Gibson Guitars History

The Gibson Guitar Corporation is a privately held company based in Nashville, Tennessee that produces some of the best known electric and acoustic guitars in the world. Originally, Gibson (Orville Gibson) started to produce mandolins though during the 1920s Gibson introduced many innovations in guitar design and became the leading manufacturer of arch-top guitars with the L5 model. In the mid 1930’s Gibson introduced the ES-150 model, which is generally recognized as the first commercially successful electric Gibson guitar.

However, the most popular guitar produced by Gibson is arguably the electric Les Paul Standard, introduced in 1950 as Gibson’s answer to the Fender Telecaster. The Les Paul model still proves to be very popular with guitar players to this day. During the 1950's Gibson experimented with different shaped guitars and produced the iconic (some would say eccentric!) Flying V and Explorer.

Famous guitarists have and still do use Gibson guitars, some of these to name but a few, are Eric Clapton, Peter Green, George Harrison, Zakk Wylde, Angus Young, Ace Frehley, Jimmy Page, Slash, and Tony Iommi. Naturally, this has increased the commercial sales of the Gibson brand and made the individual models internationally recognisable.

More recently, Gibson has again pushed the boundaries of guitar design by producing the world’s first guitar which actually tunes itself: The Gibson Robot. This particular model got a lot of media coverage when it was first released and the lucky owners say it’s an extremely good guitar.

Gibson Guitar Cooperation has an amazing history suffering both ups and downs; by 1985 Gibson was within three weeks of going bust before it was bought by its present owners. So what are you waiting for, purchase a little piece of history today!