Come for The Raspberries,stay for the Rickenbacker!

[octagon]

It's a 2-fer.What is that guitar Eric Carmen is playing?

[winston]

It would seem that it is a Gibson but it's not a model that I am familiar with.

[jch]

Looks like a modded Melody Maker.

[winston]

It might be a modded late 1959 SG Les Paul TV Special (painted black or a dark colour). It is a double cut away model. That's why I am thinking along those lines.

I will have to watch the video again to confirm my suspicions. The size and shape of the headstock will provide the ultimate clue.

[jingle_jangle]

Headstock seems to be the small Junior style. It looks like the pickguard was purcxhased from Brian Mays...

Then there's the matter of the massive humbuckers.

[peewee]

Looks like a modded Melody Maker.

Ditto. You can distinguish this guitar from the other Gibsons by three distinct features -

The first and most telling is the narrow peghead. Classic Melody Maker peghead shape & size.

Feature #2 is the oddly shaped cutaways which are shorter and softer than the normal Gibson cutaways found on the '59 - '60 Les Paul Junior and Special or the SG/Les Paul - kind of resemble "button" versions of the SG cuts and seem to be a blending of the two previously mentioned guitars. The Melody Maker assumed this body style in 1961 from one that resembled the early Juniors from '54 until mid '58 but was exactly 1/8" thinner.

The third is the dot marker fretboard.

[kiramdear]

Looks like a modded Melody Maker.

That'd be my guess.

[winston]

Yep I agree Mike. Good eye btw. I had to go back and look at the headstock. It was indeed a Melody Maker. Poor thing.

[peewee]

Yep I agree Mike. Good eye btw. I had to go back and look at the headstock. It was indeed a Melody Maker. Poor thing.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I saw quite a few of these little guitars butchered like this back in the '70s and early '80s -- nearly carbon copies save for the pickguard. If they only knew then......

[jingle_jangle]

Good spotting. My very first band's rhythm player played a gorgeous cherry red '64 MM (brand new then). We gave him endless hassle because it wasn't a Fender...

Oh, to have known then what we know now.

[beatlefreak]

Great video of the Raspberries performing two of their best known songs live in the studio!

[octagon]

How about this one?Is is it a Melody Maker also? Did Gibson make a Melody Maker with Humbuckers in the 70's?



I found a thread on the Telecaster forum in which someone said He gave this guitar to Joan Jet.

[peewee]

From the look of the peghead and the body shape, I'd have to say that it is a heavily modified Melody Maker. Same shape, same scale but in this case, there's been an addition of a stopbar tailpiece and a tune-a-matic bridge in place of the standard wraptail tailpiece as well as the humbuckers, pickguard and a white refin. Pretty chunky sounding little plank, actually!

When you compare the peghead of the MM to say, a Les Paul or ES-335, you'll notice that the MM is more square looking and lacks the wings of the Les Paul peghead. However, Gibson did give the MM a regular, full sized peghead in the late '60s and '70s before they discontinued the model due to slowing sales. It should also be noted that MMs from the mid 1960s onward took on the SG body shape and was basically a "poor man's" SG in many respects.