The Archive

Described by 'Hard Rock' organization as the single most important piece of music history through out their humongous dazzling collection of memorabilia , this historic beautiful cherry red Gibson SG was bought by Tony Iommi sometime around 1966-1967 , Tony Iommi was originally using a white fender strat professionally as viewed on his very short stunt with Jethro Tull on the rolling stone film ‘The Rock N Roll circus’ , during the recording sessions of Black Sabbath’s debut album and after tracking ‘Wicked World’ , the bridge pickup failed and since it was really difficult to get any guitar treatment at time Tony Iommi used this spare Gibson SG 1965 special guitar to finish up recording the rest of the album and ever since became his main instrument on the majority of Sabbath’s early albums and tours. The guitar was used on the Black Sabbath albums ‘Black Sabbath’ , ‘Paranoid’ ,’Master Of Reality’,’Vol.4’ and ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ , it can easily be seen on all early 70’s Sabbath videos specifically on Sabbath’s memorable show at ‘California Jam’ 1974.The guitar which was nicked ‘The Monkey’ guitar due to the distinctive and instantly recognizable monkey guitar on front of the guitar was heavily edited by legendary guitar lutheir Martin Birch , he replaced the neck positioned pickup with a Simplux ( a P90 like single coil pickup) and custom wounded the P90 pick up at the bridge position as well.The guitar was donated by Tony Iommi to ‘Hard Rock Café’ organization as seen on ‘Hard Rock Treasures’ DVD and viewed in the picture gallery of this post .The guitar is currently at New York Times Square Hard Rock.