Monday August 4th, 2003

Gibson Custom introduces Johnny A. Signature guitar

Gibson's Custom, Art & Historic division has created an innovative new hollowbody guitar in collaboration with the Boston-based virtuoso Johnny A. The new Gibson Johnny A. Signature model has a highly individual, double-cutaway body style along with a healthy dose of vintage vibe.

"The Custom Shop team worked extremely hard in trying to help me realize my dream for the perfect guitar - an instrument that would celebrate 'The Golden Years' of Gibson's best tone, playability and styling coupled with features for today's demanding guitarists," says Johnny A. "I truly believe we've created the 'modern classic.'"

Although the figured maple top and outer back of the guitar are contoured, the interior back is flat. As a result, the completely hollow body of the guitar resonates more like a flattop than a traditional archtop or semi-hollowbody instrument. "This guitar is a cannon acoustically and, plugged in, it has a really sweet natural compression," says A.

Other appointments of the Johnny A. Signature guitar include custom-designed mother-of-pearl inlays on the ebony fingerboard and headstock, an engraved "Johnny A." truss rod cover, and gold hardware. The Johnny A. model will be available with either a Bigsby vibrola or traditional stopbar tailpiece and comes in a new finish, Sunset Glow.

Johnny A. played with J. Geils frontman Peter Wolf for six years, as well as artists including Bobby Whitlock and Mingo Lewis. His instrumental guitar project, sometime tuesday morning was released in 1999 on Aglaophone records and received critical acclaim. It has since been re-released on Steve Vai's Favored Nations label. His new CD will be released in early '04 featuring his signature guitar.

For more information about the Gibson Custom Johnny A. Signature model go here, call Gibson Customer Service anytime at 1-800-4GIBSON or send us an email.