GUITARS
 

GIBSON LES PAUL STANDARD CHERRY "Stock Les Paul Humbuckers. This is the 'one and only' that I use for all the slide work I do with the Illegal Eagles. I have tried all the others and they just don't yield and help like the cherry. I just run a glass bottleneck over the 13 gauge strings tuned to e major and we're off!! I keep things as simple as possible , just a fender combo and that's pretty much it. My slide guitar hero was DUANNE ALLMAN and he always used a Les Paul too. I try to listen to him in my head when I play. His guitar sounded like a singer singing the blues! I love the parts in the show when Mickie hands me my cherry les Paul!" Keith

FENDER LONE STAR STRAT. Candy apple red. "1x Seymour Duncan bridge Humbucker. 1x Texas special centre. 1x Dimazio hs3 bridge. My most versatile guitar, pretty much stock except the hs3. It covers every style from clean to full shred! Spent a whole day playing every imaginable new guitar on the market the day I settled for it! I have worn the frets out a couple of times so it gets played. Would always grab this one first. It looks sexy too somehow.......Strats can look a bit awkward sometimes in people's hands. This one looks fantastic!" Keith

Photo by Marty Moffat

GODIN ARTISAN "Currently, my main electric guitar is a Godin Artisan. It is a Telecaster style body with a finished curly maple fret board, which makes for very smooth playing, and has their own single coil pick ups that have a remarkably wide range of sound from blues crunch to country twang. I bought this baby in Atlanta sometime in the 1990's. I was haunting my local music store, happened to pick it up to see what it played like and knew I was going to have to take a second job immediately because I had to have it. I have other Godin guitars as well and am a big fan of the workmanship they put into their instruments without driving their prices into the impossible ranges that so many of the bigger companies do." Danny

Photo by Jessica Patel

YAMAHA CPX900BS "I've always been something of a collector of acoustic guitars. Particularly ones that are equipped with pick ups so they can be played on big stages. My main 6 string is a Yamaha CPX900BS, the top of the range of their Compass series. It was given to me by Mark Kirkland and the good people of Yamaha Guitars while I was on tour doing an acoustic set opening up for Journey in the UK in 2007. It was like Christmas Day for me! It's got on board 3 band eq as well as bass and treble dials along with it's own tuner. It's a deep sunburst color and it sounds and plays as beautifully as it looks. I don't go anywhere without it!" Danny

Photo by Nichola Carson

GIBSON CHET ATKINS SST 12 STRINGS "My favourite instrument of all has to be the acoustic 12 string guitar. Nothing sounds quite like it. But building an acoustic/electric version of that instrument that can take that kind of tension on the neck, remain easily playable, and have a sound that is true to an acoustic 12 string has been a very difficult thing for any guitar manufacturers to do. I have 2 Gibson Chet Atkins SST 12 strings in black and in wine red. I've had them since Gibson gave them to me in 1991. They are my road warriors. They've been around the world with me since my Tyketto days and they have all of the battle scars from a million go rounds with brutish airline baggage mis handlers to prove it. Sadly, Gibson doesn't even make the 12 string version of these anymore. I don't think a finer instrument has ever been built of this type and I'd be lost without them." Danny

TAKAMINE EF341SC & EF381C, 6 & 12 STRINGS "For years I've owned a Millennium Special Edition Takamine, and after narrowly avoiding disaster when a good friend mercilessly threw it on the floor, I became increasingly paranoid about putting it in the back of a truck! I came across this black Takamine by chance when in Denver, Colorado. Surrounded by Martins and the like, this shiny black devil whispered to me from a dusty corner. I dragged it out and gave it a try. It felt great, had a gorgeous warm tone to it and sounded excellent plugged in. The only problem was the 8 inch crack across its back. I managed to get another back home, and it was just as good! When I discovered that Takamine also made a 12-string version of the same guitar, I immediately replaced my dying G-series 12 string. These guitars are from Takamine's keystone pro-series. Gloss back with solid spruce tops and snowflake mother of pearl inlays, and upgraded to include Takamine's Cool-tube preamp, these plain and unassuming but nonetheless beautiful guitars are the backbone of all my acoustic playing; both on stage and in the recording studio. After joining the Illegal Eagles, I discovered that Glen Frey uses the same models - scary? I'm not sure, but Its nice to know that someone agrees with my taste in guitars!" Michael

FENDER CUSTOM TELECASTER "I've never been truly happy with any any Electric guitar I've played. I searched for ages but could never find the right combination of Neck width, pick ups, pick up selection, body style and colour (the most important thing!) So I decided to get one specially made and ended up building a telecaster from official Fender parts. The result was a gorgeous natural coloured swamp ash telecaster body, with a wide, beautiful flame maple neck, extra hot hum-bucker pickup at the bridge, hum-bucker at the neck position and 4 way selection switch to blend them together. The volume and tone control are different to normal telecasters, and have a greater degree of control of the overall tone, making the telecaster a little less bright than usual. I've ended up with a beautiful all purpose guitar that plays fantastically, can match a Strat in versatility, a Gibson for rocking out, but can still sound just like a Telecaster when required." Michael