This is the first Gibson guitar I bought, way back in November 1972 – two days earlier I'd passed my driving test, so that was a pretty lucky week! Eric Clapton had played one of these in his Cream days, distinguished by an outlandish psychedelic paint job, and I dreamt of owning one. That guitar eventually fell into the hands of Todd Rundgren, who allowed me to use it for the That's Really Super, Supergirl solo.

Anyway... I wandered into John Holmes Music in Swindon that Saturday lunch time to find two guys doing a straight exchange of this immaculate guitar for a budget arch-top, much to the delight of manager Brian Gregg! I knew Brian quite well – he was probably Britain's first professional bass guitarist when in the late fifties he'd been with Tommy Steele, Johnny Kidd's original Pirates and later the Tornados – and I begged him to hold the guitar until I could race home (in my knackered Austin A.40), and grab my modded Telecaster and as much cash as I could lay my hands on. I won't go into exactly how much cash I had to find, but Brian (God bless him) did me a sweet deal, and I left the shop the proudest of new owners. I owe him for that!

I've always reckoned that the devilishly-handsome SG range, introduced by Gibson in 1961 to replace the Les Paul, is one of the prettiest lines ever produced by the company. The sound of the Standard however doesn't compare to the 50's Les Paul; the mahogany body is too thin, the neck too slender and, worst of all, that attractive tremolo tail-piece does everything it can to remove the natural sustain from the string. The glorious cherry finish on many early SG's has a tendency to fade to a dark tan, usually if the guitar has been left out of its case for long periods, but thankfully mine's still a rosy red. The neck's been re-fretted and re-lacquered, it's equipped with an original 1960 "P.A.F." pick-up at the bridge (replacing the unit I broke in the seventies after clumsily removing the cover); that's gone some way to improving the sound. The humbucking pick-ups are "coil-tapped"; another seventies fad that I went for, in my quest for more tone colours!