Making the (double) cut

YOU COULDN’T MAKE it up. Take a trip to 1960, and sit at a table in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You work for Gibson and you’re looking at — or at least talking about — what will turn out to be the Holy Grail

When the Irish band were a folksy blues three-piece, it was Eric Bell who defined Thin Lizzy on their 1971 self-titled debut and early 70s follow-ups, Shades Of A Blue Orphanage and Vagabonds Of The Western World

Blackberry Smoke’s guitarist reveals his greatest guitar triumphs, the pitfalls and blessings of his Les Paul Junior addiction, and his outright disdain of “bad amps”

1960 Gibson ES-335

FOR A HALF-CENTURY AND COUNTING, THE THIN LIZZY SOUND HAS BEEN FORGED AND RECAST BY SCOTT GORHAM AND THE GREATS WHO PARTNERED HIM ON DUELLING LES PAULS, INCLUDING THE LATE JOHN SYKES. GORHAM LOOKS BACK ON THE HIGHS, LOWS, JOY AND PAIN OF HIS CLASSIC PARTNERSHIPS

From his early days in the repair shop to heading up one of the world’s leading pickup brands, the master pickup maker tells us how his problem-solving mindset led to him working with some of the biggest names in the biz, and why he humbly still seems himself as “crew”