Gibson L5S
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Gibson L5S is a solid-body electric guitar model produced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation.
Introduced in 1972, the Gibson L5S was essentially a solid-body version of the popular Gibson L-5 hollowbody. Like the L-5, it featured multiple binding on the single-cutaway body, neck, and headstock, and also featured an ebony fingerboard with block inlays. The headstock featured a flower-pot inlay similar to the L-5 archtop and most L5S models featured the L-5 trapeze tailpiece (though some had stop-bar or TP-6 fine-tuning tailpieces). However, the L5S had a thin solid body, whereas the L-5 archtop was larger in size and fully hollow. The L5S was available in various finishes, such as ebony, cherry sunburst, and natural.
Upon its introduction in 1972, the L5S featured two low-impedance pickups, similar to those found on several Gibson Les Paul models of that period, such as the Recording model, the Signature model, the Personal model, and the Professional model. This incarnation of the model was not a success, however, thus Gibson switched from low-impedance pickups to regular humbucker pickups. Though it was considered one of Gibson's more top-of-the-line models, it was still not particularly popular among guitarists. In the mid-1980s, the L5S was dropped from the Gibson line.
Though it was not a popular model, the Gibson L5S was played by several famous guitarists. Ron Wood has occasionally used a black custom-made single-pickup L5S over the years with The Rolling Stones, and Keith Richards used the same guitar with his band the X-Pensive Winos in the late 1980s. Pat Martino used the L5S in the 1970s. Paul Simon also used a black-finished L5S in the late 1970s and early 1980s; he can be seen playing it in his film "One Trick Pony", and in several of his concert films of that era.
In 2004, the L5S was briefly reissued by the Gibson Custom Shop Division; this reissue was partly based on the black-finished single-pickup L5S that Ron Wood and Keith Richards played. However, the model was discontinued by Gibson in 2005.
