Cool interviews with Clapton and Green about their Les Paul guitars...

[SoPhx]

RE: Freddie King---he used the Goldtop on the early recordings, including some instrumentals and the stuff he did with Smokey Smothers. By the second instrumental album he was using a 345. He probably used the choke position on the Varitone and with the metal fingerpicks he used he got a very trebly tone. This all changed when he got with Shelter and his tone got progressively more distorted and midrangey.

[Lewguitar]

RE: Freddie King---he used the Goldtop on the early recordings, including some instrumentals and the stuff he did with Smokey Smothers. By the second instrumental album he was using a 345. He probably used the choke position on the Varitone and with the metal fingerpicks he used he got a very trebly tone. This all changed when he got with Shelter and his tone got progressively more distorted and midrangey.

Your comments about the goldtop are true I think. But Freddie gets a really thin bright sound on I'm Going Down, which is a Shelter record. I liked his sound on Hideaway. The 1961 single.
I guess that's the goldtop?

[SoPhx]

I bet that's the goldtop, as was prolly the case with the early vocal tunes. The later instrumentals sound like a 345 with Varitone, not that different. The fingerpicks were a West Side Chicago deal and Eddie Taylor, Jimmy Rogers, and others were using them. That's a big part of the tone.

[beaubrummels]

Your comments about the goldtop are true I think. But Freddie gets a really thin bright sound on I'm Going Down, which is a Shelter record. I liked his sound on Hideaway. The 1961 single.
I guess that's the goldtop?

Really nice tone on that recording. Has the best of Gibson and some Fender qualities to it. Anyone know what amp he used?

[SoPhx]

Really nice tone on that recording. Has the best of Gibson and some Fender qualities to it. Anyone know what amp he used?

An early P90 goldtop had pretty low wind pickups. Add in metal fingerpicks and it's gonna be pretty bright. I've seen early 60s pix of him with a brown Concert, but who knows what he used in the studio.

[Lewguitar]

An early P90 goldtop had pretty low wind pickups. Add in metal fingerpicks and it's gonna be pretty bright. I've seen early 60s pix of him with a brown Concert, but who knows what he used in the studio.

The recording is from 1961 so probably something brown or tweed.

[SoPhx]

If you're interested, there is a compilation of Smokey Smothers stuff with Freddie playing all the solos that predates his solo career. You can hear all his pet licks coming together. He was a bona fide Chicago player in the beginning.