Founder
Orville Gibson
1856–1918 · Chateaugay, New York
The shoemaker who carved blues' heart instrument
Orville carved mandolins in his spare time. A hundred years later his name is etched into the body of every BB King record ever cut.
Orville Gibson worked as a shoemaker and restaurant clerk in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while at night he carved mandolins and guitars in a small workshop. His innovation — carving the top and back out of solid wood instead of bending thin plates — was radical for the time. It gave the instrument more volume and a sound of its own.
He set up Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. in 1902. He was only involved briefly before his health failed. The company kept going without him, but his principle — carved top, bigger voice — became the foundation for the ES-150 (1936), the first major electric guitar, and later the ES-335 and Les Paul.
Anecdotes & moments
- BB King named his guitar Lucille after a 1949 bar fight: two men were fighting over a woman called Lucille, a kerosene heater tipped over, the hall caught fire. BB ran back in to save his Gibson. Every Gibson he owned after that was named Lucille.
- The Les Paul is named after Les Paul himself, the jazz guitarist who talked Gibson into building a solid-body after Fender had already done it. Launched in 1952, dropped in 1960, then resurrected in 1968 when Eric Clapton and Peter Green made it inescapable.
Links
Photo: Wikimedia Commons