Paul Kossoff

This ’55 Black Beauty belonged to a teenage Kossoff, before his meteoric rise with Free.

In 1974, Paul Kossoff’s drug problem was spiralling out of control. He sold a number of guitars, including the iconic ‘stripped’ Les Paul. The guitar hasn’t seen the light of day since the mid-1990s, but we were recently granted a world-exclusive audience with one of the most mysterious Bursts of them all.

Though Paul Kossoff died in 1976, aged just 25, his blues-rock playing and distinctive vibrato continue to influence guitarists across the globe. Steve Clarke analyses his ’59 Gibson Les Paul Standard in unprecedented detail…