Gibson has partnered with singer/songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff on a signature acoustic guitar that might just be one of the finest looking vintage-inspired flat-tops of the year.
The design of the Nathaniel Rateliff LG-2 Western references two of Rateliff's favourite guitars in his collection – his 1967 Gibson Country Western and 1946 Gibson LG-2.
It has a compact body, with a top of solid Adirondack red spruce, solid mahogany on the back and sides, with a mahogany neck carved into a Historic V pattern. The neck joins the body with a compound dovetail joint that is set with hot hide glue.
The neck is topped with an Indian rosewood fingerboard, inlaid with MOP split parallelograms and seating 20 standard-sized frets. The soundboard is braced in a hand-scalloped X pattern, with its top protected by a teardrop shaped 'guard, while the bridge is a rectangular, closed-slot design.
Gibson says the guitar is designed to cover a range of styles. It has a 43.815mm bone nut, a 12" fingerboard radius and the time-honoured Gibson standard 24.75" scale length, and is equipped with a set of Gotoh Keystone tuners.
With an onboard LR Baggs VTC acoustic guitar pickup and preamp system, it is also ready for the stage, positioning the preamp's volume and tone controls discretely in the soundhole. Hard
The multi-ply binding on the body's top, with single-ply binding on the bottom and neck, gives it a typically luxurious look, and from the pictures and video above, that Vintage Sunburst looks mighty fine under that gloss nitrocellulose finish.
Priced £2,899 / $3,299, the the Nathaniel Rateliff LG-2 Western is available now, and ships in its own hardshell case. See Gibson for more details.
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