In the spring of 1 935, Gibson enlisted musician
Alvino Rey to help develop a prototype pickup with
engineers at the Lyon & Healy company in Chicago.
Later that year, research was moved in-house,
where Gibson employee Walter Fuller came up with
the final design. Gibson introduced the distinctive
hexagonal pickup on a lap steel model in late 1 935.
The pickup was installed on an F-hole archtop
guitar, dubbed the ES-1 50 ES for Electric Spanish),
and the first one shipped from the Gibson factory in
Kalamazoo, Michigan, on May 20, 1 936.
Was the ES-1 50 the best electric guitar that
guitarists in 1 936 had ever seen? Jazz musician
Charlie Christian, who would establish the electric
guitar as an instrument with its own unique voice,
thought so. Sixty years later, the Gibson ES-1 50 is
still known as the Charlie Christian model, and
some jazz players consider the ES-1 50's "Charlie
Christian" pickup to be the best jazz pickup ever
made.
The ES-1 50's success was a double-edged sword,
establishing Gibson as the foremost maker of
electric guitars but at the same time challenging
Gibson to top this monumental achievement. After a
production break for World War II, Gibson did just
that.
aggressive leadership of company president Ted
McCarty, Gibson debuted two new concepts in 1 949
with the ES-5, the first three-pickup guitar, and the
ES-1 75, the first guitar with a sharply pointed
cutaway bout.
The advent of the solidbody electric guitar posed a
new challenge for Gibson. Like the ES-1 50 in 1 936,
Gibson's first solidbody electric had to uphold
Gibson tradition while going a step beyond all other
guitars of its kind. A carved contoured top harkened
back to the very first Orville Gibson instruments of
the late 1 800s, and a gold finish signified a value
above all others. With the endorsement of the most
popular guitarist of the time, Gibson introduced the
Les Paul Model in 1 952. The Les Paul quickly grew
into a family of four models-the Junior, Special,
Standard and Custom - all of which would become
Gibson classics. Gibson's top models sported
McCarty's new tune-o-matic bridge, which was
introduced on the Les Paul Custom in 1 954 and is
still the standard Gibson electric guitar bridge. In
1 958 McCarty debuted not one, but two radical new
ideas-a semi-hollowbody electric and a group of
exotic, futuristic solidbodies. The ES-335 was an
instant success, combining traditional archtop
styling with modern, solidbody construction. The
Flying V, Explorer and Moderne proved to be
decades ahead of their time.
Gibson pushed on into the 1 960s with two more
The Golden Age of Innovation
bold, modern solidbody lines-the double-cutaway
SG models of '61 and the reverse-body Firebirds of
In the years after World War II, the electric guitar '63. By the time the McCarty era ended in 1 965, a
came of age and Gibson entered a golden of age of foundation of classic models had been laid that
innovation. The P-90 pickup, introduced in 1 946, would carry Gibson through the rest of the century.
gave guitarists new power and versatility. Under the