Burns London - Burns London Ltd.

Burns London Ltd.

After Jim Burns Ltd, no more Burns guitars appeared on the market until 1992, when the company was restarted by Barry Gibson who employed Jim Burns as a consultant in the company. The original idea was to manufacture handmade replicas of famous Burns guitars from previous incarnations, such as the Marvin and the Nu-Sonic. The company enjoyed serious critical acclaim from many corners of the market, and manufactured many guitars for individuals, including Steve Howe of Yes and Gaz Coombes of Supergrass. later on, in 1999, the company began work on a budget line called the Club range, outsourcing production to Korea. The Club range became the first Burns guitars ever to be manufactured outside of Britain, but the original Burns design ethics, construction and style didn't suffer as a result, with the range exploding in popularity throughout the following years. The Club range expanded quickly, with nearly every Jim Burns-designed guitar ever constructed from 1960 to 1983 receiving its own budget model, such as the Marquee which was a budget version of The Marvin, the Steer (most famously played by Billy Bragg, the London Steer being a copy of a Steer guitar built and given to Billy by Jim Burns many years ago), the Bison and even the Barracuda six-string bass/baritone model. Newer designs have begun to emerge in the last few years, usually building upon the designs of the '60s originals, such as the Batwing, a Marquee with a Bison-style headstock. Burns also worked with Queen guitarist Brian May to produced a copy of May's famous Red Special guitar (which uses Burns Tri-Sonic pickups), and this model was awarded "Best Electric Guitar of the Year 2001" by Guitarist magazine.

More recently, an even cheaper range (manufactured in China) has emerged with two new models, the Cobra and the Nu-Sonic. The Cobra is the closest Burns have come to a straight copy in its lifetime. The body is that of a Stratocaster, but the model retains the sectioned pickguard. Tri-Sonic pickups and (shrunken) batwing headstock common to other Burns guitars. Meanwhile, the Nu-Sonic borrows the name of an original Burns guitar, and resembles more the Fender Telecaster, albeit with a distinctly different pickup setup with two Tri-Sonics and a bridge humbucker borrowing directly from the Steer. As well as the pickups, it also retains the shrunken batwing headstock of its cousin, as well as a German carve around the front edge of the guitar.