T
he early days of electric guitar
manufacturing were exciting times:
Fender and Gibson went head to head,
developing new models to compete
with one another. While Fender saw
success with the Telecaster and then
the Stratocaster, Gibson struggled
after their initial release of the Les Paul
model. Intended for jazz players—like the
instrument’s namesake—it fell out of favor
with its target audience and faded into
relative obscurity before icons like Jimmy
Page and Eric Clapton ushered in its now
legendary status. As Fender continued to
innovate with models like the Jazzmaster
and Jaguar, the folks at Gibson knew
they needed to keep up and release new
models of their own. Ted McCarty, Gibson’s
president at the time, hired automobile
designer Ray Dietrich to develop a new
instrument design to appeal to a new
generation of guitarists. With smoother
edges than the Explorer, and drawing on
the design concepts of mid-‘50s car tailfins,
the Firebird was born. Inspired by the
automobiles coming out of the Motor
City (Gibson originally had its headquarters
in Kalamazoo, MI), the Firebird was a
radical design aimed at players willing to
take a risk.
Not dissimilar to the newer Fender models
of the same era, the Firebird had an offset
body shape and came in unique custom
colors such as Pelham Blue and Inverness
Green. Its through-neck construction
ensured sustain while its bright, minihumbucking pickups gave it a snappy
tone a world apart from the humbuckerequipped models that came before it.
Rounding out the design were a reverse
headstock and banjo-style tuning keys,
which added up to one rare bird. Although
it’s graced the stage with many players,
Johnny Winter is the most famous Firebird
player of all, using it to great effect with his
blistering blues technique. While perhaps
one of Gibson’s most overlooked guitars,
it is certainly iconic, and has carved out its
own spot in electric guitar lore. Let’s veer
slightly off the beaten path and explore
the various incarnations of the Firebird.
Firebird
I
Firebird
III
Firebird
V
Firebird
VII
As the name implies, version I had a
single pickup and was built for rocking.
The Firebird version of the Les Paul Junior,
it had no neck binding or other cosmetic
appointments. Clapton used a singlepickup Firebird with Blind Faith
and Delaney and Bonnie.
This version sported two pickups along
with a stud bridge and tailpiece and Gibson
Vibrola. Featuring the same dot inlays as
version I, it was slightly more dressed up
with neck binding.
This version got a little bit fancier with
trapezoid inlays, a Maestro Lyre Vibrola
and Tune-O-Matic bridge.
Similar to the V, the VII added an extra
pickup in the middle as well as gold
hardware. It’s the tuxedo incarnation of
the Firebird, much like the three-pickup
Les Paul Customs that came before it.
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