Josh Williams Guitars Mockingbird White w/Lollars

Our Josh Williams Mockingbird, spec’d by TME as a tribute of sorts to Alex Lifeson’s iconic Alpine White 1976 Gibson ES-355.

If you’ve spent any time on the guitar forums or down a YouTube rabbit hole lately, you’ve probably come across Josh Williams and his Mockingbird, the Southern California-built semi-hollow that players like Josh Smith, Ariel Posen, Joey Landreth, and Drew Shirley have been raving about. When we sat down with Josh to spec our next one, our conversation kept drifting back to a single guitar: the Alpine White 1976 Gibson ES-355 that came out of Alex Lifeson’s visit to the Gibson factory that year, the guitar fans know as “Whitey,” which anchored Rush’s live shows for nearly four decades before Lifeson retired it after the R40 tour.

So this Mockingbird is our tribute of sorts, built around the details that made that guitar so recognizable from the back row of an arena: Alpine White finish, gold hardware, vibrato, ebony fingerboard with block inlays, Varitone, and Lollar pickups. It isn’t meant to be a replica, and it doesn’t need to be, because underneath the look is everything we already love about Josh’s Mockingbird: true semi-hollow construction with a pressed, laminated maple top, back, and sides around a center block, a 16" lower bout, a mahogany neck with an ebony fingerboard, and a 24.75" scale, all built the traditional way by a small team that clearly cares about how these guitars feel in your hands.

The neck is a true "Goldilocks" C shape: not too fat, not too skinny, but just right at .85" at the first fret, and it’s the kind of carve we bonded with the moment we picked it up. The fretwork is impeccable, giving the guitar that balance of refinement and soul that runs through every guitar we’ve played from Josh’s shop.

We love that Josh loaded this one with Jason Lollar's standard-wind Imperial humbuckers. You'll find the low-wind version on a ton of guitars these days, which are great for those Tele-on-steroids tones, but the standard-wind Imperials are great, great sounding pickups that have a much fatter, fuller midrange that the low-winds just don't have. Cleans or gained out, we think you'll love the classic 335 / 355 tones they bring to the table.

If you’re chasing the spirit of radio-era Rush or just want a semi-hollow with a little more personality than the usual sunburst, it’s a guitar that sits closer to the heart than most anything else on our wall. Sorry, we had to. #Rush

PS - We know what you're thinking, and yes, the Vibrola works reall beautifully and stays in tune like a champ. :-)