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Vintage Short Takes: Late 50s Goldtop Les Paul w/soapbar P90s, 80s Hagstrom HJ800
In the interests of creating more blog opportunities and being able to comment and document the last few decades of music instruments (and music itself) in more detail, I'm going to add another new feature, which is short takes on instruments that may have been only owned for a short time but played long enough to have at least an initial impression.
By initial impression I mean something that actually adds to the lore of the guitar, not general comment like "it was nice," "awesome" or anything like that. The idea being that these bits and pieces might be interesting quick reading that isn't bulked up with AI generated filler slop to create a longer blog entry.
So, we'll see how these go but for now we'll title these as "Vintage Short Takes."
Late 50s Goldtop Les Paul w/soapbar P90s:
I've noted in prior blog entries that it was probably my first "serious" guitar bought it from a friend for $400, a pretty high amount in the early '70s.
What I remember most about it is that with a case it felt heavier than a bowling ball and was never a pleasure to haul around. The main reason I traded it for an ES-330 was the weight and it's "baseball bat neck" that with my small hands made playing chords difficult.
As far as the pickups, I only knew them as "soap bars" and only vaguely as P90 single coils. I will say though, when played through an Ampeg tube amp (that I bought primarily because the Stones used one), it had the best high volume sound I ever heard (during a time when Neil Young was one of my guitar heroes).
I should add that one of the famous users of this type of Les Paul was Mike Bloomfield, who I admired but never had the ability to emulate. Young's one note blasts were more my speed.
80s Hagstrom HJ800:
I remember this guitar well, which was part of a phase I went through in the late '80s early '90s of trying to be a hollow body Jazz guitar player. I'm not sure what inspired that goal, but I recall it in particular because I traded a pretty nice cherry red Strat Plus and an ebony SG Special for it.
It's one of the earlier GAS guitars, as I call those, that I actually recorded a cut with. On my Boogie Underground channel on YouTube (and other streaming sites), there's a cut called "Bombay Beat Box," which was a psychedelic guitar workout that ends up sounding like a mid-60s English Psychedelic cut.
https://youtu.be/8ygh4aFDMvk?is=8WFtb4OtxDV-M1vk
I never did go down that path of being a jazzbo with that nice big box guitar, but will say that as far as jazz guitars go, the Hagstrom was as good as I've ever heard.
Al Handa
July 21, 2026
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