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Guild

Bluesbird

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

The late 1960s, New England. Boston blues players have taken up Guild’s little hollow Aristocrat, and Louis Dronge, the company’s rep up there, gives it a new name. Around 1970, by most accounts, Guild builds it solid. The name comes along.

Introduced
1970
Type
Solidbody electric
Class
Production
Read the story · 4 min

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The short version

  1. 1954

    The midget

    Guild’s hollow Aristocrat M-75, a “lightweight, semi-solid midget.” Dropped in 1963.

  2. 1967

    Back, with a name

    The hollow returns and becomes the Bluesbird, in 1967 or 1968 depending who you ask.

  3. 1970

    Solid

    A carved mahogany solidbody joins the line, in chrome or gold. Some price lists don’t show it until 1972.

  4. 1974

    Off the sheet

    The Bluesbird name leaves the price list. The guitar is just an M-75 now.

  5. 1978

    Replaced

    The last list with it is May 1977. By late 1978 the double-cut M-80 has its spot.

  6. 1984

    In name only

    A poplar Bluesbird with Brian Setzer’s name on the design. Gone by 1988, or sooner.

  7. 1996

    On a Nightbird

    The name returns on a chambered, carved-top body borrowed from the Nightbird. Gone by 2004.

  8. 2016

    Newark St.

    Summer NAMM. Made in Korea, with Seymour Duncans, for $999 in Iced Tea Burst.

Side A

A1

The one he’d save from a fire

A 335 and an SG, stolen on the road. Creed Bratton, years before The Office, was playing guitar in the Grass Roots. He went to Manny’s and came out with a Guild Bluesbird.

He made it his. The wooden bridge came off and a Gibson tune-o-matic went on. He added a phase switch. It had mini-humbuckers, and it’s the guitar he says he’d carry out of a burning building.

It is also not the guitar on this page. Bratton’s is a ’69, and a ’69 Bluesbird is hollow. The solid one came a year later. The name was already older than the guitar, and it would outlast a good deal of Guild’s paperwork.

A2

A midget with the blues

The Aristocrat M-75 came out in 1954. Guild’s catalog called it a “lightweight, semi-solid midget,” and the M really was for midget. Routed mahogany under an arched spruce top, soapbar pickups. It was closer to a Gretsch Duo Jet than to a Les Paul, and it was dropped in 1963.

It came back in 1967, and somewhere in there it got a name. The story goes that Boston blues players had taken up the Aristocrat, and Louis Dronge, Guild’s New England rep and the founder’s younger brother, called it the Bluesbird. Some accounts put the name on the 1967 return. Others say 1968. It’s on the October 1968 price list either way.

Still hollow. Still small. The blues in the name belongs to those players, on that guitar.

A3

Fill it in

In 1970, the way Hans Moust put it, the Bluesbird “became available in a solidbody version also.”

The job was a single-cut that could sit next to a Les Paul and not howl. So: a carved mahogany top on a mahogany body, no hollow anywhere, built in Westerly, Rhode Island. Bigger HB-1 humbuckers. The neck met the body at the 18th fret. You could have it as a CS, in chrome with rosewood, or a GS, in gold with ebony. Everyone agrees the C and G mean chrome and gold. Not everyone agrees what the S stands for.

From 1972 you got a master control and a phase switch, which flips one pickup against the other for a thin, nasal quack. A little funny, on a guitar that had just stopped being hollow.

When it really started depends which paper you trust. Moust says 1970, and so did Guild in 2016. Some of Guild’s price lists don’t show a solid until about April 1972. The hollow hung on through 1971, so for a while you could have the Bluesbird either way.

The blues in the name belongs to the hollow. The solid kept it anyway.

Flip the record · By the numbers

  • 5

    Different Guild guitars that have worn the name, hollow to Newark St. Six, counting a Korean DeArmond.

  • 1974

    The year the name left the price sheet. Players went on saying it.

  • 0

    Solidbody production totals Guild ever published.

  • $999

    The Newark St. Bluesbird in Iced Tea Burst, street price at launch in 2016. Jet Black was $939.

Side B

B1

Just an M-75

In 1974 the name came off the price sheet. After that, the paperwork says M-75 and nothing else. The players went on calling it a Bluesbird.

Around 1976 the tailpiece moved in closer to the bridge. The last price list with the guitar on it is May 1977, and by late 1978 it was gone, its place taken by a double-cut, the M-80. Guild’s own serial chart for 1979 to 1983 has a line for the Bluesbird. It reads N/A.

B2

Same name, different bird

It didn’t stay gone. From 1984 there was a poplar Bluesbird that one history says “returned in name only,” with features designed by Brian Setzer. Some count it as 1984 to 1988. Others give it a year or two around 1986.

Art Alexakis remembered a beat-up, hard-to-tune “semi-hollow body Guild Bluebird” on Everclear’s World of Noise, late 1993, into a ruined Fender Super Twin. Which Bluesbird that was, nobody has pinned down. The 1970s solid isn’t semi-hollow, and late 1993 falls in the gap between Bluesbirds.

In 1996 it came back on a borrowed body: the Nightbird’s outline, chambered mahogany, a carved maple top, Seymour Duncan ’59s. Fender owned Guild by then. Around the time Westerly closed, in late 2001, the Bluesbird moved to Corona, and it was done by 2004. Some put the end a year sooner.

Then Newark St., at Summer NAMM in 2016, with Córdoba now owning Guild. Made in Korea: a carved maple top on chambered mahogany, a Duncan JB and a ’59, a 24 3/4" scale, $999 in Iced Tea Burst. Guild called it a chambered solid. One review called it a flame-maple veneer over a center block with hollow sides. Both descriptions are still out there. You can’t order a new one from Guild now.

B3

Nobody says M-75

Five guitars, give or take, and the only thing they share is a word.

Peter Hammill’s name turns up next to an M-75CS, the 1970s chrome solid. Jeremy Popoff of Lit didn’t bother with model codes: “I also have a couple of Guild Bluesbirds which Seymour made me two custom Trembuckers for.”

Guild printed the name, dropped it, and put it on something new three more times. For four years the paperwork didn’t mention it at all.

Ask Creed Bratton about his, and he doesn’t say M-75. He says “my ’69 Guild Bluesbird.”

The cast

The people, and the specific guitars, that made the legend.

  • Louis Dronge

    The name

    Guild’s New England rep and the founder’s younger brother. Named the hollow Aristocrat for the Boston blues players who’d taken it up.

  • 1969

    Creed Bratton

    ’69 Bluesbird, the hollow one

    Bought at Manny’s after a 335 and an SG were stolen on the road with the Grass Roots. Not the solidbody, but the guitar he’d carry out of a burning building.

  • Peter Hammill

    M-75CS

    Listed with an M-75CS, the 1970s chrome solid. No song is pinned to it.

  • Brian Setzer

    Poplar Bluesbird, mid-1980s

    Credited with the design of the 1980s return. No record is pinned to it.

  • 2007

    Jeremy Popoff

    A couple of Bluesbirds

    Lit. Seymour Duncan made him custom Trembuckers for them. He doesn’t say which songs they’re on.

Liner notes

Specs, construction, rarity, value, and every source we used.

Named for a hollow guitar, then built solid: Guild’s single-cut Bluesbird, not the Aristocrat and not a Les Paul.

Body
Chambered solid. Carved maple top, mahogany. Ivory ABS binding. Guild sheet: 1 1/2" (38 mm) at the upper and lower edge; upper bout 9 3/4" (248 mm); lower bout 13 3/4" (350 mm); body length 17 1/4" (438 mm); overall 39 1/2" (1003 mm). Mix flagged.
Neck
Set one-piece mahogany, gloss polyurethane, dual-action truss rod. Guild sheet: C, 20 mm at the 1st fret, 24 mm at the 9th. Vintage Guitar (Oct 2017) and some dealers: vintage soft U.
Fingerboard
Guild sheet and the Japan page: pau ferro, 10" (254 mm), 22 frets, mother-of-pearl blocks. Japan: narrow-jumbo. CME sheet and Vintage Guitar: medium-jumbo. Guild’s 2016 demo and several reviews: rosewood. Guitar Planet: 12" (305 mm). Mix flagged.
Scale
24 3/4". Guild sheet and Japan: 629 mm. Guitar Planet and Musix: 628 mm. Mix flagged. Musix pairs 628 mm with pau ferro and a C.
Pickups
Seymour Duncan USA JB SH-4 (bridge) and ’59 SH-1 (neck), nickel covers
Hardware
TonePros NVR2 locking tune-o-matic, stopbar, nickel. Grover Sta-Tite open-gear 18:1. Bridge spacing: CME sheet 2" (52 mm); Guild Japan 2" (51 mm). Mix flagged.
Electronics
Neck volume and tone, bridge volume and tone, 3-way toggle. MusicRadar found push/pull coil-splits the Guild sheet does not list.
Finish
Gloss polyurethane. Iced Tea Burst (flamed top) or Jet Black.
Nut
Bone, 1 11/16" (43 mm). Musician’s Friend prints 1.69 in. Mix flagged.
Open the full research fileConstruction details, the complete player record, production numbers, dated value estimates, and sources

Classic living example for this table = the Newark St. Bluesbird (Korea, announced Summer NAMM 2016). Guild’s sheet, via Chicago Music Exchange, checked against the discontinued Japan page. No current Guild.com SKU. Not the 1970 Westerly fully solid mahogany M-75. Not the 1996–2004 USA Bluesbird on the Nightbird outline. Not the hollow M-75 Aristocrat. Mixed inch/mm flagged. Do not average 629 mm with 628 mm, 10" with 12", 350 mm with Guitar Planet’s 349 mm on the same 13 3/4" lower bout, or 38 mm at the edge with MusicRadar’s 40 mm rim and 49 mm overall. Do not average 20 mm / 24 mm (1st and 9th) with Burrluck’s 20.8 mm / 22.8 mm (1st and 12th). Do not treat 51 mm or 52 mm as two inches, or 1.69 in as a fix for 1 11/16".

Construction

The job was a single-cut that could sit next to a Les Paul and not howl. Guild already had the small hollow one. Then they built a solid, and kept a name that did not start on it.

The Aristocrat M-75, 1954, is that hollow. Guild’s catalog, via MusicRadar, called it a “lightweight, semi-solid midget.” The M was for midget. Gruhn and Carter (Vintage Guitar, August 2008) put it closer to Gretsch’s Duo Jet than to a Les Paul: routed mahogany, arched spruce, Franz soapbars. Dropped in 1963. Guitar World (7 January 2025) gives it a 24 3/4" scale. RetroFret measured 1967 and 1968 hollows at 24 1/2" (622 mm). Keep both. Later solids are printed 24 3/4". Do not copy the hollow’s 24 1/2" onto them.

Back in 1967. Gruhn and Carter, and GGJaguar, put “Bluesbird” on that return. MusicRadar, citing Hans Moust, and Guitar World: by 1968, from Louis Dronge, Alfred’s younger brother and the New England rep, because Boston blues players had taken up the Aristocrat. Let’s Talk Guild: the word is on the October 1968 list. Keep 1967 and 1968. Still hollow. Gruhn and Carter: 1967 kept spruce over routed mahogany, humbuckers instead of soapbars; from 1968 most bodies were laminated maple, tops spruce, maple, or mahogany. GGJaguar: Anti-Hums, those three tops, gold or chrome. RetroFret, on the hollows: 38 shipped in 1967, 99 in 1968, fewer than 300 in the late ’60s. Hoboken. Not this solid.

Moust, quoted by Fretted Americana: in 1970 it “became available in a solidbody version also.” CS, chrome and rosewood. GS, gold and ebony. A Müller AdjustoMatic and a stop. Around 1976 the tailpiece moved closer to the bridge. GGJaguar reads the letters as chrome or gold, and says the Bluesbird name left the sheet in 1974. Players still said it. GAD reads CS as solid, against the older hollow. Keep both. Gruhn and Carter: a fully solid M-75 in 1970, the year hollow hardware went chrome and the hollow split into Standard (chrome) and Deluxe (gold). Hollow through 1971. Solid through 1978. MusicRadar: the earlier Bluesbird ended in 1972, two years after the CS/GS and their larger humbuckers. Guild’s 2016 press repeats 1970. Let’s Talk Guild’s lists: a solid around April 1972, last list May 1977, gone in 1978 for the double-cut M-80. GGJaguar: from 1970, the joint at the 18th, HB-1s, a carved mahogany top; master and phase from 1972; gone by late 1978, living on as the M-80. Moust on Let’s Talk Guild: the hollow “gradually changed to a semi-solid,” and a solid arrived during the ’70s. Keep 1970, that overlap, and April 1972. Keep May 1977 and late 1978.

Wikipedia and Guitar.com: Avnet in 1966, and production to Rhode Island that year. The Music Museum of New England: the sale in 1966, Westerly opened in 1967. Keep both. These solids are Westerly, not Hoboken. The 1979–83 chart marks Bluesbird N/A.

Carved mahogany, not the Newark St maple cap. GGJaguar’s 1976 CS: one-piece mahogany, five-ply binding, nitro, ebony on a guitar he files as CS, 22 frets, plastic nut 1 5/8", 24 3/4", lower bout 13 7/8", depth 1 7/8", 7.8 lb, Müller bridge, chrome stop, two HB-1s, master, phase, two volumes, two tones, a 3-way. Fretted Americana’s 1972, serial 67639: arched mahogany, ebony, 8.60 lb, the same nut and scale, HB-1s at 6.91k and 7.00k, a lucite stair-step guard, the only one that shop had seen without phase or master. One guitar each. Do not average 1 5/8" with 1 11/16", 13 7/8" with 13 3/4", or 1 7/8" with 1 1/2".

Not a Starfire (guild-starfire). Not the 2013 Newark St Aristocrat. MusicRadar measured that one as a braced hollow: 55 mm at the rim, 62 mm overall, 2.5 kg (5.5 lb). Wikipedia: the Korean DeArmond line included an M-75 Bluesbird and ended in the early 2000s. MusicRadar: those kept the Aristocrat shape.

The name jumped again. Gruhn and Carter: 1984–88, poplar, “returned in name only,” features designed by Brian Setzer. GAD: “designed with Brian Setzer,” around 1986 for a year or two. Keep both. The Nightbird, 1985–95, is maple over chambered mahogany. GGJaguar: the Bluesbird name back in 1996 on the Nightbird shape, not a 1970s reissue. Chambered mahogany, carved maple, Duncan ’59s, AAA flame at +$300, P-90s in 2002 and 2003, Corona from 2002, gone in 2004. Gruhn and Carter run the name ’97 to 2003. Wikipedia: Fender bought Guild in 1995 and shut Westerly in late 2001. Let’s Talk Guild: Corona Bluesbirds already in 2001 (CL for Westerly, CM for Corona). Keep 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. One 1998: 1.8" deep, lower bout 13 7/8", 7.6 lb.

2016. Córdoba took the brand in 2014. MusicRadar: Newark St. was conceived by Fender and continued by Córdoba. Summer NAMM put this guitar beside the S-200 T-Bird. Guild’s press: carved maple, chambered mahogany, a vintage C, 24 3/4", USA Duncans, TonePros, a gig bag. The table is the later sheet. Vintage Guitar, October 2017, does not match it: soft U, rosewood, 1.5" at the edge, guard on the black and in the bag for the burst. Guild’s own 2016 demo says bound rosewood and a 1 11/16" bone nut, and does not mention coil-splits. MusicRadar found push/pulls the sheet omits, measured 40 mm at the rim, 49 mm overall, 2.98 kg (6.56 lb), and a neck 20.8 mm at the 1st and 22.8 mm at the 12th, and called the top a flame-maple veneer over a center block with hollow sides. Guild’s word is a carved top on a chambered solid. Keep both. Korea, per Guitar Planet and the Jin Sung pots GAD found. The FAQ allows Korea, Indonesia, or China and does not name this factory. The shop does not list it. Japan says discontinued. Reverb’s 2016–2021 is a category range, not a close memo.

Players

The blues in the name is the hollow guitar’s story. Boston players on the Aristocrat are not on a solidbody.

Do not move the Aristocrat’s later owners here either. Guitar World (7 January 2025) puts John Lee Hooker, John Mayer, St. Vincent, and Dan Auerbach on the hollow. Same piece associates Larry Carlton with the 1968 BluesBird and says corroborating pictures are hard to find. Hollow year. Not the solid.

Creed Bratton told Guitar.com (13 August 2019) about “my ’69 Guild Bluesbird,” bought at Manny’s after a 335 and an SG were stolen on the road with the Grass Roots. Wooden bridge, then a Gibson tune-o-matic he fitted. Mini-humbuckers. A phase switch he added. Wooden bridge, minis, 1969: the hollow Bluesbird, before the solidbody dates above. He named no Grass Roots hit. It is the guitar he would carry out of a burning building. Not this solid, and not a price.

Art Alexakis is the other near miss. Guitar World (30 October 2023): recording World of Noise in late 1993, “I had a semi-hollow body Guild Bluebird,” beaten up, hard to tune, into a ruined Fender Super Twin. Wikipedia’s album page spells it Bluesbird and does not say semi-hollow. Late 1993 sits in the Nightbird years, before GGJaguar’s 1996 return of the name. Do not hang World of Noise on the 1970 solid or on the Newark St.

Peter Hammill is the one solid-code name on a list, and it stays lightly pinned. Wikipedia’s Guild page files him with an M-75CS. Moust’s CS is the chrome solid. No song is identified here. The citation was not re-checked against footage. Not a Newark St, and not a price.

Brian Setzer’s credit is the poplar return above. No record is pinned to it here.

Jeremy Popoff (Lit), on Seymour Duncan’s site, 9 March 2007: “I also have a couple of Guild Bluesbirds which Seymour made me two custom Trembuckers for.” Ownership, and a pickup swap, before Newark St. He names no Lit track. A Place in the Sun, in that interview, is a Trembucker Tele, not these Guilds.

Also known to play stays empty on purpose. Gear-list sites pile every generation onto one page and call the Newark St a semi-hollow. None of that is a verified solidbody.

Rarity

You cannot order a new Bluesbird from Guild. Leftover Newark St stock is the common guitar. A 1970s Westerly solid is the scarce one. Same name, different instrument.

Guild published no solidbody total. None invented. CL000153 to CL001013 on the 1997 chart are the first and last serials, not a count. RetroFret’s 38, 99, and “under 300” are the hollow. Do not spend them here. What is actually thinner: an early Westerly solid still without phase and master, original HB-1s, and a guitar whose paperwork after 1974 says only M-75. The poplar run, the Nightbird-shaped USA guitar, and the Korean Newark St are other instruments. They are not a 1970s census.

Value

Informal estimate, 29 September 2026. Not an appraisal.

Ask is not sold. No factory count, and no celebrity hammer on this solid. Bratton’s ’69 is not a comp. The Aristocrat’s $210 launch and $280 in early 1963 (Guitar World) are the hollow. Not a comp. A 1970 Westerly list price was not on the pages in this pass. Do not invent one.

New street. Not a current Guild catalog SKU. 2016 announced street, not 2026: Iced Tea Burst $999, Jet Black $939 (Guitar.com, 28 June 2016). Vintage Guitar, October 2017: $999.99. MusicRadar, September 2016: £875. Pounds stay pounds. Chicago Music Exchange still prints $1,099 on a sold-out Iced Tea page. One live Reverb brand-new ask, 29 September 2026: Volume 11 Music, Iced Tea, $999 after a drop from $1,099, the listing titled with a hardshell case. One seller. Not a sold. Guild’s 2016 press included a gig bag, not a hardshell.

Used modern. Newark St is the ordinary used guitar. Reverb’s price-guide page exists; the dollar widget did not render this pass. Flag: thin 2026 sold-comp access. Do not borrow an old listing and call it a median. USA 1996–2004 is a different market, Nightbird outline, Westerly or Corona. A named older sold, not a series: a 1997 Westerly with replacement pickups, $2,461.82, listed three years ago. A current ask, not a hammer: a seller’s “mid-2000s” NOS at $3,100, against GGJaguar’s 2004 end. Do not average that ask with a Korean Newark St.

Vintage / collectible. 1970s Westerly solids, asks not hammers. Matt’s Music prints $1,699 on a 1974 Westerly M-75CS and shows it out of stock. A circa-1970s walnut-brown solid, year not confirmed by the seller, ask $2,399.99. A 1975 black, ask $1,880, the listing about a year old. Older solds, not a 2026 series: a seller’s assumed-1975 with a resprayed neck, $1,500, listed five years ago; a 1978 with HB-1s and a replaced neck binding, $1,399, listed six years ago. Do not average those with the Newark St, or with a clean GS that was not in the set. Original finish, original HB-1s, and a trustworthy year move these. A swapped-pickup solid, or a hollow ’68–’69 wearing the same name, does not.

See also

  • gibson-les-paul-standard — the single-cut this gets stood beside; not Guild, not this top
  • gretsch-duo-jet — Gruhn and Carter tie the 1954 Aristocrat to the Duo Jet, not this solidbody
  • guild-starfire — Guild thinline and center-block electrics; not this single-cut

Sources

Guitars this one gets compared to, confused with, or descended from.