60 YEARS OF THE SG

Its sharp horns seemed to belong to the Devil’s orchestra, not the polite jazz scene of the early 60s. As a statement of intent, the SG’s radical styling succeeded – but maybe not as first intended. The design was swiftly disowned by Les Paul, though it was supposed to be his signature instrument. Rejected by its patron, the SG grew up in the shadow of its iconic sibling, the Les Paul Standard, becoming the anti-hero’s tool of choice from Angus and Iommi onwards...

- Jamie Dickson

There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion, Edgar Allen Poe once wrote. He wasn’t writing about guitars, to be sure, but those words seem made for Gibson’s SG…

The guitars’ devilish horns arrest your attention straight away, but it takes a while to notice that the body is subtly offset, too. The carve on the top of the body is wider and more sensuous than the lower edge of the instrument. Everywhere on the SG you find asymmetry, contradictions. For example, the vibrato unit that was originally fitted to it was infamous for not working properly and yet the guitar’s balance isn’t quite right without it, because the SG was designed to have a counterweight to its long neck behind the bridge. Oddities like this didn’t stop players from becoming loyal to the SG over the years, though, from Robbie Krieger of The Doors to Derek Trucks.

Perhaps its resistance to being easily categorized is really the secret to the SG’s longevity, for what can’t quite be pinned down can never truly go out of style. Want a guitar that wails like a Les Paul but weighs less than a Strat? Want to play everything from blues to the metal on one guitar? The SG can handle it all. Like a black leather jacket, the SG fits in everywhere yet always retains a touch of renegade spirit. This is its story.

GIBSON SG HISOTRY: THE FIRST TWO DECADES

At the tail-end of the 1950s, Fender’s Stratocaster was reigning supreme over the electric-guitar market while sales of Gibson’s single-cut Les Paul were heading south. Kalamazoo needed to fight back. And in 1961, the double-horned beast was born, supplanting Lester’s original and leaving a legacy all of its own…

Words Tony Bacon