“It didn’t tick his boxes. It didn’t give him what he wanted”: Before Fender, Jeff Beck worked with Ibanez to create a wild Telecaster/Les Paul hybrid – this is the never-before-told story of the signature model that almost was

Jeff Beck and a picture of his Ibanez prototype signature guitar from the 1980s.

Guitar folklore is filled with hypothetical “what ifs?” – the kinds of stories that give fans creative license to dream up wild alternate realities in which the face of the guitar world as we know it today would be completely unrecognizable.

Imagine, for instance that Jeff Beck partnered with Ibanez for a signature guitar. Madness, right? Except, unknown to many guitar fans, this particular “what if?” came close to actually happening.