Guitar makers Gibson have launched an Epiphone SG guitar based on Black Sabbath legend Tony Iommi's original 1964 Gibson SG Special.
To accompany the news, the manufacturer have released an animated video in which a monkey – styled after the sticker that adorned the original guitar – travels through a dark forest until he finds the temple of doom where Iommi lives.
"Epiphone is proud to release a guitar based on the iconic original that launched countless heavy riffs in a striking Vintage Cherry finish," say the manufacturer, before going on to describe the instrument in more detail.
The SG features a two-piece mahogany body, a bound one-piece mahogany neck with a rounded profile, an Indian laurel fretboard with 22 frets, a Graph Tech nut, a set of Grover Rotomatic tuners with contemporary style buttons and chrome-covered Epiphone PRO P-90 pickups that are wired to CTS potentiometers and Orange Drop capacitors.
The guitar also comes with a reproduction of the monkey sticker and a hardshell case.
In 2020, Gibson announced an ultra-limited edition, personally signed Custom Shop run of Iommi's SG that retailed for a mammoth $30,000, and followed it in 2021 with lower-cost version for its Artist Collection ($2399). The new Epiphone SG Special can be purchased direct from Gibson, where it retails for $999.
Iommi donated the original guitar, which can be heard on the classic albums Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master Of Reality, Vol.4 and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, to the Hard Rock Cafe organisation.
In the latest episode of Ozzy Osbourne's three-part series about the making of his new album Patient Number 9, Iommi is asked about his working relationship with Prince Of Darkness.
"We’ve got more relationship going over the last couple of years than we’ve had for a long time… because we’ve become freer now,” Iommi explains. “There’s not the Sabbath thing there that we’ve got to do. We’re in contact virtually every week. It’s just different now to how it was, and it’s been good. It’s been really good."
