Gibson has unveiled its latest high-end Les Paul, an exacting Custom Shop recreation of Ed King’s famed “Red Eye” 1959 Les Paul Standard. The guitar is named after the bright red area of finish near its toggleswitch. It's an eye-catching example of Gibson’s famous ‘Burst era of Les Pauls and has been in the possession of six-time Grammy winner Jason Isbell since shortly after the Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist passed in 2018.
Given that the “Red Eye” model is a part of the company's very-top-of-the-line Collector’s Edition line of guitars, Gibson utilized 3D scanning and “ultra-precise Murphy Lab aging techniques,” to translate every fragment of wear, tear, and personality of the original into the copy. This is a limited run, with only 59 models being produced. Legend has it that the guitar had been displayed in a store window, causing the finish to fade.
However, the price-tag hung off the toggleswitch, obscuring a portion of the guitar’s body from sunlight. Consequently, that left much of the pigment behind it unblemished, resulting in the guitar’s dramatic ‘red eye’ visage. The bold red of the original finish also remains beneath the pickguard.
That’s a quirk that Gibson was eager to reproduce with these faithful replicas. It even went one step further by having Isbell, who was involved with “every step of the process,” hand-select the figured maple tops for the builds. The guitar even comes with its own history-honoring Gibson cost, with the co.