Our spreadsheet handed us the usual Les Paul roll call for this one — Jimmy Page, Slash, Duane Allman, Joe Perry, Gary Moore. Every name is a legitimate Les Paul legend. None of them, however, is the reason this particular guitar exists. This is a signature model, and signature models get one editorial rule above all others: center the artist the guitar is actually named after, not the generic family tree of players who happened to love the same body shape. So set aside Page, Slash, Allman, and Moore for a moment — this is Jared James Nichols’s guitar, built to his exact specifications, and the story of how it came to exist is far more interesting than another Zeppelin anecdote.
Here’s the twist, though: one name from that spreadsheet list does belong in this story, just not for the reason you’d expect. Joe Perry of Aerosmith isn’t associated with the Gold Glory because he played one — he’s the reason it exists at all. In 2012, a young, broke, unsigned Nichols was rehearsing late at night in a Los Angeles studio when Aerosmith happened to be recording in the next room. Perry, impressed by what he overheard, loaned Nichols a vintage 1950s Les Paul Custom stripped down to a single pickup. That loan reshaped Nichols’s entire musical identity, and everything about the guitar you’re reading about now — including its $699 price tag — traces directly back to that one act of generosity from a genuine Les Paul icon.
Who Is Jared James Nichols?
Jared James Nichols was born in 1989 and raised in East Troy, Wisconsin — a detail that matters more than it might seem, because East Troy sits practically next door to Waukesha, the birthplace of Les Paul himself. Nichols has said the coincidence wasn’t lost on him growing up: he was drawn to Les Paul-shaped guitars from childhood, in the same corner of the country where the man who invented the archetype was born. He also grew up in the shadow of tragedy that would shape his musical DNA in a different way — Stevie Ray Vaughan played his final show before his fatal 1990 helicopter crash in Nichols’s own hometown, a detail that has followed Nichols throughout interviews about his blues influences.
He started playing guitar at 14, self-taught, mentored by local blues players in Wisconsin jam sessions. What makes Nichols instantly identifiable on any stage isn’t just his guitar — it’s what’s missing from his right hand. Nichols plays entirely without a pick, using his thumb for downstrokes and his first three fingers for upstrokes, a technique he developed independently, without formal instruction, after a guitar shop employee insisted he switch from playing left-handed to right-handed as a kid. Rather than fight through that awkward transition with a plectrum, Nichols found his own way in — pure fingerstyle, applied to blues-rock riffing rather than the fingerpicking patterns most players associate with the technique. He’s cited Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s legendary guitarist, as his single biggest influence in developing that pickless approach, alongside Mark Knopfler and Derek Trucks as proof the technique could carry real rock power, not just delicate picking patterns.
Nichols moved to Los Angeles in 2010 at age 21, enrolled at the Musicians Institute, and quickly started winning contests — the Gibson Les Paul Tribute Contest and the Musicians Institute’s Outstanding Guitarist Award among them. He formed a power trio that channeled the thick, riff-driven hard blues-rock of Cream and Mountain rather than the sleeker blues-rock of his contemporaries, released a run of albums building steady acclaim through the 2010s, and by 2021 had been named a Gibson global brand ambassador — a title he shares with only three other guitarists: Slash, Dave Mustaine, and Lzzy Hale. That’s the company this one-pickup Wisconsin blues-rocker now keeps.
The Guitar That Started Everything: Joe Perry’s Loan
The origin story is worth telling in full because it explains every design decision on the guitar you can currently buy. In Nichols’s own words, he was rehearsing at Swing House Studios in Los Angeles around midnight on a cheap Sunday slot — the only time he could afford — when he learned Aerosmith was recording in the building. Sometime after midnight, the door cracked open and Joe Perry appeared, having overheard Nichols’s trio through the walls. Perry was impressed enough that he loaned the young guitarist a genuine 1950s Les Paul Custom that had been stripped down to a single pickup — a stark, honest, no-frills instrument that stood in total contrast to the three-pickup, multi-switch complexity most players associate with the Custom model.
Nichols has said that guitar changed everything. He fell in love with the simplicity — one pickup, one volume, one tone, nothing to hide behind — and it became the conceptual blueprint for what would eventually become his own signature model, nicknamed “Old Glory.” When Epiphone approached Nichols about a signature guitar, the choice was obvious: recreate the stripped-down, single-pickup Custom concept that Perry’s loan had planted in his head years earlier. The original “Old Glory” launched in black in January 2019. The “Gold Glory” arrived in 2021 as a goldtop reimagining of the same concept — and more recently, the “Blues Power” model pushed the idea further with a custom-designed Seymour Duncan JJN P-90 Silencer pickup, engineered specifically to reduce the classic single-coil hum while preserving P-90 character.
Full Specifications — Epiphone Jared James Nichols “Gold Glory” Les Paul Custom
Why One Pickup? The Design Philosophy Behind the Guitar
Every detail on this guitar traces back to a single conviction Nichols has repeated in interview after interview: constraints make better players. A single P-90 in the bridge position, one volume knob, one tone knob — there’s no pickup selector to hide behind, no combination of settings to fall back on when the playing itself isn’t compelling. It’s the electric guitar equivalent of a boxer fighting with one hand tied behind his back and somehow still winning the fight through sheer technique. Nichols has explained his affection for the P-90 format specifically as splitting the difference between a “thick humbucker” sound and “the clarity and shimmer of a Strat or Tele single coil” — a genuinely versatile middle ground that doesn’t announce itself as either extreme.
The wraparound “Lightning Bar” bridge is a deliberate vintage-correct touch, echoing the simplified hardware of 1950s Les Paul Customs before Gibson standardized the separate Tune-O-Matic-and-stopbar setup most modern Les Pauls use. Combined with the mahogany body and ebony fretboard — a tonal recipe that leans dark, warm, and focused rather than bright and scooped — the Gold Glory is built entirely around one philosophy: fewer variables, more expression, everything channeled through the player’s hands rather than the guitar’s switching options.
How It Sounds: Thick, Dark, and Entirely Up to You
Reviewers consistently describe the Gold Glory’s tone as surprisingly close to a proper Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul despite the budget price point — the mahogany body and ebony board combination delivers real sustain and a dark, focused midrange that P-90s can sometimes lack when paired with lighter tonewoods. Because there’s no pickup selector or second pickup to blend, tonal variety comes entirely from the player’s hands: pick attack (or in Nichols’s case, finger attack), volume knob rolling, and amp gain staging. It’s an unforgiving setup in the best sense — bad technique has nowhere to hide, and good technique gets rewarded with genuine dynamic range from a single knob.
The ’50s Rounded C neck profile is chunkier than most modern Les Paul necks, giving real purchase for Nichols’s aggressive fingerstyle attack — enough wood under the hand to dig in hard without the neck feeling flimsy. Reviewers note the 12″ fingerboard radius and medium-jumbo-adjacent feel supports both blazing pentatonic runs and the kind of monster bends and pinch harmonics that define Nichols’s style.
Tone Recipes
Old Glory Grit (Nichols’s Core Sound)
Guitar volume at 10, into a cranked tube amp — Nichols himself favors Marshall and Blackstar territory — with the amp doing most of the work. No pedals required for the base tone; this is amp breakup and finger attack carrying the entire dynamic range. Use your thumb hard on downstrokes for a percussive low-end thump.
Blues Power Ballad
Roll the volume knob back to 6-7 for cleaner, more vocal tones — the P-90’s natural clarity shines here. Add a touch of spring reverb and let sustained bends do the emotional heavy lifting, in the tradition of Nichols’s Hubert Sumlin-inspired phrasing.
Cream/Mountain Hard Rock
Volume at max, into a boost pedal left permanently engaged (Nichols himself runs a Seymour Duncan boost “always on”), pushing an already-hot amp into thick, saturated territory. This is the Leslie West and Eric Clapton-derived heavy blues-rock at the core of Nichols’s power-trio sound.
Fingerstyle Dynamics Workout
Clean-to-edge-of-breakup amp setting, no pedals. Practice alternating thumb-driven low string work with upstroke-driven treble runs — the exercise that built Nichols’s technique in the first place, using the volume knob rather than pedals to shift between rhythm and lead intensity.
Epiphone Gold Glory vs. the Alternatives
Vs. Epiphone SG Custom: Both are Custom-tier Epiphones with premium appointments, but the SG Custom (covered in our Rank 129 feature) carries two humbuckers and full switching flexibility, while the Gold Glory strips everything down to one pickup and two knobs — polar opposite design philosophies within the same brand.
Vs. a standard Epiphone Les Paul Standard: The Standard’s dual-humbucker setup and coil-splitting options offer far more tonal range on paper. The Gold Glory trades that range deliberately for focus — a single, honest voice rather than a menu of options, in service of Nichols’s minimalist philosophy.
Vs. a Gibson Les Paul Junior: The closest vintage spiritual ancestor — a single P-90, minimal controls, maximum honesty. The Junior uses a flat slab body and simpler binding; the Gold Glory keeps the fuller Custom-body binding and block inlays while matching the Junior’s single-pickup simplicity underneath.
Vs. the Epiphone “Blues Power” Nichols model: The newer sibling in Nichols’s own signature lineup, the Blues Power swaps the standard P-90 for a custom Seymour Duncan JJN P-90 Silencer designed to cut hum while preserving character — the pick for players who want Nichols’s exact modern tone rather than the more vintage-spec’d Gold Glory setup.
Buying Guide: Is the One-Pickup Life for You?
This guitar rewards a specific kind of player: someone drawn to blues, blues-rock, or hard rock who wants to develop real touch dynamics rather than relying on pickup switching and pedal chains to shape their sound. If your style depends on quick tonal contrast between rhythm and lead via a pickup selector, this isn’t your guitar — there isn’t one to switch. If you’re the kind of player who already reaches for the neck pickup 90% of the time and barely touches the bridge selector, the Gold Glory’s honesty might be exactly the push you need.
At $699 with an EpiLite case included, it sits at a genuinely fair price point for the premium binding, ebony fretboard, and Grover hardware on offer — comparable Custom-tier Epiphones with more electronics typically cost the same or more. Because it’s part of Epiphone’s limited-run Artist Collection rather than a standing catalog item, availability fluctuates; if you’re drawn to the concept, don’t assume it’ll always be in stock. Check the wraparound bridge intonation carefully when trying one in person — the “Lightning Bar” design offers less fine-tuning range than a separate Tune-O-Matic and stopbar setup, a fair trade for vintage authenticity but worth knowing before you buy.
Living with a One-Pickup Guitar: Practical Ownership
Committing to a single-pickup instrument as your main guitar is a genuine style choice, not just a spec sheet quirk. You lose the quick tonal palette-swapping a two-humbucker guitar offers, but you gain simplicity on stage — one knob to ride for volume swells, one knob for tone shaping, nothing else to think about mid-solo. Many single-pickup convert players report it actually improves their picking-hand (or in Nichols’s case, fingerstyle) technique specifically because there’s nowhere to hide sloppy dynamics behind a neck-pickup mud-blanket.
The mahogany body with ebony board keeps the guitar reasonably weighted for a Les Paul Custom-shaped instrument, and the ’50s Rounded C neck, while chunkier than a modern slim profile, suits players who dig in hard rather than those who prefer a thin, fast-shred neck. Because the Gold Glory ships as a limited-run model, expect the used market to hold value reasonably well — Custom Shop-adjacent binding and block inlays at this price point don’t flood the used market the way standard-issue Epiphones do.
The Verdict: A Guitar Built on a Favor
Every signature guitar claims to represent an artist’s vision, but few can trace their entire design philosophy back to one specific midnight loan in a Los Angeles rehearsal studio. The Gold Glory exists because Joe Perry heard something worth encouraging through a studio wall in 2012, handed a broke, unsigned guitarist a stripped-down ’50s Les Paul Custom, and inadvertently created the blueprint for a signature model that would eventually put Jared James Nichols in the same Gibson ambassador tier as Slash. Our spreadsheet’s generic Les Paul roll call — Page, Slash, Allman, Perry, Moore — mostly missed the actual story here, except by accident: Perry belongs in this article after all, just not for playing the guitar. He’s the reason it exists.
FAQ
Why does the Gold Glory only have one pickup?
The single-pickup, single-volume, single-tone design deliberately recreates the stripped-down 1950s Les Paul Custom that Joe Perry loaned Jared James Nichols in 2012 — an instrument Nichols credits with reshaping his entire playing philosophy toward simplicity and touch-driven dynamics.
Does Jared James Nichols really play without a guitar pick?
Yes — Nichols plays entirely fingerstyle, using his thumb for downstrokes and his first three fingers for upstrokes, a technique he developed independently after starting out holding the guitar left-handed as a child. He cites Hubert Sumlin, Mark Knopfler, and Derek Trucks as key influences on sticking with the approach.
What’s the difference between “Old Glory,” “Gold Glory,” and “Blues Power”?
“Old Glory” (2019) is the original black-finished signature model. “Gold Glory” (2021) is a goldtop reimagining with the same core spec. “Blues Power” (2023) is the newest iteration, upgrading to a custom Seymour Duncan JJN P-90 Silencer pickup designed to reduce hum while preserving P-90 tonal character.
Is the Epiphone Gold Glory good for beginners?
The single-pickup simplicity is actually beginner-friendly in terms of controls, but the ’50s Rounded C neck profile and reliance on touch dynamics reward players who already have some technique under their fingers. It’s better suited to an intermediate player specifically drawn to blues-rock tone than a total first-timer.
What amp settings work best with a single P-90 Les Paul Custom?
P-90s respond well to amps with natural breakup rather than heavily scooped high-gain settings — a cranked tube amp or a boost pedal into a moderately driven amp captures the thick-yet-articulate character Nichols favors. Because there’s no second pickup to blend, most of the tonal shaping happens via the guitar’s volume knob and your amp’s gain staging.
How does the Gold Glory compare to Gibson’s own Jared James Nichols signature models?
Epiphone’s JJN signature line offers the same core design concept — single P-90, minimal controls, vintage-inspired Custom body — at a significantly lower price point than any Gibson USA or Custom Shop equivalent, making it the accessible entry point into Nichols’s specific sonic philosophy.