Years ago, the Gibson Les Paul burst onto the music scene with a vengeance. It quickly rose in the ranks of electric guitars to become arguably the most recognizable instrument in the history of modern music. It was used by metal players, blues players, and everyone in between. Musicians were eager to get their hands on them, but their value was never truly reached because of its inordinate expensiveness. As a response Gibson offered the Les Paul Junior electric guitar. It immediately became popular, and remains so even today. Let’s take an in depth look at it to see if the price reduction doesn’t reduce the quality as well.
Features: The Gibson Les Paul Junior’s body is, like many other Gibsons, made of mahogany wood. This helps give it the classic rich sound the Gibson brand is known for. There are several finishes available, including vintage sunburst and white. All of them come with a black plastic pickguard, and have a coated lacquer final finish. The looks aren’t particularly astounding, but have a nice and warm vintage feel. The neck of the Les Paul Junior is set into the body, and has the typical Gibson style C shaped profile. The fretboard is made of rosewood, and has twenty two total frets with pearloid dot inlays. All of the hardware on the Les Paul Junior is American made quality. This includes well performing tuning heads and an adjustable stopbar style bridge. Electronically, the Les Paul Junior has one single coil P90 pickup in the bridge position, and one volume and one tone control knobs.
Playability: What the Les Paul Junior lacks in bells and whistles, it makes up for in the practical playability department. The neck is set, which means there are now bulky bolt pieces to contend with when getting at the higher frets. Also, the lacquer finish is nice and smooth, complimenting the lightweight body for great stand up and live playing. And, finally, the stopbar style bridge allows for easy adjustment of the strings’ height from the fretboard. With just a screwdriver, you can find the perfect string height for your style of playing.
Sound: The Gibson Les Paul Junior, though it has only one pickup, does have excellent sound in certain genres. The P 90 pickup is designed to make some very crunchy, throaty power chord sounds. This means that if you’re into any simpler style punk or rock music, the Les Paul Junior will more than satisfy your needs. On the clean end it’s a little rough, but it still delivers some nice thick tones that make up for in richness what they lack in purity.
Overall: The Gibson Les Paul Junior is a great choice for those looking for a high quality, American made guitar to play simpler music with. Those needing a guitar for shredding or pure clean tones need not apply. But for others, the L.P. Junior is the pinnacle archetype of a hard rocking guitar. You can find it in music stores for about $850.
