GUITAR OF THE MONTH
Tom Holmes THC
Tom Holmes built guitars for Bo Diddley, Lenny
Breau, Billy Gibbons, Albert King and many others.
For the last twenty years he has become a legend
for jewel-like PAF-style humbucking pickups, which
he builds in his shop in Joelton, TN.
This is a beauty he made for Nashville guitar store
owner and picker Richard Cotten. The shape was
Cotten’s design, which he took to Holmes as a
cardboard cutout. The guitar was built around
1981 and is quite heavy ( 11. 5 lbs.), as was the
fashion of the day. It has a flame maple top on a
mahogany body, with mahogany neck and ebony
fingerboard. The pickups currently on the guitar
are Holmes humbuckers with aged covers. The
guitar appears on the cover of the LP Pickin’
Cotten by Lenny Breau and Richard Cotten.
Background: Clingman’s Dome, The Great Smoky Mountains
www.premierguitar.com
