wishlist Ivison Hurricane ’59
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Ivison Hurricane ’59 £5,495
CONTACTIvison Guitars WEBwww.ivisonguitars.com WORDSDave Burrluck PHOTOGRAPHY Phil Barker
Back in issue 491 we had the pleasure of spending some time with Neil Ivison and his Hurricane Standard, a beautiful 50s-style single-cut that mixes up a Les Paul Junior, Special and a ’Burst. Earlier this year Neil launched another variant that we have here, the Hurricane ’59, “inspired by the Holy Grail ’58 to ’68 ’Bursts”, says Neil. With the exception of the artfully altered headstock and rounded treble horn, it looks, feels and smells like it’s just come off the line at 225 Parsons St, Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1959: a brand‐new 64-year-old guitar.
Unlike the uber-quality modern single-cuts we’ve seen from the likes of Nik Huber and Patrick James Eggle, for example, Neil’s craft purposely shoots for period-specific style. The scale length is subtly shorter at 625.5mm (24.625 inches), and the maple top has a very understated ‘dirty’ flame. Meanwhile, the pale faded ’burst finish is far from blingy and it’s beautifully carved, not least the deep dishing from the centre dome out to the light cream ABS binding. That finish, which is 100 per cent nitrocellulose “vintage formulated and non-plasticised”, says Neil, is lightly aged, too, and clearly very thin, sinking into the grain of the one piece “premium” mahogany back.
Instead of the two-control layout of the Hurricane Standard, we get the full four-control complement here, although Neil prefers the pre-tune-o-matic wrapover bridge. The humbucker at the bridge and P-90 soapbar neck pickup of the Standard are replaced with a set of vintage-spec Sunbear 59 SB-PAF humbuckers.
At 4.1kg (9lb), this guitar sits in the upper end of the original ’Burst weight range, but somehow that disappears as you begin playing through the Hurricane’s sounds, as do the superb-feeling medium C ’59 neck profile and the perfectly fretted and fettled fingerboard with its vintage pattern celluloid inlays. These are sounds you’ve heard countless times before, of course. But the combination of the build and the Sunbear humbuckers, not to mention the beautifully interactive control harness, put this guitar up there with the finest single-cuts we’ve ever had our hands on – both old and new. It’s fantastically lively and has superb musicality played clean with the volumes and tones rolled back, but wind them up and it really roars with woody depth and definition in equal measure.
It might be made in Worcester and not quite follow the exact lines of the original, but the high-level vintageobserved craft and what we hear are truly stellar.
1. The classic appearance of the holly-faced headstock could hav
