Gibson

Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corp.) is an American manufacturer of guitars and other instruments, now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was formerly known as Gibson Guitar Corp. and renamed Gibson Brands, Inc. on June 11, 2013.

Orville Gibson founded the company in 1902 as The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co., Ltd. in Kalamazoo, Michigan to make mandolin-family instruments. Gibson invented archtop guitars by constructing the same type of carved, arched tops used on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, used and popularized by Charlie Christian. It was bought by Chicago Musical Instruments in 1944, which was then acquired by the E.C.L. conglomerate that changed its name to Norlin Inc. Many observers see this as the beginning of an era of mismanagement.

Gibson sells guitars under a variety of brand names and builds one of the world's most iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. Many Gibson instruments are highly collectible. Gibson was at the forefront of innovation in acoustic guitars, especially in the big band era of the 1930s; the Gibson Super 400 was widely imitated. In 1952, Gibson introduced its first solid-body electric guitar, the Les Paul which became its most popular guitar to date— designed by Ted McCarty and Les Paul.

Gibson was owned by the Norlin corporation from 1969 to 1986. In 1986, the company was acquired by its present owners. Gibson is a privately held corporation owned by its chief executive officer Henry Juszkiewicz and its president David H. Berryman. In addition to guitars, Gibson offers consumer audio equipment devices through its subsidiaries Onkyo Corporation, Cerwin Vega and Stanton, as well as professional audio equipment from KRK Systems also pianos from their wholly owned subsidiary Baldwin Piano and music software from Cakewalk.

Gibson Trivia

Les Paul was a sought after guitarist in the 1930s, backing up his wife Mary Ford, and the incomperable Bing Crosby. Paul had already been known for innovative recording techniques when he first designed his signature guitar.

The first Les Paul Standard guitar was released in 1952. Les Paul received an endorsement contract for a 5 year period which was worth 5% of retail sales. The first Gibson Les Paul cost $210 and was referred to as the Gold Top.

The Gibson SG was originally a Les Paul model. Mr. Paul decided he didn't like the guitar, and felt his name should be removed from the product. "SG" stands for "Solid-Guitar"

1958 was a big year for Gibson Guitars. In this year they gave the Les Paul a new cherry sunburst finish which is extremely popular among collectors today. Gibson changed the shape of the Les Paul Junior and Les Paul Special to now have a double cut away. The new style later became the SG which stands simply for Solid Guitar.

In 1958 Gibson began to get radical with their body shape. It was the year of the first double-neck guitar. It was also the first year they released the oddly shaped Flying-V and Explorer models.

Gibson guitars are exactly crafted so the strings and the neck are completely parallel. This is of the utmost importance to a player as ideally the strings are of equivalent distance alongside the entire duration of the neck.

Gibson guitars are famously the guitars of choice for Jimmy Page, Slash, Angus Young of AC/DC, Tonny Iommi of Black Sabbath, and Joe Perry of Aerosmith.