Burns Guitars

Originally formed in 1960 as Ormston Burns Ltd, Burns London was a guitar company founded by James Ormston Burns. Burns Guitars in the 60's were seen in the hands of such players as Hank Marvin, Elvis Presley, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, The Animals, The Troggs, The Shadows, John Paul Jones, John Mayallǃ_and the list goes on. A Burns guitar was an affordable alternative to the popular Fender Stratocaster that was expensive and even more expensive to import overseas. This led to a rise in popularity of Burns guitars and the original and groundbreaking designs were the perfect fit for the new wave of rock 'n roll introduced in the 1960's.

James Burns was often referred to as the British Leo Fender owing to many parallels drawn between the two men. A pioneering luthier, James used Burns Guitars as a platform for continual development and refinement of the electric guitar. His dedication to this vision left us with groundbreaking innovations such as the heel-less glued in neck, the 24-fret fingerboard, knife-edge bearing tremolo, active electronics, and stacked coil pickups. Many of these innovations were incorrectly labeled as "firsts" by larger, somewhat forgetful companies.

One distinctive product that came with the legacy of Burns Guitars was the Tri-Sonic single coil pickup. Voiced similarly to the traditional single coil, which at the time dominated the electric guitar market in the United States, the Tri-Sonic had a smooth, glassy sound and feel with a bit thicker tone than the standard single-coil. These groundbreaking pickups are responsible for the incredible Brian May tone from his "Red Special" and can be heard on countless albums from the 60's British Invasion era.

Despite the huge popularity of Burns Guitars in the 60's, the company was not doing well financially and was sold to Baldwin in 1965. After two other failed attempts at resurrecting the company, James was brought on as a consultant for Burns London Ltd in 1992. Started by Barry Gibson, Burns London continues to this day to produce reissues of some of the most iconic guitars of the 60's including some new models like the Cobra. Now a Burns guitar can be had at a great price, loaded with Burns Tri-Sonic pickups and in any of the old Burns guitar designs that set the stage for the rock 'n roll revolution.