In the sixties, before the world became fully aware of the value of older guitars, I had the good fortune to own several Gibson L-00 instruments. All had lived hard lives; one of them was a miracle to even function as a playable guitar. Gibson often painted guitars black in the ’30’s to hide cosmetic flaws, mismatched wood, and who knows what else. None of these guitars were high-end in terms of materials or craftsmanship; it was the Great Depression, after all. But beyond cosmetics, these guitars worked incredibly well, and they were affordable as well. Put forty or so years on a guitar like this and you can have something pretty special in your hands!
My first L-00 came along in my first year of college; someone left it behind after a party in my apartment. I never found out who’d left it, but I had it for a year before trading it to someone for something I don’t remember now. As a builder, decades later, I began suggesting to clients that they close their eyes and “be a blind man” when evaluating a guitar. Sound is most important, and looks can distort our sense of that reality. That guitar was a wreck, but oh my, it sounded heavenly: dry, crisp, clear and warm. It pulled me away from the allure of finger picks and began to teach me about playing with bare fingers. I brought it to Newport the year John Hurt was there, and he actually said he liked it; That was a moment of a lifetime for a teenage kid smitten with the blues!
It’s always impressed me how much people with internet educations try to explain away the character of a guitar with over-simplified evaluation of it. “Oh, it’s the maple bridge plate,” or something similarly absurd. Guitars are incredibly complex things, not unlike humans, and oversimplifying them can be a disservice. Guitar shapes can have strong impact on sound, and I’ve always been impressed with the distinctive voice of the L-00.
While we built one-offs of this shape over the years, we didn’t add the design to our catalog until almost 2020. We use a default scale length of 24.75” and generally prefer warmer back and side woods like the traditional mahogany and maple. In harder woods, Brazilian and Guatemalan rosewoods are most popular.