NAMM 2013: Gibson has unveiled the distinctive Music City JR. with B-Bender.

An Ash bodied, P90 sporting solid body, this is a guitar that has been built with country players in mind, and looks as beguiling as it sounds.

For more information, visit the official Gibson website.

Gibson press release

Music City Jr. with B-Bender

The “B-Bender” has been an essential part of the Nashville sound ever since legendary guitarist Clarence White and drummer friend Gene Parsons installed their wild new invention, a B-string bender operated by pulling down on the strap button, in White’s old guitar back in 1965. The B-Bender gave guitarists the ability to imitate pedal-steel bends mid-flow on a standard guitar, and broadened the country vocabulary enormously. In the early 80’s Joe Glaser developed a new style B-Bender that was only installed at his personal “shop of the stars” in Nashville. Now Gibson and Joe Glaser combine forces to bring the Music City Jr. with B-Bender a new look, voice, and feel to the world of faux pedal-steel bending, in a guitar fully equipped to pull off these impressive tricks, while loaded for fat, driving Gibson P-90 tone—along with coil-tap switching to access brighter single-coil tones. The Music City Jr. with B-Bender is constructed in the full Gibson tradition, with a 24 ¾” scale length, a glued-in neck, a 12” fingerboard radius, and a 1 11/16” neck width at the nut, but it incorporates crucial elements from traditional B-Bender guitars such as a light ash body, a maple neck and fingerboard, and through-body stringing courtesy of a converted Gibson Nighthawk bridge. The result blends elements of classic twang tone with Gibson’s legendary thick, rich voice. To top it off, it’s superb to play and adaptable to a wide range of musical styles.

Legendary for its gutsy lows, punchy midrange, and silky highs, in addition to its comfortably light weight, ash has been acclaimed as a tone wood for more than six decades. The Music City Jr. with B-Bender begins with a body of solid Grade-A ash, which is crafted in the shape of the single-cutaway Les Paul Jr. and Special, and minimally routed to accept the lightweight bender mechanism and through-body bridge. The guitar is in Antique Natural vintage gloss, to beautifully show of the distinctive grain of this wood. A distinctive tortoiseshell patterned pick guard beautifully tops off the visuals. A solid maple neck is glued in in traditional Gibson style, carved to a fast, slim ’60s profile that measures .800” deep at the 1st fret and .875” at the 12th, and topped with a Grade-A fingerboard with 22 medium-jumbo frets and black dot position markers. The secret weapon in the package is a lightweight B-Bender mechanism hidden within the back of the guitar’s body: put downward pressure on the guitar so the strap pulls the neck-end strap button upward, and an internal lever-and-gear system bends your B string anywhere from a half tone to a full tone sharp, as determined by the player. With a few simple changes it can be a G-Bender, and a set of high-quality Grover™ tuners make tune-ups a breeze.

While the stirring, energetic B-Bender sound has long been a classic element of “hot licks” country playing, you’ve never heard it with a tone as thick and meaty as the Music City Jr. with B-Bender delivers. Two of Gibson’s fat, growling P-90s yield a sound beloved by guitarists since these iconic pickups first hit the scene in the pre-rock’n’roll days, but this guitar holds further surprises: lift the push-pull switch on either pickup’s volume knob to access a coil tap that bleeds off a portion of the P-90’s coil windings, accessing a brighter, snappier tone more reminiscent of thinner single-coil styles. Between this switching, the independent volume and master tone controls, and Gibson’s classic three-way pickup switch, the Music City Jr. with B-Bender is packed with a tonal versatility that belies its outward simplicity, primed for blues, rock, jazz, or—yep—country. Check it out now at your authorized Gibson Dealer, and bring a new breed of twang to your arsenal.

Every Music City Jr. with B-Bender comes protected in a custom Gibson B-Bender hardshell case, and includes an owner’s manual, truss-rod wrench, and adjustment literature, and comes covered by Gibson’s Limited Lifetime Warranty and 24/7/365 Customer Service.