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Gibson Unveils the Elvis Dove and SJ-200​

Gibson Unveils the Elvis Dove and SJ-200​

Two Gibson-made acoustics honoring Elvis Presley's legacy: the Dove and SJ-200, both in Ebony.


The new Gibson Elvis Dove in Ebony features a solid Sitka spruce top, solid maple back, sides, and a mahogany neck capped with an Indian rosewood fretboard. The new Dove is equipped with a modern LR Baggs VTC electronics with an under-saddle piezo pickup and soundhole-mounted volume and tone controls, making it stage ready, right out of the case. The new Gibson Elvis SJ-200 features a maple back, sides, and neck, as well as a Sitka spruce top. The guitar features all of the attractive SJ-200 touches, including mother-of-pearl graduated crown and parallelogram inlays, an iconic Moustache bridge and an Indian rosewood fingerboard, and comes equipped with an LR Baggs VTC under-saddle pick up. As an extra personalized Elvis touch, both guitars come with a Kenpo Karate decal included in the hardshell case.

Elvis often used Gibson SJ-200 acoustic guitars, aka “The King of Flat Tops.” Gibson has now created Elvis’ favorite SJ-200 in Ebony that is based on a guitar that was given to Elvis as a gift at a recording session at RCA Studio B in Nashville, TN in the mid-1960’s. Elvis often used this Gibson SJ-200 acoustic guitar for numerous high-profile live performances and in 1976, Elvis gave it to his close friend and aide at Graceland Marty Lacker.

Elvis SJ-200 and Dove

The Elvis Dove and SJ-200 are handmade by the expert luthiers and artisans of the Gibson Acoustic Custom Shop in Bozeman, Montana and are available today worldwide at authorized Gibson dealers and on www.gibson.com.

Dove: $4,699.00 USD. SJ-200: $5,299.00 USD.

Stevie Van Zandt with “Number One,” the ’80s reissue Stratocaster—with custom paisley pickguard from luthier Dave Petillo—that he’s been playing for the last quarter century or so.

Photo by Pamela Springsteen

With the E Street Band, he’s served as musical consigliere to Bruce Springsteen for most of his musical life. And although he stands next to the Boss onstage, guitar in hand, he’s remained mostly quiet about his work as a player—until now.

I’m stuck in Stevie Van Zandt’s elevator, and the New York City Fire Department has been summoned. It’s early March, and I am trapped on the top floor of a six-story office building in Greenwich Village. On the other side of this intransigent door is Van Zandt’s recording studio, his guitars, amps, and other instruments, his Wicked Cool Records offices, and his man cave. The latter is filled with so much day-glo baby boomer memorabilia that it’s like being dropped into a Milton Glaser-themed fantasy land—a bright, candy-colored chandelier swings into the room from the skylight.


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“Sometimes, I’d like very much for my guitar to sound exactly like a supa cobra.”

Luthier Creston Lea tells us about his favorite dirt pedal—an Athens, Georgia-made stomp that lets his guitar be a hero.

Let’s face it: Nobody can tell what overdrive pedal you’re using. Whether you’re in a carpeted suburban basement accompanying the hired clown at your nephew’s fifth birthday party or standing on the spot-lit monitor at Wembley, not one person knows whether the pedal at your feet cost $17 or $700, has true bypass, or has an internal DIP switch. Nobody leaning against the barn-dance corncrib or staunching a nosebleed up in the stadium’s cheap seats is thinking, “Heavens yes!! THAT is the sound of a silicone diode!”

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A dual-channel tube preamp and overdrive pedal inspired by the Top Boost channel of vintage VOX amps.

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The compact offspring of the Roland SDE-3000 rack unit is simple, flexible, and capable of a few cool new tricks of its own.

Tonalities bridge analog and digital characteristics. Cool polyrhythmic textures and easy-to-access, more-common echo subdivisions. Useful panning and stereo-routing options.

Interactivity among controls can yield some chaos and difficult-to-duplicate sounds.

$219

Boss SDE-3 Dual Digital Delay
boss.info

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Though my affection for analog echo dwarfs my sentiments for digital delay, I don’t get doctrinaire about it. If the sound works, I’ll use it. Boss digital delays have been instructive in this way to me before: I used a Boss DD-5 in a A/B amp rig with an Echoplex for a long time, blending the slur and stretch of the reverse echo with the hazy, wobbly tape delay. It was delicious, deep, and complex. And the DD-5 still lives here just in case I get the urge to revisit that place.

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