50 Years of Gibson Les Paul

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A wonderful book - informative and great pictures - Rated
This is a great book to have if you love the Les Paul. It's really that simple, although for the serious collector or afficionado, more information about dates & numbers would be good. As that doesn't apply to me, and the book delivers elsewhere, five stars, no question.

50 Years of Gibson Les Paul: A Half-Century of a Guitar Icon - Rated
Having read the only other review of this book I can only think that it was either written by the publishers or Tony Bacon himself. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad book but it does not live up to that previous review by a long way! Quote from previous review;
'This tome covers pretty much every miniscule detail of Gibson Les Paul guitar production over the last fifty years'. Oh no it does not! When I read something like that I expect to see lots of technical details and pictures covering, pickups, tuners, control cavities and all the stuff anoraks like me are looking for. There is nothing like that sort of detail here. What there is is some reasonable pictures and well written text covering the history and very basic development of the guitar along with most of the Gibson employee's concerned. The book only covers up to 2002 and does not cover any of the later released models. The reference section at the back of the book is quite informative but hardly an encyclopedia on Les Paul's.

Now what I find most annoying was comparing it to another book in my collection, 'The Gibson Les Paul Book' by Tony Bacon & Paul Day, published in 1993 by Balafon Books. It has a picture of a 57 Goldtop body on the front cover with a Les Paul neck beneath it. It's one of those A5 sized books in a series that included Martin, Gretsch and Fender titles and probably some others. Comparing these two books I realised that they were pretty much the same book, virtually the same text and most of the same pictures but no mention of Paul Day having contributed to the new edition. In fact in the new book it does not even mention the previous edition which I have to say is a little dishonest if you ask me.

The best book so far about the best guitar so far - Rated
From the glossy front cover this book looks inviting to any potential guitar fans. This tome covers pretty much every miniscule detail of Gibson Les Paul guitar production over the last fifty years, without becoming boring and laden with technical jargon.

In fact, not only does "50 Years..." cover all aspects of its main subject, but it also contains additional information on the Gibson company, its staff, their advertising and celebrity users of their guitars.

The exhaustive text is augmented beautifully with some of the finest pictures of the guitars I have seen in any book and all in all, it should most definitely be placed on the reading lists of those who own or who aspire to own a Gibson Les Paul.