McCartney's early solo gear

shamustwin · Post by **shamustwin** » Thu May 04, 2006 7:55 am

Pittsburgh Guitars claims to have sold him a lefty LP.

teeder · Post by **teeder** » Thu May 04, 2006 9:05 am

The plot thickens!

atomic_punk · Post by **atomic_punk** » Thu May 04, 2006 9:56 am

Confirmation from Guitar Player, July 1990, interview with Paul McCartney.

John Hammel on Paul's Guitars
John Hammel has worked with Paul McCartney for the past 15 years. Here he takes us backstage to rummage through Paul's touring equipment.

"Paul's main stage guitar is a cherry sunburst 1960 Gibson Les Paul that we got from Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick. Paul loves it. What's great about it is that it has the type of neck that they quit using when they brought out the SG-type Les Pauls. It has a great feel. For a backup electric, he has a left-handed '57 goldtop Les Paul. It's quite rare. We got it from the Left-Hand Guitar Shop.
"His main acoustic is a black Alvarez, which Carl Perkins got for him. The guitar had a right-handed neck, and the dots were on the side facing away from Paul. Someone from Alvarez found out Paul was using one of their guitars, so they made two for the tour with the dots on the proper side. The second one is tuned down a whole-step for "Yesterday." The Alvarez doesn't have a soundhole, and it has a pickup built into the bridge. It has bass, treble, midrange, and master volume controls. You can turn it flat out, and there's no feedback. So for live work, my prayers are answered.
"The acoustic goes into an amp, and then the signal's sent to the P.A. If anything went wrong with the amp, it would still come out front and through Paul's monitors.

bee_atles · Post by **bee_atles** » Thu May 04, 2006 12:55 pm

Cool article Steve. But it's too bad they only talked about the gear McCartney was using live in that period. It isn't very helpful on stuff he used in his early solo career. But I guess it answers some questions about his Les Pauls. Kudos.

simer4001 · Post by **simer4001** » Thu May 04, 2006 1:08 pm

Steve, that sounds like John's comments were from the 89/90 tour. I don't think he's played that Alvarez since that tour.

simer4001 · Post by **simer4001** » Sat May 06, 2006 6:55 am

Steve, See how well I pay attention. Thanks for the Guitar Player reference. I really need to stop reading these so quickly when I'm at the office.

Paul, I believe says in that same issue that his Epiphone Casino is his favorite electric, but that it is too hot to play live.

revolver323 · Post by **revolver323** » Sat May 06, 2006 1:33 pm

Pittsburgh Guitars claims to have sold him a lefty LP. --

That's true, Jerry. Here's a picture of Carl from the Pgh Guitars website:

skeeterbuck · Post by **skeeterbuck** » Sun May 07, 2006 5:53 am

Posted on Wednesday, May 03, 2006 - 01:56 pm:

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There's a picture inside the Ram album of him playing a non-reverse Gibson Firebird. I forget which model. P90's of course.

It's a non-reverse Firebird VII in Pelham Blue w/gold hardware and 3 mini-humbucking pickups...not p-90's!

jayfbv · Post by **jayfbv** » Tue May 09, 2006 8:49 am

Is there a clean picture of it anywhere? The one in the album has been creatively enhanced with felt pen.