How Neal Schon's New Les Paul Can Show You How To Tweak Your Tone And Use Guitar Parts That Say You're An Original Axeman!

I grabbed this Neal Schon video from a few years back when Gibson made Schon his own signature Les Paul. Neal is well known for starting out in blues based bar bands in The Bay area and quickly was discovered and started playing with Santana and then Journey. He's always had a very blues based rock guitar style all his own.

Not many players can say that. He showed no fear on stage, even in his early days with Carlos Santana. Schon is also known as another great session player. This is a running theme here guys. When a player like NS can be a consummate live and session guy, you know he's in demand and has a signature style all his own.

That's what you want to strive for in your playing and your choice of guitar, amp rig and accessory parts. Neal's new Les Paul has a regular Les Paul body, but the neck, pickups and even the bridge was changed  to a Fernandes Sustainer for tones that more suited Neal's blues and rock sensibilities and textures.

Even some of the controls on the guitar were changed up to suit what he wanted as well. I saw Schon with Journey back in 1981 in Toronto with some musicians. He was the only reason we wanted to go. His  ability as a real blues man really turned us on. The girls we were with wanted to see Steve Perry of course for his lovely singing. All fine and good, but if you get the chance to see Neal Schon, go for it.

For players who want to learn how and why you need to change things like your neck, tuner, pickups,bridge or guitar control knobs--Neal Schon is the man to learn from to get all that and your own original tone and feel on guitar.

Mark Grove