The Louisiana blues rocker made the most of his chance to perform with one of rock’s most historic Gibson Goldtops, worth $1.25m
Kenny Wayne Shepherd got the chance to play Duane Allman’s 1957 Les Paul Goldtop at his Macon, GA show on Friday (June 9) and didn’t waste the opportunity to stretch out an electric guitar that is now, quite literally, a museum piece.
The instrument is famed for its use on the track Layla and was used by Allman for the majority of the Allman Brothers Band’s early material, until September 1970, at which point he traded it for a 1959 Les Paul Burst.
The 1957 Goldtop sold at auction for $1.25 million in 2019, making it one of the most expensive guitars ever sold at auction. These days, the guitar usually sits under glass at The Big House museum in the Allman Brothers Band’s defacto hometown, Macon, GA.
Shepherd played like he’d forgotten this, though – and fan shot clips show that, while he stopped short of hurling it around his shoulder, he certainly gave the revered electric guitar a solid workout.