The Marvels of the Murphy Lab
There are 7.764 billion people on this beautiful ball of water and dirt that we call home, and hardly any of them know Gibson guitars better than Tom Murphy. Tom is a legend in the world of guitars, and instruments bearing his name have acquired a deservedly sterling reputation due to their outstanding tone, jaw-dropping looks, and stunning vintage accuracy. But, he wasn't always a rockstar of lutherie. In fact, he worked as a professional touring musician for many years, and during that time he became intimately acquainted with vintage guitars: how they sound, how they feel, and how they look. After deciding to stop touring, Tom got a job as a finish specialist at Gibson and eventually became a project manager in charge of the first reissues of the 1959 Les Paul standard.
For a while, Tom also gained valuable experience working as a luthier to the stars, and his client list included luminaries like Jimmy Page, Dickey Betts, Joe Perry, Billy Gibbons, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, and Gary Rossington.
Now, things have come full circle, and our friends at Gibson have handed Tom the keys to a brand-new institution of sonic savagery within the Gibson Custom Shop: the Murphy Lab. Tom and his team of skilled craftspeople have one mission, and one mission only: to create the most ridiculously awesome recreations of vintage Gibson guitars that the world has ever seen.
Step Into the Lab
Murphy Lab is aptly named because it is basically the musical equivalent of what happens when you give a mad scientist a laboratory fully stocked with warp drives and flux capacitors. With a plethora of resources behind them, Tom and his team have been able to create guitars that are essentially carbon copies of vintage Gibsons. They look, feel, and sound so close to the originals that it's downright scary.
How do Tom and his team achieve such unparalleled vintage accuracy? Well, first off, Tom has discovered a brand-new formula for nitrocellulose lacquer to use on aged guitars that mimics the properties of 1950s and ‘60s finishes to a T. Thanks to this thinner finish, aged Murphy Lab guitars look like authentic vintage pieces. They don’t just look the part--they are the real McCoy!
Of course, the heart of the Murphy Lab is the aging process. Part of what made Tom a legend was his ability to replicate the natural wear and tear found on distressed vintage instruments by hand-aging brand-new instruments. With his practiced eye and skilled hands, Tom artfully mimicked the finish and feel of old guitars, and he has imparted his skills to the talented team at the Murphy Lab.
Though Tom may not age each and every guitar himself, he has done a bang-up job of teaching his team the Way of Murphy, and they do a marvelous job of replicating his masterful work. As a result, each guitar looks like it came out of a time machine and feels like your favorite worn-in pair of blue jeans.
Junior-Induced Joy
Here at Wildwood, we love the simple joys of life: a hot cup of coffee in the morning, sunshine, a cool spring breeze, that sort of thing. But, we have a special place in our collective hearts for one simple pleasure above all others: a slab of mahogany with a P-90 capable of unleashing pure rock and roll anarchy. Needless to say, we were delighted by the Murphy Lab Wildwood Spec 1958 Les Paul Junior Double-Cut.
Playing one of these lean, mean rock and roll machines is the musical equivalent of doing a burnout in a '67 Camaro. It's so fun that it should probably be illegal, and it gets your adrenaline pounding! Despite the '58 Junior's preponderance of muscle, it's a surprisingly versatile beast capable of excelling in many genres. So, let's dive deeper and examine the source of its many sonic delights.
P-90s and Mahogany: A Love Story
The magic starts with the aforementioned mahogany body working in tandem with a Custom Shop P-90. Electric guitars with mahogany bodies tend to have a naturally round, warm, midrange-forward tone. You can hear this quite clearly when you play one of these Wildwood Spec 1958 Les Paul Juniors unplugged, because each one has a one-piece body made of solid lightweight mahogany. This helps them achieve huge resonance even when strummed acoustically.
When you do amplify, the powerful chemistry between wood and wire is immediately apparent. Gibson's custom P-90s have powerful, throaty midrange response that matches mahogany's resonance perfectly. They also add in plenty of lush overtones and some warm-yet-muscular bass response. And for P-90 connoisseurs, it doesn't get much better than the custom P-90 that graces the Murphy Lab Wildwood Spec '58 Junior's mahogany body.
Can We Take it to the Bridge?
Now, I (Trevor, Wildwood's resident Guitar Scribe) am a bridge pickup junkie, so take this with a grain of salt. But if I had to pick one pickup to use for the rest of my life, it would be a Les Paul Junior's bridge P-90.
The custom bridge P-90 in the '58 Junior is so touch-sensitive that you can coax a variety of different sounds out of it using just your hands. Play softly, and the mids will sound warm and open with glassy highs. Hit hard, and the midrange develops a lethally focused snarl as chiming overtones burst out of the high end. No matter what, the low end remains tight, though it has enough muscle to make striking the low E immensely satisfying.
It's the sort of tone that works anywhere. Through a dirty amp it's got the right combination of sparkle and punch for any variety of rock and roll, it's got enough Iommic power for riff-laden metal, and enough bad attitude for all things punky and garage-y. Through a clean amp, it has enough chime and jangle to please an indie rocker, enough sizzle and sustain to delight a blues player, and enough snappiness and twang to handle business in the country world.
Simplify, Simplify
We are proud to showcase the Murphy Lab Wildwood Spec 1958 Les Paul Junior Double-Cut. We invite you to embrace the simple pleasures of life by taking one for a spin and experiencing its singular brand of sonic magic. Once you do, we have no doubt it will bring you a lifetime of joy and inspiration throughout your fretboard journeys.
[collapse]
