Tallulah! - Epiphone Wildkat Royale | Pearl White | Bigsby B70 | Hard Case

Meet Tallulah

Some guitars are understated.

Tallulah considers gold sparkle binding a neutral.

The Wildkat has always been one of Epiphone’s more unusual creations, sitting somewhere between the familiar worlds of solidbody and full-size semi-hollow guitars. The Royale took that already distinctive design and apparently decided what it really needed was Pearl White, gold sparkle and considerably more jewellery.

We approve.

Tallulah’s mahogany semi-hollow body is topped with maple and finished in a beautifully shimmering Pearl White, with gold sparkle binding tracing the body and fingerboard. At 24.75” scale and slightly larger than a Les Paul but more compact than something like an ES-335, the Wildkat has a wonderfully comfortable feel that belies how substantial she looks.

The set mahogany neck carries a rosewood fingerboard with 22 frets and simple dot markers, leaving most of the visual drama to everything happening approximately six inches further south.

And there is quite a lot happening.

A pair of Epiphone P-90R and P-90T Dogear Classic pickups sit beneath those enormous gold-toned covers, giving Tallulah the warmth and openness you’d hope for from a semi-hollow guitar, but with the grit, bite and wonderfully unruly midrange that makes a good P-90 so addictive.

They’re controlled by individual pickup volumes, a master volume and master tone, alongside a three-way selector. That means you can balance the two pickups exactly as you want them and still control the overall output from the master volume.

Which is surprisingly sensible for a guitar dressed like this.

Then there is the Bigsby B70.

Because apparently Pearl White, gold sparkle binding and P-90s still left some unanswered questions regarding whether Tallulah had made enough of an entrance.

The Bigsby provides the gentle dips, shimmers and wobble these guitars suit beautifully, paired with a Tune-o-matic bridge and Grover Rotomatic machine heads.

No dive bombs. No locking nut. No tiny springs launching themselves into another postcode.

This is vibrato with manners.

Visually, Tallulah is spectacular. The Pearl White finish has a fine shimmer rather than appearing flat or cream, while the gold sparkle binding and gold hardware make the whole guitar look like someone at Epiphone was repeatedly asked whether they had finished decorating and kept replying:

“Almost. Fetch me more gold.”

There is some natural ageing and wear visible to the gold hardware, but the guitar itself presents beautifully. The Pearl White body is particularly clean, including the back, and overall she remains a gorgeous example of one of Epiphone’s most distinctive modern semi-hollows.

Tallulah also comes with the fitted Epiphone hard case pictured, because sending a Bigsby-equipped semi-hollow into the world without proper accommodation seems unnecessarily adventurous.

As with every Stray, she has received our full workshop treatment. Tallulah has been thoroughly cleaned and inspected, her electronics and hardware checked, her frets levelled, crowned and polished, her fret ends attended to, and a complete professional setup carried out.

She’s ready to leave us and go directly back to being somebody else’s bad influence.

Tallulah is ready for adoption for £550, including her fitted Epiphone hard case.

Pearl White. Gold sparkle. P-90s. Bigsby.

Subtlety has once again been successfully avoided.

Rescue • Restore • Rehome