What do Al Di Meola, Carlos Santana, Paul Stanley, Dave Davies, Prince, Pat Martino, and Keith Richards have in common? They've all played Gibson's L6-S Custom—an extremely versatile tone generator with a variety of voices wide enough for that diverse cast.
This model, designed in 1972 and released in '73, was the first collaboration between guitar- and pickup-designer Bill Lawrence and Gibson. The idea was to make a very inexpensive solidbody electric that could compete with more costly models—and especially with Fender's highly successful offerings. That's a pretty simple concept, but the L6-S is not a simple instrument. It has a complex pickup-control system, built into Gibson's first solid-maple-slab guitar, with a 3-piece, two-octave set neck, with 24 frets—Fender style—rather than the company's usual 22.
This Gibson really sticks its neck out. In the interest of competing with Fender, it's got 24 frets instead of the company's usual 22.
Until it was discontinued in 1980, more than 18,000 were made, and it's considered one of the finest instruments from Gibson's notorious Norlin era. Instead of the usual 3-way pickup selector, the L6-S uses a 6-way rotary switch to control its tones. The pointer on its chicken-head knob faces down, and rolls from right to left (or bottom to top), looking down the guitar's front. In position 1, both pickups are active and in series. Position 2 fires up only the neck pickup. Spot 3 runs both pickups, in parallel. Position 4 puts both pickups in parallel and out of phase, with the neck pickup's bass limited by a capacitor. (The sonic result is similar to the 2 and 4 slots on a Strat pickup selector.) Spot 5 is the bridge pickup alone, and position 6 is both pickups in series and out of phase.
This is where the action is on a Gibson L6-S Custom. The 6-way selector handles pickup configurations for a wide variety of core tones, while the dials are (top to bottom), master volume, midrange, and bass/treble. And there's the bridge Super Humbucker, which was wound a tad hotter than the neck pickup.
Note the manufacturing quirk on this guitar's headstock. While the guitar is properly designated the L6-S, the nameplate here reads L-6S.
In Lawrence and Gibson's estimation, a guitar this different also required a different set of control dials. The one highest up on the body is a master volume, with a midrange control as the center dial, while the lower dial is a tone control that affects treble and bass, with 10 providing the most treble. The L6-S Custom sported Lawrence's pickups, of course—a pair of his ceramic-magnet Super Humbuckers, with 4-conductor split-coil wiring to accommodate all those tonal variations. At their introduction, these pickups were about as hot as they got, although competitors like DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan were also entering the game. The bridge for the guitar is supposed to be a standard Tune-o-matic, but our model has a Gibson harmonica-style bridge, named for its distinctive shape. Since this L6-S is from the final year of production, that harmonica bridge is likely what was available in the parts bin at the time.
Instead of the usual 3-way pickup selector, the L6-S uses a 6-way rotary switch to control its tones.
The L6-S's debut price was $495, which climbed to $649 in its final production year. In 1980, a new Fender Strat had a list price of $995, so this guitar remained an able competitor. Two more L6-S models evolved from the line. In 1974 Gibson issued the L6-S Midnight Special, with a bolt-on neck, a Schaller harmonica bridge, a strung through-body, and a 3-way pickup toggle with master volume and tone dials. At the same time, Gibson also issued the set-neck L6-S Deluxe, with the same controls as the Midnight Special, but with two of Lawrence's ceramic "tar back" pickups, which got that name due to a black epoxy potting—their primary difference from other Super Humbuckers.
With relatively little back wear, this guitar either had a careful owner or owners, or saw little action. If that's the case, it's a pity, but the L6-S seems ready for anything.
This month's guitar comes in Gibson's classic tobacco burst finish, but the L6-S Custom was also available in natural, ebony, silverburst, and cherry sunburst. The asking price is $1,495, which falls on the more affordable side of today's range of about $1,400 to $1,700 for the model. Our L6-S Custom is a charmer to play. It balances extremely well, with a lower bout of about 13 1/2" across and 1 1/4" thick. And the neck feels better than of lot of Norlin-era necks, with a thin taper below the headstock that gradually widens. For hot vintage Gibson sounds from the '70s, it's hard to beat the L6-S Custom.
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Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesn’t keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories he’s collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relic—and stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland—he discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how he’s putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relic’s cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the store’s house-spec’d Bedell parlors while we chatted.
“The story of this guitar is the story of the world,” Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, “I’m gonna make up the story,” Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregon’s Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization process—in which the building team fine-tunes each instrument’s voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysis—and Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitar’s warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acoustics—and of any Bedell I’ve had the pleasure to play—delivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, that’s what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. “We have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,” Bedell effused. “There are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but there’s nobody on a production level.” And he wants to spread that gospel.
“We want to reach people who really want something special,” he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores he’s visited, “who have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.”
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
