Gibson firebird5/16/2024 ![]() The Firebird has a 6-on-one-side, lefty-style headstock. The headstock was also a far-and-away departure from the traditional 3-tuners-on-each-side design. Without the “wings”, the Firebird would have looked more like a Steinberger. Mahogany “wings” are glued on to the Firebird to complete the body, adding both style and comfort. For added stability, Gibson used a 9-ply mahogany/walnut laminate neck/body. A neck-through construction on a guitar is commonplace now, but as far as I can recall, the Firebird was the first. The neck starts at the headstock and ends at the rear end pin. The neck is not laminated into the body of the guitar-it’s actually all one piece in length. For starters, the scale length of the neck is 24-¾”, which is just a tad longer than Gibson’s 24-½” mainstay. If the Firebird’s radical appearance was a departure from the norm, its construction and appointments were even more radical. It even generates questions such as, “What kind of Firebird is this?” or “Is that a Firebird?”įirst offered in 1963, the Firebird may as well have come from outer space. The Firebird has been reinvented and rescued from death so many times that it becomes easy to mistake one model from another. A more appropriate name has never been given to a Gibson model guitar. The mythical Phoenix rises from its own ashes and is reborn. We are going to dig in deeper because there is a lot going on with the ever-changing, multiple-model, divine, detestable, love-it-or-hate-it, top-heavy, ugly, beautiful, strange, and obscure flightless bird. Most guitar freaks and geeks know that Gibson enlisted the help of Chrysler/Packard designer extraordinaire Ray Dietrich to design the Firebird’s shape. If you take a good look at the Firebird’s original “reverse” shape, it’s pretty clear that the guitar is basically a neck with two tail fins glued on. Though it is structurally independent from the Futuristic models, the Gibson Firebird takes its place alongside these slightly earlier offerings in its off-the-wall, ahead-of-its-time appearance. The Firebird is certainly at least a cousin, if not a brother, to the futuristic Flying V and Explorer. Often copied or stylized, these unmistakable guitars have been renamed and became popular models for countless guitar companies alongside Gibson’s original line. Even if you never touched a guitar in your life, you’d have to be familiar with the silhouette of the Gibson Flying V and Explorer-they are truly iconic shapes. The Flying V and Explorer models caught on in the ‘70s, and have been in constant production ever since. It would take the world over a decade to catch up with these designs. In fact, Gibson overshot the target by about ten years. They were too hip, contemporary, and cool. We’ll just state that very few of these were made and very few were sold. ![]() Because this subject has been covered over and over, we won’t dwell on this point. These ahead-of-their-time attempts were Gibson’s way of trying to create a less old-school, behind-the-times appearance so that they could compete with the hip, contemporary So-Cal West coast manufacturers like Fender and Rickenbacker. I will not discuss the Futura or the ultimate obscurity, the “Gumby-shaped” Gibson Moderne, here. Only the first Les Paul to sport the now infamous ‘Burst top, the ES-335 (the world’s first production thin-line semi hollow), and if that’s not enough, add the Korina futuristic models: the Flying V and Explorer. Step into the blue phone box with me and go back in time to the NAMM show in 1958. The story of the Firebird cannot be told with completeness without looking back just a few years before its inception. This is the case of the elusive, multi-colored flightless Phoenix of a guitar: the Gibson Firebird.Īre you ready to be confused? Me, too. The one model in particular that “perches” itself on Gibson’s more obscure and mystifying branches is the strange bird that constantly resurrects itself from its own sawdust. Two examples are the Corvus (the Pac Man-looking guitar) and the U2 (Gibson’s hair metal super Strat). There are also some that are just from outer space, and surely future “Obscure du Jour” features. However, there are many short-lived models, most of which are variants of popular models. Obscure and Gibson? Not usually in the same sentence, or even on the same page.
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