B.B. King - "Lucille"



Lucille in her current form is a stereo, vari-tone Gibson ES-355. B.B. has been playing the ES-355 for at least 25 years, before that he played an ES-335. The main difference between those two guitars is that the ES-355 appears to be a solid body, due to its lack of f-holes. B.B. likes to think of the ES-355 as the "big brother" of Gibson's Les Paul. Although B.B. is partial to Gibson guitars, he has played just about any guitar he has gotten his hands on. His very first guitar was a Stella acoustic. Early in his career, he played and owned many different makes, such as Fender, Gretsch, Silverstone and of course Gibson.

1960's Gibson ES-355 - Black

2 comments:

  1. Please pardon me for correcting you but you're mistaken about the differences between the ES 335 and ES 355.
    They are both semi-hollow guitars, meaning that they each have a block of maple running through the center of an otherwise hollow body. The differences are:
    335 = Rosewood fingerboard, dot inlays
    355 = Ebony fingerboard, block inlays, some years they were equipped with a 'vari-tone', and some years they were stereo (each pickup had it's own output jack)
    The 'Lucille' model is essentially a stereo, vari-tone 355 which is semi-hollow but appears to be solid because it lacks F holes in an effort to cut down on feed back.

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  2. Thanks Binky. Edited per your comment.

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