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The Gibson B.B. King Lucille is the signature guitar made by Gibson for the Blues player B.B. King. The Lucille model is based on the ES-345 and 355 that BB King has played throughout his long career and features a number of design changes to the traditional 335. |
The guitar features a laminated maple top, maple neck, round neck profile fine tuner tailpiece. The guitar features a hollow body but with no “f” holes. The “Lucille” logo adorns the headstock, giving an authentic nod to BB King’s original. The tailpiece and tuners are gold and the guitar features white binding – looks wise it’s great everything it should be and the pickup and control layout are traditional Gibson fare.
The Gibson Lucille features two humbucking pickups (Gibson 490R and 490T) a three way pickup selector switch and a vari-tone control. The Vari tone control features 6 “pre sets” governed by different capacitor combinations, turning this control alters the tone between a dark blues to an almost single coil like twang.
One of the first things you notice about he Lucille is that it’s a bit of a rock - The guitar is quite big and particularly heavy to hold so a comfy strap is a must, the neck is also fairly fat so the guitar might be a bit taxing if your on the small side – this guitar is certainly not one to shred on!
Acoustically the guitar is alittle duller than a traditional 335 and arguable has a little less sustain this is probably to do with the fact that Lucille doesn’t have F holes – plugged in the Gibson Pickups kick in and the Lucille becomes a bit of a beast. The Gibson Lucille is a louder, more solid sounding guitar than traditional 335’s and the Vari-tone means for a flexible guitar capable of producing the right tones to cover jazz, blues and rock.
Unsurprisingly for a BB King signature the guitar excels with it’s clean tones – however with a suitable overdrive pedal the Lucille expounds some creamy sustain with the maple body producing an aggressive midrange bite. One of the joys of this guitar is too tinker around with the vari-control and the tone/volume controls – one minute you can be in cool Jazz the next your in rockabilly – this would be great for your average cover band who might require a bit more tonally than a standard Srat or Les Paul might offer. The Lucille features stereo outputs which again expand it’s range of sounds (try taking one line to an amp and the other to the PA to mix it up a little). The lack of “f” holes cut down substantially on feedback issues usually associated with hollow bodies.
With a retail of around $4,000 the Lucille isn’t cheap – if you look around you’ll find a lot of retailers discounting the guitar to around the $2,500 mark but it’s still a considerable cost– however for that you get Gibson’s quality build standards and a really versatile range of sounds.
Gibson Guitars