MusicRadar Verdict
There's a price to pay for the great style and excellent pickups, is it really worth it?
Pros
- +
General styling. Ace pickups.
Cons
- -
No gigbag or case. £279 more than the standard model.
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Garrett Dutton - aka G Love of Special Sauce fame - is all about laconic grooves, old-time tones and a bluesy-soul style. And now the lucky so-and-so has a smart new Gretsch to play it with.
Based on the Electromatic Series Corvette (£499), the G Love funks it up with a 'Phily-Green' paintjob - he's from Philadelphia, see - and competition stripe like those iconic cars and guitars of mid-1960s America.
It's well put together - including a decent fret job and set-up - and finished with a big, three-ply white pickguard.
Gretsch just loves hardware, but here things are kept functional with a licensed Bigsby wobble-bar, tune-o-matic-style bridge and useful knurled screw-in strap buttons for added security.
The interesting bit, however, is to do with magnets, bobbins and wire - say hello to TV Jones Power'Tron pickups…
In use
With a relatively thin mahogany body, mahogany neck and all of its 21 frets somewhere east of the cutaways the guitar returns that kind of direct, mid-prominent, woody bark that you might associate with a Gibson SG.
There's not much in the way of low-end bloom and the Bigsby brings an element of twang to the party. With lesser pickups, this could easily be a fairly spiky-sounding guitar, but the excellent TV Jones Power'Tron pickups are slightly warmer and hotter than, for example, the company's Classic and Classic Plus models.
As a result they give the G Love a quality core which is dynamic, responsive and deserving of top amplification.
Hints of LP Junior, hints of Tele and, with a big ol' tremolo and some wang bar, a whole heap of Gretsch - it sounds ace with light to medium gain - though it'll go heavier and darker too.
Summary
This tricked-up Corvette suits G Love's effortless cool just fine and the TV Jones pickups make sure it's not merely an exercise in aesthetics.
Yet £779 - bearing in mind the Chinese build and Electromatic status - may well leave you feeling equally cool around the wallet area. If you're tossing up between a Tele and a Les Paul or SG, you ought to try one.
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