Gibson Les Paul Music City Special - 50th Anniversary, Tobacco Burst

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Gibson Les Paul Music City Special - 50th Anniversary, Tobacco Burst

This is not your usual Les Paul recipe, and that's precisely the point. The Gibson Les Paul Music City Special – 50th Anniversary in Tobacco Burst digs into a slightly stranger corner of Gibson history, taking much of its inspiration from the 1970s Marauder, with a dash of Music City Jr. DNA thrown into the mix. The result is a limited-edition Gibson that looks familiar from across the room, then gets considerably more interesting the closer you get.

Created to commemorate 50 years of Gibson guitar production in Nashville, the Music City Special swaps the usual mahogany-and-maple Les Paul construction for a lightweight solid poplar body with comfortable contours. That gives the guitar its own personality while making it a very appealing option for players who love Gibson scale length and feel but wouldn't mind considerably less guitar hanging from the shoulder by the third set.

The Tobacco Burst finish is particularly handsome here. It's applied in proper gloss nitrocellulose lacquer, giving the guitar a distinctly Gibson finish while allowing the wonderfully stripped-back aesthetic to do its thing. A large black five-ply pickguard carries the pickups and controls, chrome hardware provides the contrast, and a special 50th Anniversary truss rod cover marks this out as something a little different.

The neck continues the deliberate departure from conventional Les Paul territory. It's maple, glued into the body and carved into Gibson's fast, comfortable SlimTaper profile. On top sits a rather lovely striped ebony fingerboard, with a traditional 12" radius, 22 medium-jumbo frets and simple acrylic dot markers.

You still get Gibson's familiar 24.75" scale length, so despite the unusual materials and stripped-back appearance, there's plenty of that familiar slinky Gibson feel beneath the fingers. A Graph Tech nut completes a very player-friendly neck specification.

Then we get to the pickups. Gibson has loaded the Music City Special with a pair of uncovered 70s Tribute humbuckers, giving the guitar a suitably muscular voice to match its Marauder-inspired attitude. There's enough warmth and weight for rock rhythm work, but also plenty of definition when you start piling on gain.

Controls are deliberately simple: Master Volume, Master Tone and a three-way toggle switch. That's your lot. No coil-split Sudoku, no four-knob control panel and no miniature switches requiring an owner's manual. Pick a pickup, set the volume, set the tone and get on with making noise.

A Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge and aluminium Stop Bar tailpiece provide the familiar Gibson foundation at the body end, while chrome Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners handle things up top. It's a clever mixture of classic Gibson hardware and less conventional construction.

There's another rather important detail: only 650 examples are being produced in each of the three available finishes. So while this isn't some delicate collector's ornament – it very clearly wants to be played – it is a genuinely limited commemorative Gibson.

A premium Gibson soft shell case and Gibson accessory kit are included too, meaning it's ready for rehearsals, gigs and the inevitable moment somebody spots it and asks, “Hang on… what Les Paul is that?”

At Musicmaker, that's exactly the sort of guitar we enjoy: recognisably Gibson, properly usable and just odd enough to start a conversation. Poplar body, maple neck, striped ebony board, 70s Tribute humbuckers and a Tobacco Burst nitro finish – the Les Paul family has invited its interesting cousin to the gig.