Joe Bonamassa reveals the vast number of his Gibson and Epiphone signature guitars that have sold over the years
It will soon be 20 years since Joe Bonamassa released his first signature model with Gibson, and ahead of the milestone he’s provided an estimate on how many of his signature models with Gibson and Epiphone have sold overall so far.
JoBo’s first signature was a Custom Shop ‘Inspired By’ Gold Top Les Paul model, which was released as a drop of only 300. The model sold quickly, unexpectedly for Bonamassa at the time, opening the gate to more opportunities for further guitars over the years.
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During his appearance with Eric Dahl on the Gear Gab podcast, Bonamassa begins to reflect, “Mat Koehler over at Gibson told me that next year is the 20th anniversary. Time flies! We originally started with 300 Custom Shop ‘Inspired By’ Les Pauls, that was my take on an old Gold Top.
“The late great Pat Foley was the one that basically approached me about that. Rick Gembar, who was the head of the Custom Shop at Gibson at the time, he was the one that green lit the whole thing. I don’t think they were expecting to sell those kinds of guitars that fast, especially because I was not as well known, but for some reason they sold really fast and we did other ones. ”
He adds, “We did other Custom Shop ones and then we did… I mean, there’s probably Custom Shop JB ones, there’s maybe a couple thousand out there. I know there’s at least 20,000 Epiphones out there, so we’re vastly approaching 25,000 Gibsons over the last 20 years.”
Watch the full podcast below:
On a similar note, Bonamassa has teamed up with Martin again for two new signature models inspired by his 1937 Martin 00-18 shade-top. The collaboration consists of the 00-18 Joe Bonamassa and 00-10E Retro Joe Bonamassa – two acoustic guitars that aim to give players the look and feel of the blues maestro’s treasured pre-war 00-18.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
