MADE IN THE SHADE

The Gibson Custom Shop created just 59 examples of the Jason Isbell "Red Eye" 1959 Les Paul Standard. We got our hands on one of them.

- DAVE HUNTER

A DETAIL-PERFECT clone of a 1959 Gibson Les Paul is sure to set players’ and collectors’ hearts aflutter. So when the Gibson Custom Shop and Murphy Lab apply their skills to re-creating a legendary ’Burst from that same year, you can bet it will result in off-the-chart excitement.

The guitar in question is Red Eye, the ’59 Burst formerly owned by the late Ed King of Lynyrd Skynyrd, which now resides in the collection of Jason Isbell. While music’s best and brightest tend to excel in one or two directions, Isbell does it all. Not only is the six-time Grammy Award winner a top-flight solo artist, band member, session guitarist and vocalist, he’s also the rare singersongwriter who is deeply obsessed with vintage guitars and knows how to suss the very best out of them.

“Joe Walsh told Billy Gibbons that that’s the best guitar in the world,” Isbell relayed in a conversation with me shortly after he landed Red Eye in 2018. And if the Walsh-toGibbons pedigree isn’t enough to stamp the seal of approval on a vintage ’Burst, then maybe nothing is.

While King owned some fine guitars, Red Eye is the finest, and perhaps most distinctive looking, of them all. The guitar gets its name from the red finish patch on its upper left shoulder around the lower half of the pickup selector poker chip. It acquired the mark years ago when the instrument stood on display in a guitar shop window: A hang tag attached to the pickup toggle blocked the sun’s rays, keeping the finish beneath it bright, even while the rest of the sunburst faded to a russet brown.