Gibson and Epiphone are proud to be the exclusive provider of guitars for The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus. Here is a list of the guitars used on the bus.
Epiphone John Lennon “Revolution” Casino
John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney each purchased a sunburst Casino like our exact replica of John's, the John Lennon “1965” Casino, with all the original appointments and hardware, playing them on tour and on many of their most famous recordings. Later, John stripped the finish on his, changed the tuners and made music history with his newly customized guitar — an incarnation we have replicated with the John Lennon “Revolution” Casino. It's just like John's guitar in every way, right down to the marks from the original tuners! A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each will be donated to The BMI Foundation, Inc. for the John Lennon Scholarship Fund, which supports music education.
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Gibson John Lennon J-160E Peace Acoustic Guitar
John Lennon couldn’t quite afford his first Gibson J-160E in 1962, so he pressed Beatles manager Brian Epstein to co-sign for the guitar’s purchase. Epstein obliged and ended up purchasing not just Lennon’s guitar, but one for George Harrison, as well. Both guitars ended up making rock and roll history with the Beatles, appearing on countless studio recordings, movies and live performances. The Gibson John Lennon J-160E Peace guitar—produced in cooperation with Yoko Ono—is a painstaking recreation of Lennon’s beloved instrument as it was in 1969, after he stripped away the psychedelic paint job he commissioned in 1967, and before he doodled caricatures of himself and Ono on the guitar’s body during their famous 1969 “Bed-In” protests against the Vietnam War. Today’s John Lennon J-160E Peace model features the same round shoulder body design, with a Sitka spruce plywood top and mahogany back and sides, producing a full-sounding, balanced tone with warm, rich lows and crisp, presence-laden highs.
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Gibson 2008 Les Paul Standard
Played by everyone from Jimmy Page to Eric Clapton to Slash, the Gibson Les Paul Standard is the most famous electric guitar in the world. Gibson USA's 2008 Les Paul Standard is an elegant revision of a true classic, with upgrades and new features that make it quite possibly the best Les Paul Standard ever produced.
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Gibson SG Zoot Suit
The Gibson SG is a landmark guitar in the history of rock and roll. Pete Townshend, Angus Young and Tony Iommi are but a few of the six-string giants who have made the SG their weapon of choice. The Gibson SG Zoot Suit is a colorful, eye-grabbing take on this classic model. With a well-balanced birch body and neck and supple ebony fingerboard, the SG Zoot Suit delivers unparalleled clarity and bite to every note and chord.
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Gibson Les Paul Florentine with Bigsby
This 2009 Limited Run Series guitar from Gibson USA combines the classic appointments of the iconic Les Paul with a few of Gibson’s other guitars’ most functional attributes. First and foremost, the standard Les Paul cutaway gives way to the wider Florentine Cutaway. Normally found on such historic Gibson models as the Byrdland, the ES-175 and the ES-295, the Florentine Cutaway design comfortably enhances a player’s reach to the higher register of notes. Second, and most prominent, is the addition of the chrome Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, which allows players the ability to bend the pitch of notes or entire chords for vintage-style vibrato. The result is a one-of-a-kind variation of the world’s greatest electric guitar.
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Gibson Dusk Tiger
The Next Generation of Robot Technologies, the Gibson Dusk Tiger represents the state of the art in electric guitars, redefining what the guitar can do with the integration of pioneering technology with the most advanced design in the industry. With a tonal flexibility that is unmatched by any other, the Dusk Tiger offers an ultra-low-noise, programmable on-board multiband EQ, easily controlled by flexible editing software. All the tones and the 18 user-programmable alternate tunings are easily accessible through a streamlined, stage-friendly interface, designed for ease of use and inspired by intensive focus groups with leading guitarists. The Dusk Tiger reflects Gibson’s commitment to stretching the boundaries of the electric guitar, while honoring the elements that make classic guitars so desirable in the first place, bringing you simply the most astonishing innovation in the history of the guitar.
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Epiphone Viola Bass
This veteran from the British Invasion is back without the vintage price tag! Mod looks and a warm, bass tone come together in this hollow, laminated, maple body. With a short-scale 30” maple neck, elegant Flame Maple top and dual bass Mini-Humbucking pickups, the Epiphone Viola Bass has the sound and durability to withstand gigging eight days a week! More info...
Gibson SG Standard Bass
During the height of Gibson’s original “Golden Era,” the company’s only bass guitar at the time — the EB0 — underwent the same radical transformation as the Les Paul, which were being redesigned as the now-classic SG. It was a bold move that paid off, and brought Gibson basses to the forefront of the ‘60s music scene. Today’s SG Standard Bass recreates the classic, dual-pickup version, staying true to the design and specs of the original, including the popular 30.5-inch scale length.
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Gibson Tobias Growler
Tobias basses have enjoyed a stellar reputation ever since the first one was built in early 1978. Thirty-plus years and countless instruments later, the quality and precision of a Tobias bass has only gotten better, and nowhere is it more evident than the 2009 Limited Run Series Tobias Growler from Gibson USA. With its sonorous swamp ash body and revolutionary Plek system setup — a computerized setup that accurately aligns each fret and intonates each string, leaving the bass as impeccably playable as possible — the new Tobias Growler is one of the most resonant basses ever made by Gibson USA.
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Gibson J-45 Standard Acoustic Guitar
First introduced in 1942 and nicknamed “The Workhorse,” Gibson’s most popular acoustic is renowned for its full, balanced expression, warm bass, and excellent projection. This non-ornate, slope-shouldered dreadnought has been the standard for acoustic guitar excellence among artists in country, blues, rock and roll, bluegrass, and every genre in between for nearly 70 years.
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Gibson Blues King Acoustic Guitar
The Gibson Blues King merges the traditional small body, L-series design from the early 1900s with a slightly shallower body depth and several new Gibson Modern Classic features to meet the uncompromising standards of today’s artists. Gibson’s L-series flat-tops have long been a favorite among blues and roots guitarists, and the new Blues King ensures the inspiration of a new generation of artists.
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Epiphone MM-50 Mandolin
Lloyd Loar's 1922 F-5 is reborn. The Epiphone MM-50 is accurate in every detail to its historic ancestor, featuring a solid spruce top, figured maple back and sides, multi-bound pickguard and nickel hardware. Even the fingerboard size, shape, scale and support are all dead-on correct. Step back in time and play a fretted masterpiece.
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Epiphone DR-500M Masterbilt Acoustic Guitar
Epiphone revives the prestige of its 1930s guitars with the Masterbilt Acoustic Series. These flat-top guitars feature solid wood construction — with premium-grade, solid mahogany back and sides, matched with a solid Sitka spruce top — and a distinctive 1930s-style "offset notch" peg head shape, with the historic Epiphone script logo and mother-of-pearl "stickpin" inlay. The DR-500M is, quite simply, the quintessential flat-top guitar.
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