“I asked for a cash discount. The shop assistant said, ‘I could phone up Eric Clapton and he’d come and buy it’”: Robert Fripp’s life in three guitars

A black-and-white image of Robert Fripp playing his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Custom.

Few guitarists have shaped progressive and avant-garde music as profoundly as Robert Fripp. With King Crimson, Brian Eno, David Bowie and others, Fripp perpetually reinvented the six-stringed wheel with ease.

He usually did so with a Gibson – or something that looked like a Gibson – in hand. This is why if the building were burning down, Fripp would grab his beloved ’59 Les Paul Custom.