Gibson Original Collection Wildwood Select Les Paul Standard ’50s

Select Your Weapon

Wildwood and Gibson have a long and storied history of collaboration and friendship. Over the last 35 years, we have partnered with them to produce all kinds of Wildwood-exclusive guitars, and we believe that those instruments are some of the finest in the world thanks to the incredible creativity, passion, and skill of the good people at Gibson. One project on our wish list always eluded us, though: we’ve never done a Wildwood-exclusive run of Gibson USA guitars. That is, until now! Wildwoodians, please meet the newest member of the Wildwood Family: the Wildwood Select Original Collection Les Paul Standard ‘50s.

The Wildwood Select Les Paul is an attempt to capture some of the magic of our Wildwood Spec Custom Shop instruments in a more affordable package. Since we handpick the tops for our Custom Shop instruments, we asked our friends at the USA factory if we could do the same thing for this run. They were happy to oblige us, and we think you’ll agree that the cuts of maple we chose are absolutely stunning. Be sure to engage your drool shield if you’re planning on scrolling through these guitars!

We also asked them to spray that handpicked wood with a brand-new exclusive finish. With the helpful guidance of the Gibson team, we settled on a glorious dark cherry burst. This finish is a dark and rich maroon near the edges of the burst, and it lightens to more of a sunset orange in the middle with reddish-purple, light red, and golden hues in between. For us, it evokes the color of a sunset over the Rocky Mountains on a summer night, and it looks positively jaw-dropping on top of the lovely maple they picked out.

The Divine Sound of 1959

Finally, we asked Gibson to wind us an exclusive set of pickups, and they came up with some marvelous humbuckers for us. Here at Wildwood, we love PAFs the way Slash loves top hats, so we asked them to capture the sweet vintage tones of those magical fifties bursts. It was a tall order, to be sure, but the wizards at Gibson delivered. They wound us some Wildwood Spec ’59 Tribute pickups, and I could write a War and Peace-sized treatise about how awesome they are.

But, for the sake of brevity, I’ll keep it to a few hundred words. These boss ‘buckers sound brawny and powerful while maintaining remarkable articulation and clarity. They are also extremely touch-sensitive, which makes for a wonderfully dynamic, expressive playing experience. When you dig in, you are rewarded with glorious snarling tone that makes you want to turn your amplifier all the way up and irritate all your neighbors. When you ease off with your right hand, the tone becomes rounder, warmer, sweeter, and more vocal.

In the bridge position, the low-end is tight and muscular, the midrange punches like Ali, and the highs have just the right amount of sweet, sugary chime. Flip to the neck position and the low-end becomes deep and warm with woody, vintage-style clarity, the mids broaden and become throatier and more open, and the highs sing like Etta James.

Here’s to Thirty-Five Years of Friendship

We are so proud to showcase the Wildwood Select Original Collection Les Paul Standard ‘50s. These guitars are a tribute to our thirty-five-year-long friendship with Gibson, and we are so grateful to them for helping us make them a reality. We believe that their handpicked tops and Wildwood-exclusive finish give them an immense amount of swagger and style, and that their Wildwood-exclusive pickups make them true sonic titans. Most importantly, they provide all of this at an incredible value. We invite you to take one for a spin and see for yourself why we’re so giddy with excitement!