SAMMY HAGAR: Red Rocker Les Paul Guitar Unveiled

Gibson Guitar, the world's premiere musical instrument manufacturer and leader in music technology, has announced the availability of the much anticipated Sammy Hagar Red Rocker Les Paul.

Through a career that spans stints with Ronnie Montrose, VAN HALEN, and his own prominent solo work, Sammy Hagar has been the force behind a total of 60 million record sales and countless righteous riffs, and when the Red Rocker rocks, he chooses to rock Gibson. Now, in celebration of Hagar's mammoth new band CHICKENFOOT, and its self-titled debut album, Gibson USA introduces the Sammy Hagar Red Rocker Les Paul, a guitar with legendary appointments and a hot new look designed by the artist himself, all primed to stoke a new era in rock.

In classic Les Paul style, the Sammy Hagar Red Rocker Les Paul carries a pair of Gibson's most popular PAF-style "zebra coil" humbucking pickups — a '57 Classic in the neck and a hotter BurstBucker 3 in the bridge — along with the legendary pairing of Tune-o-matic bridge and stop-bar tailpiece, and the traditional Les Paul neck and body configurations that have made this instrument unparalleled in tone and playability for more than 50 years. To kick the look up into overdrive, the Sammy Hagar Red Rocker Les Paul wears a highly figured, bookmatched two-piece Grade AA maple top with luscious Cabernet finish on a weight-relieved mahogany body, and a white Hagar-certified "Red Rocker" logo on the headstock face, with Red Rocker "R" on the truss-rod cover. Add it all up, and it's one of the sultriest blends of classic tonal appointments and radical new styling that Gibson has ever produced — in short, a guitar that will definitely get you noticed. Each Sammy Hagar Red Rocker Les Paul comes with a plush-lined Gibson hardshell case.

Body and Finish:

Crafted from a highly figured bookmatched Grade AA maple top and two-piece, weight-relieved mahogany back, the Sammy Hagar Red Rocker Les Paul is finished in stunning Cabernet in a low-build nitrocellulose lacquer with a translucent cherry back, sides, and neck, and polished to a high gloss.

Pickups and Electronics:

The Red Rocker Les Paul carries a pair of pickups selected by Hagar himself to suit his tonal requirements, both with a coverless black-and-cream "zebra coil" look that adds an extra dash of style to this model.

A BurstBucker 3 in the bridge position yields extra sizzle and midrange oomph for solos and crunchy power-chord rhythm work, while a '57 Classic in the neck provides a rich, throaty voice for singing blues leads and mellow clean playing. These pickups are routed through Gibson's traditional control layout of a three-way Switchcraft toggle-style selector and an independent Volume and Tone potentiometer for each unit.

Neck and Headstock:

The guitar's neck and headstock are made in the classic tradition of the original Les Paul. Carved from a single piece of quarter-sawn Grade A mahogany, and topped with a rosewood fingerboard, the design incorporates Gibson's lauded 17-degree back-angled headstock, and period-correct acrylic trapezoid inlays.

Hardware:

Like generations of legendary Les Pauls before it, the Sammy Hagar Red Rocker Les Paul is equipped with Gibson's classic pairing of Tune-o-matic bridge and stop-bar tailpiece, which provide extreme advantages both of tone and adjustability, along with vintage Kluson-style green-tulip-button tuners made by the highly respected Tone Pros company, and Gibson's traditional aluminum strap buttons.

(Thanks: NJthrasher)