Since I was driving past the closest Guitar Center today, I decided to stop in to see if they had a Tribute T Les Paul. Turns out they did in gold top! It looked cool and I liked the finish. You can feel the grain on the neck of the wood, which I liked. It'd probably smooth out some over time as my '51 did. It needed a bit of a setup. The neck had too much forward bow and the bridge probably could have been lowered slightly--a two minute fix. There were some very minor fit and finish issues I noticed. For example, the cover on the back of the guitar behind the switch was not centered in the cutout for it. A minor thing that wouldn't affect playability at all, but I expected better from a made-in-the-US guitar.

Les Paul's have never been in my wheelhouse. The guitars I've owned have mainly been superstrats. I found the balance of the guitar on my lap to be . . . odd. There is more guitar on the bridge side of leg cutout than a typical strat so I felt like it would fall off my lap if I didn't keep my hand on it. That was minor and something I would adjust to. The bigger issue I had was the upper fret access. I was messing around with the "Albert King box" on the highest frets and I was really fighting the guitar. It seems hard to keep my thumb behind the neck when playing up there because of the neck joint. Is there a trick to that or something? It didn't seem anywhere near as easy to play up there as my '51 to say nothing of my Jackson.

I'd like to hear from you Les Paul folks about that.