Why Neil Young favours one guitar over all others
Watching Neil Young perform could likely send you hurling back in time. It’s not just because of his catalogue of classic songs: it’s also because his setup has largely been unchanged for 50 years. “When it comes to equipment, the idea with Neil is that you don’t change anything,” Young’s guitar tech Larry Cragg told Guitar World in 2009. “You don’t even think about it.”
Young famously favours tweed Fender Deluxe amps, but there’s one piece of equipment that is more legendary – a 1953 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop painted black. ‘Old Black’, the guitar has come to be known, has been Young’s number one guitar since the late 1960s, appearing on nearly all of his albums since. If you’ve ever marvelled at the cutting tone of ‘Cinnamon Girl’ or ‘Like a Hurricane’, then you’ve appreciated the singular sound of ‘Old Black’.
Although they were no longer bandmates, Young traded a Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins guitar to his fellow Buffalo Springfield member, Jim Messina. Messina gave young ‘Old Black’ in return sometime in 1968. Young got the guitar just in time to record the electric parts on his mostly acoustic folk self-titled debut later that year.
By 1969’s Everbody Knows This Is Nowhere, his first album with Crazy Horse as his backing band, Young was dedicated to the guitar. Young often switched through acoustics, but in live videos like Rust Never Sleeps, Yong remains firmly attached to ‘Old Black’. When Young plays at Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday party later this year, ‘Old Black’ will almost certainly be with him.
‘Old Black’ started out as a 1953 Gibson Goldtop, but the guitar was painted black prior to Young getting his hands on it in the trade. The original guitar came with two cream-coloured P-90 pickups. Young ditched the bridge pickup for a DeArmond single coil while making Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s first album, Deja Vu.
By 1973, the guitar had a pickup pulled from a Gibson Thunderbird. That Thunderbird pickup would be the basis of Young’s signature lead guitar sound for the next 50 years, appearing everywhere from ‘Cortez the Killer’ to ‘Rocking in the Free World’. As Young continued to age and evolve, ‘Old Black’ was always the number one guitar that helped Young find his distinctive voice on the instrument. The guitar aged with him, with a number of features worn down over the years.
Check out Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing ‘Like a Hurricane’, with Young playing ‘Old Black’, from 1978 down below.
