an interesting side-note Keith created the sound heard on Street Fighting Man and Jumpin’ Jack Flash by putting down successive layer of acoustic guitar filtered through a portable cassette tape player.

Here is Keith playing a Music Man guitar.