'Pauls Apart

Two recent Les Paul launches from Gibson and Epiphone take a nod back to the 50s in style. But not only are they made on different continents, they're very different in price. Which is best? Let's find out

- Dave Burrluck

EPIPHONE JOE BONAMASSA 1955 LES PAUL STANDARD & GIBSON LES PAUL STANDARD 50s MAHOGANY TOP £799 & £2,399

CONTACT Gibson PHONE [phone] WEB www.gibson.​com

What You Need To Know

1 Unusual colours for Les Pauls.

The new Epiphone replicates a very rare Gibson colour that collector Joe Bonamassa spotted and confirmed was the real deal. And a TV Yellow all-mahogany Les Paul Standard? So wrong, it might just be right.

2 You can't seriously compare guitars at such different price points?

Normally, we wouldn't - but JoBo is quoted as saying this Epiphone repro sounds better than one of his real Copper Iridescent-coloured '55 LPs (while admitting it has old flat-wound strings on it!). We wondered, just how good is a new Epiphone compared to the real non-vintage Gibson?

3 If the Standard is all-mahogany, shouldn't it be a Custom?

The original Les Paul Custom was launched in 1954 and used an all-mahogany body with block inlays on an ebony (not rosewood) fingerboard. Our review model therefore is a cross between a Custom and a Standard and, not least in its TV Yellow finish, could be called a Les Paul Custard! Oh dear...

Choices, choices, choices: you want to buy a new Les Paul but which one? At the time of writing, and excluding Juniors and Specials, Gibson USA has quite a few and Epiphone has quite a few more, priced collectively from the low hundreds up to £4k. We'll leave the Custom Shop out of this discussion.