The text and video footage below are adapted from Interactive Gibson Bible, published August 2008 on Jaw Bone Press and distributed by Hal Leonard.
Having only braved the concept of a hollow-bodied archtop made from laminated woods three years before, Gibson threw itself head over heels into the concept of the electric guitar in 1952 with the release of the company’s first solidbody guitar, the Les Paul. With hindsight it might seem the obvious ‘next step’ in the path the instrument would inevitably follow, but at the time it was a bold move for such a traditional guitar-maker.
Scorned, laughed at, jeered, chided, and derided. The concept of the solidbody electric guitar was subject to such utter disdain in some corners that it’s almost hard to believe it ever came to be at all. The ridicule and mockery would have been enough to send a less self-confident inventor running for the hills. Given our more than 55 years of perspective, though, we know it just had to be; a world without the solidbody guitar? Moreover, without the Gibson Les Paul? Unthinkable ...
Rather than following Fender’s bolt-together, plank-bodied standards, Gibson approached the solidbody electric from the perspective of a skilled, archtop guitar-maker. It used a carved maple cap atop the solid mahogany back, and a glued-in neck that, after the first few unbound examples, would carry a bound rosewood fingerboard. The model, therefore, was already more recognizable in feel and appearance to players familiar with Gibson’s hollowbody archtops, but was entirely radical all the same, which was reflected in its gold metallic finish.
Over the course of the decade, the Les Paul would evolve into the most desirable collector’s item on the vintage market: the sunburst ‘Standard’ of 1958-’60. Along the way it gained an improved wrapover bridge (1953), then a tune-o-matic bridge (1955), humbucking pickups (1957), and finally that hallowed finish in 1958. Eight years down the road it finally proved just how far ahead of its time it was by failing to rack up satisfactory sales, and Gibson radically altered the Les Paul in 1961 to make it the double-cutaway, all-mahogany-bodied guitar that would soon and forever after be known as the SG. By the mid 1960s, however, the fat, plummy, full-throated, and long-sustaining Les Paul started to show what it could really do in the hands of a number of British and American blues-rockers, and by the late ’60s and early ’70s was established as the favored tool of wailing, hard-rocking lead players in particular, a position from which it has never really been toppled.
Next week: Dave and Carl demonstrate a 1961 Les Paul Standard, which would come to be known as the original SG.
Click here to win one of 5 autographed copies of the Interactive Gibson Bible!
The Interactive Gibson Bible package includes a DVD with more than 80 minutes of demonstration of rare and vintage Gibsons, presented by author/guitarist Dave Hunter and first-call L.A. session musician Carl Verheyen. The book, written by Hunter and Walter Carter, includes a chronological listing of the specs of every Gibson electric guitar ever made, along with brief histories detailing seminal moments in the Gibson story.