Billy Gibbons

At 15.31 in this rig rundown video Billy's tech talks about his Peeler John Bolin telecaster style guitar.

"Here's a favorite. This is a faithful reproduction of the very first guitar that I ever layed my hands on back in Christmas day when I turned thirteen. I got a Gibson Melody Maker, and on that same day we took it over to the Axel Custom Shop where Fearless Fred put on these fine pinstripe lines down. This thing is outfitted with Seymour Duncan's Stack Humbucker, so it's a little bit different than the original but it sure does play and feel great. This is a good one," says Billy Gibbons about the Gibson Melody Maker Electric Guitar.

"Here it is. The faifthful reproduction of the famous Pearly Gates 1959 Sunburst. Once again, this instrument has got the feel, has got the flavor, has got the finery, and it's probably the one that is most easily associated to ZZ Top from the early days when Pearly Gates really carved up the cornestones. This is a faithful reproduction that does the job," says Billy Gibbons about the Gibson Custom Billy Gibbons "Pearly Gates" Les Paul Standard Electric Guitar.

Billy Gibbons's guitar tech says in a different rig rundown that, "There's two Les Pauls with really high action tuned to open E with heavier strings for Billy, which is a gauge of eight. This is the first Pearly Gates that Gibson prototyped. This is the first one and we use it actually as the spare because it's very heavy. The main guitar is a Pearly Gates that has been hollowed out and uses new old-stock Gibson parts, old Gibson pickups, and had the headstock redone to read 'Gibbons Lucky Mojo' instead of Gibson Les Paul. And it's extremely light, but it started life as a normal Pearly Gates model."

"This is the new Billy Bo Pros. You can’t really tell but about half of it's smaller all the way around. It'll fit in a regular Stratocaster or Telecaster case instead of the really big normal case. These are, once again, John Bolin-made with a flipflop finish and inspired artwork. This one is made to the stop-tell piece - the first one we've had like that just because of the graphics. Other than that, it's all new old start Gretch parts with a new TV Jones pickup. It's the same thing with the spare guitar: Billy Bo Pro, John Bolin made, Gretsch specs - different colors. It also has a pin strike that we don't use. It's just there to be sure it will be in tune. The era of the Bigsbys are over for us I think. We've been using Bigsbys for four or five years I think. I'm glad they're gone. They keep in tune because we use the gauge seven strings, and he doesn't change guitars all night. We have a tuner in the back so that if we did go out of tune we could tune it. We don't change guitars nightly; we change guitars a couple rounds a year. We change everything - except the fur. We'll get different things, different arrangements, different colors. Sometimes they'll be left-handed. There's always something new, so they just change them all because if we just want a new one then we need a spare and we need the encore. It's a process but we do it a couple times per year at least. When we swap them out they're all new. Billy is really consistent in what he wants. As long as the guitars are really light, we get them chambered - he's been into lately getting the neck chambered as well as the body - because he uses really light strings, 7-38s, so he's go this really light touch. He only uses the eights on the ones with open tuning - that's the heavy strings. He's up there and he's barely touching it. The settings are all heavy metal settings: bass all the way up, gain all the way up, no treble, all mids. I mean it's all muffled, but when he plays it he just barely hits the strings and that works for him. I have a hard time playing in tune because if I put the guitar on it's down to here, and it's got sevens on it so I have to bend over to hit a D chord for it just to be in tune," Billy Gibbons's guitar tech says in a different rig rundown that, says Billy Gibbons's guitar tech about the Gretsch Billy-Bo Electric Guitar.

"The spare for the main is pretty much an identical guitar. Although this one is a Fender Esquire, it's still John Bolin made. It's Gibson scaled. The only difference is that it does not have Glendale saddles, it has six saddles and it's stringed through the body, not a top-loading bridge. It's firstly the same guitar I consider it the same guitar, and it's only used if something goes wrong with the main Tele guitar," says Billy Gibbson's guitar tech about the Fender '50s Esquire Electric Guitar.

"The infamous fur guitars. So we have two rigs: A and B. The A rig... has the Gretsch Bo Diddley. The B rig Gibson guitar is a Gibson Explorer. This is a standard issue, and it's actually it's a John Bolin-made guitar, made to Gretsch's specs. It's your typical fur-covered guitar - everyone has one," says Billy Gibbons's guitar tech in reference to the Gibson Explorer Electric Guitar.

In the provided photo, Billy Gibbons is seen with a Gibson Moderne. While he claims to own a 1950s prototype, he has not provided proof, suggesting this may be a reissue.

"This one has always brought some interesting and amusing attention inspired by Bo Diddley and his famous fur guitar. He showed us all of his tricks of course. We're never too far from featuring this on our song Legs. It's got a great sound and sure is comfortable and pillow-like," says Billy Gibbons about the Gretsch Bo Diddley Signature Electric Guitar. For reference, Billy Gibbons covers his Bo Diddley guitar with white fur.

Elwood Francis, BFG's guitar tech, starts off saying, "Okay, this is the main guitar. John Bolin. Cream T Pickup, which is a prototype that he is only doing for Billy at the moment." Billy Gibbons, starting at 0:51, adds, "Chambered body. Chambered neck. Chambered headstock. Bolin, John Bolin, out of Boise, Idaho, he is the officiated prototype builder for both Gibson and Fender. The playability of these things has proven to be a real bonus. And they've become the starters of the show. Only because we want a change of sound and a little change of pace do we have to crowbar these out of our hot little hands to go to the next one."

At 10.50 in this rundown video Billys tech talks about his prototype reissue '61 SG Les Paul.

Link to the Premier Guitar article for more details.

He can be seen playing an erlewine custom guitar with one humbucker in this video

In this video from 1997 Billy Gibbons can be seen playing his Tokai. This is the so called 'GRIND' guitar that Billy owned for many years.

Billy Gibbons received a 1960 Fender Stratocaster in Shell Pink as a gift from Jimi Hendrix, who admired Gibbons' talent while they toured together. This iconic guitar is featured in a photo provided by Paulgabriel.

Billy Gibbons used custom-made Dean Z guitars during the recording sessions for the "Eliminator" album, as stated by his engineer and shown in a photo on Woodytone.

Throughout this video, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Moving Sidewalks, and Revolting Cocks, is playing his Palir Guitars Classic T.

In this video, Billy Gibbons can be seen using the Holy Grail electric guitar from RebelRelic at La Grange Fest in 2011.

Gibson Custom is launching a new signature guitar — the BGSG, which is short for the Billy Gibbons SG. The guitar is based on a 1961 Gibson SG, complete with a sideways vibrato arm. The body of the guitar has a unique design which sort of mimics the swell of a tail fin on a vintage Cadillac, and is covered in a golden lacquer. Only two of these beauties have been built so far.

Gibbons says the BGSG “came about following discovery in Paris of a mint example of the transition Les Paul produced in 1961. The feel of the instrument maintained power and balance and the sound was right. That ignited my resurgence in interest of the guitar’s glamorous appeal.”

The BGSG does not have a pickup selector, opting to use separate volume knobs for each pickup, and a joint tone control. “The straight-ahead assignment of one master tone control allows a personalized blend between the twin pickups,” says Gibbons before concluding “It’s another example of Gibson's ‘less-is-more’ greatness.”

Billy Gibbons is associated with the Duesenberg 52 Senior guitar. According to Duesenberg, this guitar was custom-made for Gibbons, highlighting its perfect design with the quote, "You know what is wrong with this guitar? Nothing."

I understand that there is already his original pearly gates is listed under his gear but this one is a modified version of his custom shop reissue from I believe 2009. At about 6:64 you can see Billy Gibbons’s guitar tech mention and show off a modified version of his custom shop reissue of pearly gates. This guitar has been chambered out and the pickups were replaced Seymour Duncan pearly gate pickups.

Featured in this June 3, 2019 Instagram post by Wire Instruments.

That would be one very sharp dressed man, wrangling a Wire Instruments DC9! The Reverend Billy F Gibbons shared his words of encouragement to this young builder back in 1981, and this is where those ripples landed in 2019. #thisisyourlife #gratitude #indreams

The story of Billy Gibbons' "Mr Deadwood" guitar can be read on Vuorensaku's website here.

On the official Vuorensaku Guitars site, Billy Gibbons' guitar tech, Elwood Francis, is quoted as saying:

He did take it with him on his bus and the last I saw it, it had a couple of his stickers on it. So he digs it if he’s decorating it.

This guitar can also be seen in this video of ZZ Top performing Jailhouse Rock in 2016.

When asked by Guitar World about gear he used for the album Hardware, Billy Gibbons responded:

When we first arrived at the studio we only had the gear that was existing in that studio. All the backups, the known suspects, were yet to arrive, but in the corner I picked up an old Fender Jazzmaster that was leaning up against a ’61 Fender Piggyback amp and a Fender Reverb tank, something I hadn’t had the pleasure of plugging into for seemingly forever.

In this video Billy Gibbons plays a Fender Stratocaster on the streets of Helsinki.

Billy discusses this guitar with Joe Bonamassa at 19:45 in this video saying:

The one regret was leaving that, as I remember it was a seafoam green Stratocaster. But I left and by the the time I remembered, gee whiz, maybe I should have made an offer to buy that thing from him, because it, as you point out, it had a sound man.

In this instagram video https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClX8PJ9j__w/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY= Billy is playing this Jimi Hendrix Gibson flying V guitar.

In this photo taken with Jeff Beck, Gibbons is seen with a Gibson SG 61 re-issue sideways vibrola.

From Republic Guitars' website.

In this performance of "Baby What You Want Me To Do" by Jimmy Reed, Billy F. Gibbons uses a 70's Telecaster Deluxe from Fender's Vintera II series.

On the cover of Guitar Player magazine in February 1981, Billy Gibbons is seen playing a double neck automatic custom guitar from Erlewine Guitars.

Visible in this photo of Gibbons from his official PureSalem Guitars artist page.

In this video, Billy F. Gibbons demos the 1957 Les Paul Goldtop Reissue from Gibson.