The Jet Set

While the Kings of Rockabilly Have Offered Reissues of Their Iconic 50s Solid Body Guitars for Almost 30 Years, We Take a Look at a New Range That Brings Those Instruments to Life Like Never Before . . .

- Ed Mitchell

This penguin shuffles into a pub, sidles up to the bartender and says, “Excuse me... has my dad been in?” “I dunno,” the barkeep replies. “What does he look like?”

Yeah, it’s funny cos it’s true. Penguins have this tendency to look the same as one another; and that conspicuous sharing of DNA doesn’t only apply to those flightless souls huddled together on the Antarctic ice with an egg jammed between their knees. With its new Vintage Select model, Gretsch has nailed its most accurate reissue of the iconic 50s White Penguin to date.

The Penguin first hatched back in 1954 but, as this latest model’s catalogue number reveals, our vintage white G6134T-58 is a doppelgänger for the 1958 edition. Although it was never designated as such, the White Penguin is basically a pimped up version of a Duo Jet, the black-topped model made famous by ‘Savage Young Beatles’ era George Harrison and Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps genius Cliff Gallup. You could think of the Penguin then as an identi-kit photo with a Duo Jet body wrapped in one of Elvis Presley’s Vegas jumpsuits and topped with the neck and headstock of its big brother, the White Falcon.

Like the ’57 Duo Jet in Cadillac Green, the Penguin is described by Gretsch as a ‘Solid body’. That’s not strictly true and it misleads many into assuming the Jet is a takeoff on another iconic single-cut guitar: the Gibson Les Paul, which pre-dated it by a year when it was launched in 1952. The prosecution’s smoking gun might be the mahogany/maple construction of the Duo Jet’s single-cutaway body – all classic Les Paul, of course. The jury would be advised to dismiss the twin pickup layout and three-a-side tuner format as purely circumstantial. Gibson can’t claim ownership of that stuff...