The Gibson Barney Kessel Pages  (Part 6)
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Other Artist Models during the Era of the Barney Kessel
 
Pictured below:  1964 Gibson Tal Farlow, one of the famous jazz signature models of the 60's.  The Barney Kessel was a more expensive model: in 1966 the Tal would cost you 650.00 and the Barney Kessel Custom 675.00! Jazzers Johnny Smith and Tal Farlow each represented one artist model, while Barney Kessel had his own mini line of two models. 
 
The model pictured below was constructed without the typical Tal Farlow scroll in the cutaway horn, and is rare for that reason.
A few years after Barney and Tal were awarded signature models, folk singer Trini Lopez was awarded his own mini line of two artist models (one of which was based on the BK design and the other essentially a semi-hollow body, based on the es-335 design).  In the later 60's, the Trini model "Standard"  (based on the es-335) easily outsold all the jazz models. No Gibson signature artist had ever put his name on two models as disparate in design as the two Lopez models.

 
www.vintageguitar.com    In the early 1960s, as Les Paul was leaving Gibson's artist roster, the company recruited three of the most respected jazz guitarists to put their signatures on new "artist" model electrics. With Johnny Smith, Tal Farlow, and Barney Kessel (plus the Everly Brothers in the acoustic line and Howard Roberts as an Epiphone artist), Gibson had more signature-model clout than all other guitar makers combined. The most successful Gibson signature artist of that decade, however, was not a jazz player, and not even a virtuoso guitarist. But he was more popular with radio audiences and record buyers than any of Gibson's jazz giants, and in some years his Gibsons outsold all other signature models.
He was a young Mexican-American from Dallas named Trinidad "Trini" Lopez III.  
 
Shown below:  A Trini Lopez Deluxe (example shown has rare reverse headstock). The Trini Lopez Deluxe, even with its nickel hardware, cost  645.00 in 1964....20.00 more than a Barney Kessel Custom. 
 
A heritage of 3-chord folk music...a Firebird/Fender-ish headstock...the body of a
jazz guitar....a collection of odd lines....the strange additon of an extra "kill switch"....will this "artist model" have enduring appeal? Or does Trini's short two-year stint as a "Gibson artist" reveal something that is telling?