Moving On

It’s been quite a ride for Gibson since its new leadership team took the reins in 2018. We catch up with brand president, Cesar Gueikian,to get the backstory on the newly created Murphy Lab

- Dave Burrluck

As far as its instruments go, Gibson is enjoying a renaissance. The new leadership team hit the ground running with the initial reorganisation and focus of its mainstream USA Production line into Original and Modern Collections devoid of the annual specification changes that confused and annoyed us in equal measure. The smaller output, higher dollar Custom Shop has seen similar focus, which, as of the start of this year, now has this new vintage-aimed strand, the Murphy Lab, named after Tom Murphy who instigated its creation back in 2019.

“Tom Murphy came to me with a guitar case – which he’d aged, by the way, so it looked like a 50s Lifton case,” begins Cesar Gueikian, Gibson’s brand president. “I opened the case and picked up the guitar. We have been working with a lot of originals from different collections – including my own – with Tom and looking at lots of guitars Tom had done in the past. I had no reason not to think it was one of those originals. I picked it up and said, ‘This is amazing, it’s great.’ The binding had all been rolled from playing, the checking on the lacquer, the ageing, the bracelets, the buckle rash… amazing! So I asked him, ‘Whose ’59 is it? Is it for sale?’ He then proceeded to tell me, ‘No, I just made this guitar and I wanted you to see it.’ I told him, ‘This is the future of ageing: you’ve stepped it up now. We’ve gotta go here.’ That was when we started to create the idea for the Murphy Lab.”

Tom Murphy needs no introduction. His pioneering ageing techniques have created many old-looking new Gibson guitars over the years and he helped create what we now know as the Gibson Custom Shop back in the 90s. Today’s Murphy Lab is a “restricted area”, we’re told by Cesar, that resides within the Custom Shop.