Junior High

Oh dear, cut up your credit cards. Patrick James Eggle has sent us his latest electric vision: a boutique Junior with not an ounce of flame maple or bling. Let’s rock!

- Dave Burrluck

Any reckoning of the UK’s guitar-making industry has to include Patrick James Eggle, a fixture on the scene since the early 90s and now the perfect illustration of the artisan or boutique small-output maker. Patrick, like many over these past months, has seen his orders rise, he’s taken on more staff, which now total seven, and produces some 20 guitars a month.

You don’t need us to tell you that this latest creation is inspired by Gibson’s double-cut Les Paul Junior, a guitar designed at the end of the 50s and one that refuses to die. In fact, its influence on guitar makers, large and small, seems to increase year on year. PJE also offers a single-cut Macon Junior (albeit with dual pickups), and with an added maple top it becomes a Special. Our double-cut Junior, then, is the only ‘correct’ Junior in the Macon range with its single pickup referencing the basic student Gibson model from 1958. But there’s nothing ‘student’ about this guitar. If there were such a thing as Michelin stars for guitar makers, Pat would have a few. This is simply a superb version of a very classic recipe.