[Brian Baker]

I've always admired Paul's for their beauty and tone, but I must confess I have never owned one, nor will I likely ever. I've never liked they way they felt in my hands, the necks always felt like baseball bats compared to Strat's and Start' style guitars. Additionally, they are difficult to play in the upper registers due to the upper bout of the body and the neck heel. Lastly, have you ever stood on stage with one around your neck for any length of time? A condition that I call "sling palsy" eventually sets in.

When I was a senior in high school (1986), my then girlfriends stepfather had a 1953 Les Paul Gold Top with the trapeze bridge and P-90's. He hadn't had it out of his case in years...decades maybe. He let me take it home and give it some TLC, which it sorely needed. The fingerboard was filthy and dried out. Cleaned it up and douched it with lemon oil and it was as good as new. Body paint had the typical laquer cracking that they all get. I had to replace the pickup selector switch but after douching the pots with contact cleaner they perked up and the pickups still worked fine. Tuners were sloppy with age, but they weren't that great to start with in 1953.

The band I was in at the time was scheduled to play at our schools annual talent show. The afternoon before the show, we set up on stage in the auditorium to do a sound check, to which I played the Gold Top for the two song sound check. It wasn't as pretty as my one year old Carvin DC200-stereo (which was a double cutaway "Les Paul" style body with the same pickup/controls arrangement...only with a Kahler trem' bridge and a bookmatched body made from curly maple, which was clearcoated).....but it got way more attention from the other guitar heads that showed up for the soundcheck. One of the songs we did was Aerosmith's version of "Come Together" that they did on the Live Bootleg album...everyone loved it. I had it singing through a Fender Concert amp with a myriad of stomp pedals, none of which I can remember now save for the really old Morley wah/volume pedal I had (which I still have) that you had to plug into an electrical outlet. That was a memorable experience because of that Gold Top.

I gave it back to her stepdad and after the school year was up, we broke up and I never saw it again. I didn't care for its trapeze bridge as if you were heavy handed with your picking hand, it would move around on you and alter the tuning (like leaning too hard on a Floyd Rose - LOL). Ironically, my old girlfriend now resides just 3 blocks from me in her Grandmothers old house...she's married now with 3 kids. I wonder if her Stepdad is still alive and if he still has that '53 Gold Top?