Guitars, page 3

Gibson

Firebird

1963

Gibson fixed the Firebird in 1965. Players have been hunting for the unfixed one ever since.

Gibson

Thunderbird

1963

John Entwistle thought the neck was too thin. So he kept the body and changed the neck.

Gibson

Grabber

1973

Gibson named its cheapest bass after what your hand did to the pickup: grab it and slide it.

Gibson

L-6S

1973

Bill Lawrence drew a guitar with nine sounds. The budget cut it to six. Santana called it his rainbow.

Gibson

Ripper

1973

A bass so complicated Gibson pressed a record to explain it. The best review took one sentence.

Gibson

RD Artist

1977

Gibson put a Moog inside it, then blamed the outside. The outside is the part that lasted.

Gibson

Moderne

1982

Gibson patented it in 1958. One man says he could have had one for $50. Nobody has ever proved one existed.

Gibson

Nighthawk

1993

From across the room it’s a Les Paul. Up close it’s Gibson trying to do a Stratocaster’s job.

Gibson

Blueshawk

1996

It looks like a small Les Paul, plays on a Fender scale, and hides a coil that never hears the strings.

Gittler

Gittler

1975

Allan Gittler kept taking parts off a guitar until all that was left was the guitar.

Godin

Multiac

1993

A nylon-string guitar that can stand next to a drummer, and talk to a synthesizer while it’s at it.

Goya

Rangemaster

1966

It has nine buttons where one switch would do, and more than half a century later they still work.

Gretsch

Synchromatic

1939

Gretsch’s answer to Gibson had cat’s eyes, a harp, and a neck with no rod in it. The files burned.

Gretsch

Duo Jet

1953

George Harrison bought his used in Liverpool as a teenager. In 1987 he put it on an album cover.

Gretsch

Country Club

1954

Same body as the White Falcon, none of the glitter, and hardly any famous owners.

Gretsch

Rancher

1954

The experts call it a stage prop. That’s exactly why the movies kept casting it.

Gretsch

6120

1955

Joe Walsh gave Pete Townshend one. Steve Miller gave Brian Setzer one. Chet Atkins just lent it his name.

Gretsch

White Falcon

1955

Gretsch built it to stop people in the aisle of a trade show. It never stopped doing that.

Gretsch

White Penguin

1955

Gretsch barely bothered to sell it. So every White Penguin anybody knows about had to be found.

Gretsch

Country Gentleman

1957

Chet Atkins asked for a guitar without the cowboy flash. On Ed Sullivan, it didn’t even show its color.

Gretsch

Tennessean

1958

The cheap Chet Atkins Gretsch: one pickup, $295. It’s the guitar on the intro to “House of the Rising Sun.”

Grez

Mendocino

2017

Grez kept making the guitar smaller, and more people kept buying it. He stopped at thirteen inches.

Guild

F-50

1954

Guild built its fanciest jumbo around a shortcut from the archtop shop. Seventy years on, it still hasn’t let go.

Guild

M-20

1958

Guild’s plainest guitar trained a new factory’s workers, then ended up on the cover of a Nick Drake album.

Guild

Starfire

1960

Before they were the Grateful Dead, they were the Warlocks, and Jerry Garcia was playing a Guild Starfire.

Guild

D-55

1968

Guild’s D-55 got its name from television. It kept its place as the guitar people play with the cameras off.

Guild

Bluesbird

1970

Guild took the name off the price list in 1974. The players kept calling it a Bluesbird anyway.

Guyatone

LG-140T

1964

Four pickups, a slider for each, and at least three names. Every famous Guyatone is a different model.

H.S. Anderson

Madcat

1973

It was built in Japan to be anything but a Telecaster copy. Then Prince made it famous as his Tele.

Hagstrom

Viking

1965

Elvis needed something flashy for the Comeback Special. A session man had a Swedish guitar in his trunk.

Hagstrom

Swede

1970

The first ones said L.P. on them. Then Hagstrom named the guitar after where it came from.

Hamer

Standard

1974

They built the first one for Paul Hamer. It ended up with Rick Nielsen, and he still has it.

Hamer

Phantom

1982

Hamer built Andy Summers a guitar out of his own ideas. He still went back to his Telecaster.

Harmony

Stratotone

1952

In 1954 a Strat cost about $250. Harmony’s Stratotone cost $64.50, and it had the name first.

Harmony

Rocket

1959

Chris Stein started on one at twelve. Decades later, Jack White was swapping one in for his Airline.

Heritage

H-150

1988

Gibson left Kalamazoo. A few of the people who built its guitars stayed in the building and kept going.

Höfner

Club 40

1955

John Lennon and George Harrison both saw a Club 40, and in John’s words, both “thought it was the end.”

Höfner

500/1

1956

McCartney bought the bass he could afford in Hamburg. It was stolen in 1972, and it came home in 2024.

Huss & Dalton

CM

1997

The rest of the Huss & Dalton catalog is other people’s shapes. The CM is the one they drew themselves.

Ibanez

Destroyer

1975

Ibanez copied the Explorer, right up until Gibson sued. Eddie Van Halen got a sound out of it nobody could copy.

Ibanez

Iceman

1975

Ibanez drew this one itself in 1975. When the lawyers made the copies go away, it got to stay.

Ibanez

Musician

1978

Ibanez chased sustain with a wooden sandwich, brass, and a three-band EQ. Everything it added, you carried.

Ibanez

AS200

1979

Ibanez handed John Scofield one in 1981. Twenty years later, they had to scan his to remember how it was made.

Ibanez

JEM

1987

Steve Vai wanted a handle through the body and a finish that matched his curtains. Ibanez put it in the catalog.

Ibanez

RG550

1987

Nobody’s name on it. Just a thin neck, 24 frets, and a locking trem, and it keeps coming back.

Ibanez

JS

1990

A Les Paul dug into Joe Satriani’s forearm. Ibanez built him a guitar that didn’t.

Ibanez

ATK 300

1994

Ibanez called it the anti-Soundgear: a big ash body, a thick neck, and one huge pickup at the bridge.

Ibanez

Talman

1994

Named for a bluesman who never existed, it kept getting dropped, and players kept asking for it back.