Hey! Mr. President! Visualize The BEST Guitar Players in HISTORY Sitting in your Audience Tonight!

Kudos to GOP TN Rep Marsha Blackburn - she will have the CEO of Gibson (no relation) Guitars next to her in the audience at tonight's speech. Blackburn is in the Capital Hill Songwriters Caucus....yes!  I'll bet their meeting, ROCK!  While some members of Congress will be tweeting and blogging from their offices,  Blackburn will have EVIDENCE of the ONEROUS government regulations that are stifling US businesses sitting next to her.

Gibson Guitars has been raided by federal agents because some paperwork with regarding the fretboard wood was not properly completed.  This is wood that they have been imported for decades and that JUST became ensnarled in some outdated regulations in India. Over 40 jobs are at stake in the US and TN..... OH!  and these guitar players and their instruments!  I don't think the first picture is Sam Bush - I think it is Eric Clapton...

A

• Johnny A uses a Johnny A Signature model designed specifically for him by Gibson to the guitarist's personal specifications.^[1]
• Jan Akkerman has used a Gibson L5, Les Paul Custom and a modified Les Paul Personal. The Custom is the guitar he is generally associated with.^[2]
• Duane Allman (The Allman Brothers Band) used a 1957 Les Paul Goldtop with PAF pickups, a 1959 cherry sunburst Les Paul, a 1958 tobacco sunburst Les Paul and a 1968 cherry SG which he used for slide guitar.^[3]
• Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) uses several vintage 1950s single and double cutaway Les Paul Junior models. Gibson has produced a Billie Joe Armstrong Signature Les Paul Junior model.^[4]
• Chet Atkins switched from Gretsch to Gibson in the mid 1980s and brought with him the popular Country Gentleman and Tennessean model designs. Atkins also helped to design several innovative acoustic/electric models including the SST, the CE, and the C.E.C. Since his death, Gibson has discontinued all Chet Atkins models and Gretsch has resumed the manufacturing and distribution of the Chet Atkins line.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]B

• Martin Barre (Jethro Tull) has used numerous Gibson models over the course of his career including: a sunburst ES-330, a 1958 Les Paul Special and a 1959 Les Paul Standard.^[5]
• Jeff Beck (The Yardbirds/solo) purchased his first Les Paul, a 1959 model, for £150 while still a member of The Yardbirds. Beck's fascination with the guitar sprang as much from his interest in Les Paul, the man, as from his love of the guitar itself. Beck told an interviewer: "It had a deep powerful sound and you could use it to imitate just about anything - violin, sax, cello, even a sitar."^[6] Beck also used an "oxblood" coloured 1954 Les Paul Standard, with PAF pickups, from 1972 to 1976 and is pictured with the guitar on the cover artwork of his Blow by Blow album.

Sam Bush performing with a Gibson Mandolin

• Franny Beecher played a black 1956 Les Paul Custom throughout his career with Bill Haley and the Comets in the 1950s and early 1960s.^{[citation needed]}
• Anthony Duster Bennett (British blues singer, harmonica player and musician) played a 1952 Les Paul Goldtop throughout his career that had been given to him in 1968 by Peter Green. After Bennett's death the guitar was given to musician Anthony Top Topham.^[7]
• Wayne Bennett (Bobby Bland) used a white Byrdand^[8]
• George Benson (Gibson L5) Great Jazz player ^[9]
• Chuck Berry used an ES-350T early in his career, later switching to ES-345s and ES-355s.^[10]
• Dickey Betts (The Allman Brothers Band) uses a variety of Gibson models including a 1961 SG and a 1957 Les Paul.^{[citation needed]}
• Mike Bloomfield (The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Electric Flag) During his tenure with the Butterfield Blues Band he used a 1954 Gibson Les Paul, which he used for some of the East-West sessions. In due course, according to biographers Jan Mark Wolkin and Bill Keenom, Bloomfield swapped that guitar for a 1959 Les Paul Standard and $100. This was the guitar Bloomfield used as a member of the Electric Flag, and on the Super Session album and concerts. He later veered between the Les Paul and the Fender Telecaster, but Bloomfield's use of the Les Paul, as did Keith Richards' with the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton's withJohn Mayall influenced many others to use the model. Bloomfield eventually lost the guitar in Canada; Wolkin and Keenom's biography revealed a club owner kept the guitar as partial compensation after Bloomfield cut short a round of appearances. Its whereabouts today are unknown.^{[citation needed]}
• Marc Bolan (T.Rex) used Les Paul Standards, Customs and Flying Vs and a Japanese Hummingbird copy. His main Les Paul model was refinished in an opaque orange to resemble the Gretsch guitars played by his hero Eddie Cochran.^[11]
• Mick Box (Uriah Heep) uses a Les Paul Custom. Also used a 1958 double-cutaway Les Paul Junior, a Flying V and a 1968 SG with a Maestro tailpiece.^{[citation needed]}
• Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown used various Gibsons including ES-335s and L5s. His main guitar was a late-60s non-reverse Firebird.^{[citation needed]}
• Jack Bruce (Cream/solo) used several EB-3 basses during the late 1960s and early 1970s; during the 2005 Cream reunion concerts he used a 1950s EB bass.^{[citation needed]}
• Buckethead (real name: Brian Carroll) uses several Les Pauls custom-made by Gibson which feature oversized bodies, 24-fret necks, dimarzio pickups and his trademark kill switch. They are usually all white. He is also known to own a modified Les Paul custom in alpine white with gold hardware.^{[citation needed]}
• Sam Bush, a highly respected mandolin player, has been a mainstay on the Bluegrass circuit for over 35 years. Gibson produces a Sam Bush Signature model mandolin.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]C

• Larry Carlton favours a sunburst 1968 ES-335, also occasionally using a 1956 Les Paul Special and a 1963 L5.^[12] A Larry Carlton Signature model has been produced by Gibson for the man they call "Mr 335".^[13]
• Maybelle Carter, matriarch of the Carter Family and one of the earliest country recording stars, played a 1928 L-5 archtop almost exclusively. "I consider this to be the most important single guitar in the entire history of country music" said George Gruhn.^[14]

Larry Carlton and his "Carlton burst" 335

• Charlie Christian used an ES-150. The model was Gibson's first archtop electric guitar and was, as described by author Tony Bacon, "used with devastating effect by Christian throughout his short career." The "blade" style pickup installed on early ES-150 models has since become known as the "Charlie Christian pickup" in honor of the legendary jazzman.^[15]
• John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service) used two heavily customized SGs with bat-shaped plastic embellishments cut from pickguard material, extensive bindings, older Les Paul pickups (with the neck pickup mounted in reverse), Grover Imperial tuning machines, and mercury dimes glued to the tops of the volume and tone controls. He also added Bigsby B5 vibrato assemblies to both guitars.^[16]
• Eric Clapton has used a variety of Gibsons throughout his career. The second electric guitar Clapton owned was a red 1964 ES-335 that he used with The Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith and as a solo artist.^[17] In 2004 Clapton donated the guitar to an auction to benefit the Crossroads Centre, where it sold for $750,000 – a world-record auction price for a Gibson.^[18] In 1965 Clapton bought a 1960 sunburst Les Paul that he used while a member of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and Cream.^[19] This was the first of several 1958-60 Les Pauls that Clapton has used, contributing significantly to these models' popularity.^[20] In 1967 Clapton acquired a 1964 SG painted by the Dutch artists collectively known as The Fool; he used this guitar on the Cream albums Disraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire.^[21] Other models Clapton has used extensively include a Firebird I and a 1958 Explorer that he used on his 461 Ocean Boulevard ^[22] and EC Was Here albums.
• Steve Clark (Def Leppard) used a Les Paul as his main instrument. He also used a Firebird, an EDS-1275, an Explorer (made out of Honduran mahogany)^[23] Early in his career he used a Les Paul XR-1 model.
• Allen Collins (Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Rossington-Collins Band, Allen Collins Band) used a Firebird, and later switched to an Explorer. Starting in late 1977, he also occasionally used a double-cutaway Les Paul Junior.^{[citation needed]}
• Stompin' Tom Connors used an SJ-200 (purchased from a furniture store for $80) from 1956 to 1972; he owns it to this day.^[24]
• Sheryl Crow uses a Country Western model, Hummingbird, L-00 Blues King, J-200 Western Classic, 96 Advanced Jumbo, 96 Southern Jumbo, J45, ES-120, ES-125, ES-335 and various Les Pauls. Her original Country&Western model from the Sixties was exactly measured and reproduced as the "Sheryl Crow Signature" in a limited edition with autographed label on the inside.^[25]

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