In my epic quest to replace my stolen L6-S, the closest I came (in spirit anyway) was when I arrived on Vancouver Island in the summer of 2005 and discovered, in a vintage guitar shop, a tobacco sunburst Gibson S-1. Never having played one myself, I was nonetheless intrigued by what I considered a ‘sister guitar’ of the L6, in that it was another of the ‘lost years’ Gibson concepts that never seemed to catch fire in the guitar community – despite some high-profile endorsements.

The S-1 has a great-feeling neck, taken from the ‘Flying V’ (complete with pointy headstock), Les Paul jr. body, and oddly, the sound of a Fender Stratocaster (and the weight of two or three of ‘em). I especially dug the decadent swirling pickguard and the funky see-through epoxy single-coil pickups. As with the L6-S, it screamed ‘ROCK!’ I traded in another guitar immediately and paid the difference. After having it around for 2 years, however, and not having used it on a single session, I thought about getting rid of it… the sound was too thin, and though I understood that this was supposed to be a bright, “Fender-inspired’ guitar, I just wasn’t convinced. When I wanted to get a Strat sound, I would just use a real Strat.

But then it hit me: here’s a guitar with a wicked cool look (mine looks like the bottom one in the picture to the left), perfect feel, and ultra-cool Bill Lawrence-designed pickups. I figured if something’s wrong with this guitar, it’s probably none of the above. Then I remembered the last Strat I’d played: a new Stratocaster Deluxe owned by my friend Dean that sounded killer and had 5 extra settings available, courtesy of the patented Fender S-1 switching system. And I thought… Gibson S-1… Fender S1… the unholy union of these two namesakes could perfectly complete Gibson’s (rather ill-considered) attempt at capturing the Fender mojo in one of their guitars. And once again, we’re not talking about one of their untouchable classics here. So I ordered an after-market S1 system off of a guy selling them on Ebay (who as it turns out was being sued by Fender doing just that), and a newly cut pickguard to replace the broken original, and gave the whole mess to the guys at Renson Guitar in North Hollywood to straighten out. They also replaced the low & wide ’70s style frets with some nice chunky ones.

What I got back in the end made me relieved that I hadn’t sold it. The crazy S-1/S1 pairing worked out; the Lawrence pickups sound killer through the new Fender circuit, and the 5-way Strat selector and push-in volume control, while not as hip-looking as the original chickenhead switch, provide a wealth of tones unavailable on a regular Strat or a stock S-1. I used it on the intro to ‘Rock & Roll Days’ on the Lonnie Jordan album, and got a nice juicy Stones rhythm tone, as well as the various Hendrix references throughout the song (the solo, however, is the L6-S).

Also… here’s the diagram for the Fender S1 switching system in PDF format if you’re interested. Click here to view or download

And some more details about the guitars in their original state… (click to enlarge the picture).

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