Gary Moore: A Gibson Les Paul Standard Electric Guitar, known as 'Stripe',

1959,

Footnotes

Provenance:
Gary bought this Les Paul in 1988. Two late '50s Les Paul Standards were offered to him by guitar dealer Phil Harris and Gary chose this one, a light-burst, worn '59, which was quite similar to the iconic 'Greeny' but with a stronger flamed maple top. Phil Harris commented in an interview, "If there was a Gary Moore Les Paul that was about Gary, it was that guitar...Stripe was there right to the very end...I had the pleasure of selling him that guitar that he felt so close to and it was his soulmate in a guitar."

- Interview with Guitar Interactive, 2014,
View here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-OAEyl9Lcg&t=286s

Gary's former guitar tech and road manager, Graham Lilley, recalls that Phil Harris brought the guitars to London's Sarm West studios one night, when mixing sessions for the After The War album were taking place. The guitar appeared in the title track's official video and in programme photographs for the tour promoting the album.

In September 1989, during later demo sessions for what would become the Still Got The Blues album, it was perhaps most famously used on the title track and also for Oh Pretty Woman, All Your Love and Walking By Myself. It became the most played of his guitars and he used it on most of his studio albums until 2008. It was retired from live work in 2006 due to its increasing value and the cost of insuring it for touring. Still Got The Blues gave Gary his highest chart positions, with more than three million sale world-wide and his only Gold album in the USA.

In an interview with Vintage Guitar magazine in September 2007 (Gary Moore Still Got The Blues - Again!), Gary talks about the guitar's use on his latest album, Close As You Get:
"The main guitar is a 1959 Les Paul Standard - the same guitar I used on Still Got The Blues. I've had it since 1989 (sic) and I use it live a lot. It's not pristine by any means, but it's a really great guitar and I've used it on lots of albums since Still Got The Blues. In fact, Still Got The Blues was the first track it was used on. That's the first song we did that day, and I thought it was a good indicator of what the guitar could do. I've used it ever since."

Guitar Buyer magazine ran a feature on the Close As You Get album in November 2007 and Gary says of the guitar:
"It's a little bit different from others in that if you use both pickups it sounds almost Fender-y - some people think it's a Strat on the new record. It's a very bright, quite hard-sounding guitar."

The nickname 'Stripe' apparently came from US guitar collector/dealer, Tom Wittrock, who owned it in the mid-80s, referencing its flamed maple top finish. It was never referred to as that by Gary himself, rather being called 'LP2' or 'the other 59 Les Paul' to Gary's ex-Peter Green Les Paul. It has since become commonly known by this nickname to fans and collectors.

Modifications:
Naturally, the guitar has undergone some changes in its lifetime, as noted here and in the Condition Report. The neck pickup was reversed, with the adjustable pole pieces towards the bridge side. This was done one day at Sarm West studios as an experiment to see if it could be made to sound similar to the ex-Peter Green Les Paul. Graham Lilley remembers that it didn't work very well, but with both pickups selected and by adjusting the tone and volume controls, as per the ex-Peter Green guitar, a different Les Paul tone was achieved. This can be heard on the track If Trouble Was Money, on the Albert Collins album, Collins Mix (The Best Of), 1993.

Internal examination of the guitar confirms the bridge pickup is non-original (in the control cavity the original double white pickup wire was cut just before the control) but it is believed the neck pickup may be the original.

Live Performances:
Music Video for After The War, 1989:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBbnLWs0Xec

Live footage of BBM (Baker Bruce Moore) at Virgin Records' 21st anniversary show in 1994
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqN5P-M1m1k

Performance at the Marshall factory in 2006
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7rQp9kt-M4

The guitar also appeared on the cover of Gary Moore's Official Biography by Harry Shapiro published in 2022.​