Dorothy: Jared Nichols’s Reincarnated Les Paul ’52
In November 2013, a tornado swept through Washington, Illinois, destroying infrastructure, cars, and numerous buildings—including TJ Duckwiler's home. Among the devastated items was an old 1952 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top, whose body was subsequently found by its owner in his backyard. Duckwiler decided to donate the torso of this rare guitar, fitted with P-90 pickups, to blues-rock guitarist Jared James Nichols, who then commissioned Joel Wilkinson of JW Restoration to restore the mangled remains.
Wilkinson, who has years of experience restoring vintage instruments and who also makes custom pickups, gave the guitar a new neck and an Indian rosewood fingerboard and set several red rubies in a tornado-like formation in the back of the headstock. Joe Bonamassa also contributed to the renovation by donating some original 1952 parts to Nichols.
The reincarnated Les Paul from the first product series was nicknamed Dorothy—a reference to a character from The Wizard of Oz whose life is changed by a tornado.
Wonder how the Gold Top is doing now? You can see and hear it in this video from Nichols's Instagram.
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