Unique Barney Kessel Custom Hand-Painted by Super-Guitarist April Lawton.

1966 Gibson Barney Kessel Custom.

This one-off guitar was owned, played and hand-painted by April Lawton of the 'Seventies 'super group' Ramatam, which featured Mitch Mitchell of The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Mike Pinero of Iron Butterfly. April played this guitar, which she designed and painted in 1973, on two Ramatam albums. The guitar is signed and dated on the top "April Lawton 9-73."

There is evidence of several professional repairs having been carried out on this instrument - in all probability just before April Lawton painted the guitar. It is apparent that the neck has been expertly repaired behind the third fret and that the back of the headstock has been professionally refinished as there is no visible serial number on the back of the headstock. There is also evidence of a repaired crack and refinish at the heel which extends into both side cutaways. Yet it plays beautifully. Clearly all of this work was done for April Lawton before she hand-painted the top and used the guitar in her musical career.

And, though brief, what a career it was. A genuine virtuoso, April Lawton (1948-2006) was hailed by many as the female Jimi Hendrix, her fast and fluid, demonically wicked style a mix of Jeff Beck, Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Alan Holdsworth, with hints of Al DeMiola and John McLaughlin. Her gift was so extraordinary that more than a few refused to believe that she was a woman. A female guitarist was a true rarity in those days and the presumption was that only a man could play as well as Lawton; she surely must have been a transsexual. So not so. Lawton was the real thing - super-cool chick AND monster player.

Lawton was with Ramatam for the band's first two albums, their self-titled debut (1972) produced by the immortal Tom Dowd, and In April Came the Dawning of the Red Suns (1973). The band was not commercially successful and Lawton moved on to a solo project, The April Lawton Band, which, alas, dissolved in the late 1970s.

Lawton then disappeared from the music scene to concentrate on painting and graphic design, specializing in natural history and space and military aviation themes, work that was published in various scientific journals and magazines, and exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute.

As dramatic and fine as that art is, it is her Mesoamerican-themed guitar paintings that stun the music cognoscenti. She painted only two guitars, the instrument under notice and the one seen on the inside cover to In April Came the Dawning of the Red Suns. Only this guitar remains, the more vivid of the two, a richly colored, eye-popping tableau of Mayan myth and symbols that integrates those motifs into the natural shape and hues of the guitar to marvelous effect. The surface of a guitar is smooth and unforgiving, to paint on such a surface is quite challenging to a painter. That Lawton painted it five-six years before she committed herself to becoming a professional artist is extraordinary. A natural marriage, the guitar and art are one. Amongst her earliest artworks, this guitar is featured on the Lawton website at http://www.aprillawton.com/aprilart2.html.

Of Barney Kessel (1923 – 2004) we need add nothing beyond that he was one of the world's most respected jazz musicians and amongst the greatest jazz guitarists of all time. In 1961 The Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced The Barney Kessel model guitar onto the market and continued to make them until 1973.

This original cherry sunburst "Barney Kessel Custom" guitar weighs just 6.80 lbs. and has a nut width of 1 9/16 inches, a scale length of 25 1/2 inches and a really comfortable medium neck profile. With a unique 17 inch wide and 3 inch deep body with double Florentine cutaway and laminated maple top with two parallel braces, it possesses beautifully flamed laminated maple back and sides.

It has a three-piece maple neck with two mahogany center strips, and has a bound rosewood fretboard with 20 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl 'Bow-Tie' position markers. With triple binding on top and bottom edges, single-bound headstock. Super-400 style long headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" and exclusive inlaid pearl 'quaver note' motif. Two-layer black on white bell-shaped truss-rod cover with two screws and "Custom" engraved in white. Black-painted headstock rear face. Individual Grover Roto-Matic tuners with half-moon metal buttons.

Orange oval label inside the bass f-hole with the style "Barney Kessel Custom" and the serial number "852883" written in black ink (ink a little smudged). Two patent number humbucking pickups with outputs of 7.88k and 7.32k, each with a rectangular black label on the underside reading "Patent No / 2,737,842" (label on bridge pickup covered with a small piece of tape). The gold-plated pickup covers have at some time been re-soldered. Two black plastic pickup rings, the neck one being stamped on the underside "MR 491 / M-69 7" and the bridge one "MR 490 / M-69 8".

Five-layer (black / white / black / white / black) plastic pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) on lower treble bout plus three-way pickup selector switch with black rubber mounting ring on treble horn. Gold plastic bell-shaped knobs with metal tops. Ebony 'Gretsch' style bar bridge on adjustable ebony base. Trapeze tailpiece with raised diamond and rosewood shield featuring a black plastic nameplate with "Barney Kessel" engraved in white. All hardware gold-plated. Housed in the original Gibson four-latch black hardshell case with yellow plush lining (8.50). This is one of the most unusual of all the Gibson 'Artist' models with just 740 guitars being produced between 1961 and 1973. This guitar is one of just 57 guitars shipped in 1966.