Memory Lane to Abbey Road
- Darren Godwin
- Sep 11, 2020
- 3 min read
After I joined Abbey Road Studios as an apprentice in 1985, one of my first visits to EMI’s then London Head Office at Manchester Square was to see Barbara Rotterova in Human Resources to sign my employment contract.
Just days after my nineteenth birthday, there were many things I wasn’t aware of. Like, for example, the staircase I walked up to Barbara’s office featured on two of The Beatle’s albums. In fairness, it’s hardly something a Duran Duran disco boy like me would have known back then; in my innocence and defence, the Fab Four were just an old band my father listened to and had split up before I reached four.
In the sixties and early seventies EMI Records and its subsidiary labels were ubiquitous in their global reach and much of the over arching company’s artistic talent breezed through this once famous landmark. It’s rumoured that March Bolan, from T-Rex superstardom pestered EMI executives at Manchester Square so tenaciously that they gave him a record deal just to get rid of him. Persistence really does pay dividends.
Another thing that escaped me was a presumably compact, and little known recording studio at Manchester Square where various artists recorded demo tracks for EMI’s A&R department. The studios contained an assortment of musical instruments from drum sets and percussion to upright pianos and, of course, guitars.
A former Abbey Road colleague of mine, known in tight circles as ‘Mad Axeman Still’ (aka Peter in Accounts), snagged the deal of the decade back in the late eighties when EMI was disposing of equipment. It was admittedly in poor condition with nobody having taken responsibility for the various equipments’ upkeep. What was then a 10-15 year-old Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Gold Top, is now almost half a century old and been sitting in it’s case for much of the last 30 years.
Most of the reason it spent so long in its case was it played like an absolute dog. More recently, in an attempt to get some miles on the clock Peter carried out selective and non-destructive upgrades to help it play better including a new nut, tuners, bridge hardware, and pickups. The result is a more playable guitar, but still not one of his favourites.
Having retained all the original components, Peter went about getting the guitar dated and valued, neither of which is an exact science, so it unfolded. The LP Deluxe dates back to around late-sixties or early seventies. The reason for the uncertainty is due to Gibson tinkering with serial number patterns from around 1968 to 1972. There are Gibson serial number databases you can search that present you with 2 or 3 options as to year and place of manufacture. Semi-helpful.
However, you can also determine the age of the potentiometers assuming they are the originals. It doesn’t necessarily mean it reflects the week/year the guitar was built, as the pots could have been sitting in a box in the factory for a while, but a good clue. The link below contains interesting titbits of information about Gibson and Fender potentiometer-buying practices around these dates.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the greatest influencing factor to a guitar’s value is not its age or how well it plays, but who has owned and played it. Photographic evidence of the guitar being flung around on stage just adds to the cache.
Interestingly, in the case of LP SN 951460, this would have been confined to a studio, and then, not many photographs would exist of seventies artists chopping away making demo recordings. After The Beatles in the sixties, the seventies was a very good decade for EMI Records with legendary rock acts like Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Queen and Iron Maiden. EMI also flirted with Punk Rock and the surprise signing of The Sex Pistols in 1976. Some expressive language from the band and a comparative cherub-like Siouxsie Sioux on Thames Television’s Today programme:
Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian “H” Smith, who today promotes the Jackson brand, claims his 1972 LP Deluxe Gold Top is one of his favourite guitars, buying his, at the ripe age of 17, for £235. It sounds cheap, but in 1974 that was 1-2 months net salary for London’s average earning East Ender!
In conclusion, the world has moved on and there are guitar brands aplenty, eclipsing the playability and flaws of the original Les Paul, but it still maintains a special nostalgic place in our minds and memories. Like the people who owned them.
In fondest memory. Peter Still 1960-2020
Commentaires