Gibson honours Jeff Beck with YardBurst 1959 Les Paul Standard

(Image credit: Gibson)

Gibson is commemorating the late Jeff Beck with a limited run of 130 YardBurst 1959 Les Paul Standard models from the Custom Shop.

The Gibson Gazette reports that the $9,999/£8,999 model aims to be a "faithful recreation" of the '59 Burst Beck as it was when he used it with the Yardbirds before his own Jeff Beck Group and follows the 2009 signature Les Paul based on Beck's 1954 'Oxblood' model.

“Jeff was enormously proud to have owned the original of this guitar,” says his widow Sandra Beck. “He was aware and fully supportive of the amazing job and love that Gibson Custom provided to create this instrument and would have hoped that this guitar will give hours of pleasure to those who play it.”

The recreated Jeff Beck YardBurst 1959 Les Paul Standard has a significant attraction for those usually put off by the single cut's usual heft; it's made from one-piece 'lightweight' mahogany. The Dark Cherry Sunburst finish has been aged in the Murphy Lab to match the appearance of the original guitar's during Jeff’s Yardbirds era (it was later stripped) with a black single-ply pickguard and unpotted Custombuckers featuring double Classic White bobbins.

Each guitar was built in Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville, Tennessee and comes with an aged Lifton hardshell case and "special memorabilia" covering Beck’s career.

Beck's original '59 Burst was famously purchased from a pre-Cheap Trick Rick Nielsen (then a guitar dealer) but allegedly stolen following a chaotic 1969 gig with the Jeff Beck Group in Ellenville, New York, featuring Rod Stewart on vocals. Its reappearance on the market decades later was then the source of controversy over its sale and ownership.

“You know, I sold Jeff Beck the second Les Paul he ever owned not long after on 4 June 1968," Neilsen told MusicRadar in 2017. "I’m not kidding one fucking bit! It was a ’59 that had a Bigsby on it… If you look close, you can see where it used to be. I traded a Gibson SG and $25 for it. I have pictures of me with him, Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan 10 years after selling him that guitar.”