PART I
HISTORY
R&B duo Mickey & Sylvia (Mickey âGuitarâ Baker and Sylvia Vanderpool) pose with their Les Pauls, a Custom and a Special. Baker was later honored with the 2003 Gibson Les Paul Custom â57 Mickey Baker signature model. Gilles Petard/Redferns/Getty Images
1927 Gibson L-5, purchased by Les Paul in Kalamazoo in 1933. Julienâs Auctions
NO OTHER ELECTRIC GUITARâS BIRTH is shrouded in as much myth, mystery, misinformation, and even obsession as that which accompanies the early history of the Gibson Les Paul. A big part of the problem lies in the fact that the two names that came together to put their stamp on that iconic instrumentâGibson and Les Paulâhave often told very different stories of the development of the model. If you listened to Les Paul talk about it during his lifetime, youâd conclude the guitar was mostly his idea, other than the parts Gibson got wrong earlier on; from Gibsonâs perspective, it was mostly a Gibson project, with Les Paulâs name on the headstock. Likely the reality lies somewhere between the two. Whatever the case, thereâs no doubt that Les Paul the artist suggested that Gibson build a solidbody electric guitar before any such beast was successfully in production with an established manufacturer, and that the resultant instrument was heavily steeped in Gibsonâs form and style. And that solidbody electric guitar has become the worldâs most valuable standard production model of its type on the vintage market.
Whatever its origins, what is undeniable is that the Les Paul represented the perfect blend of Gibsonâs tradition and mid-century innovation. And while it might not seem entirely âinnovativeâ from our vantage point, more than sixty years down the road, at the time it was nothing short of revolutionaryâeven if relatively few players realized it right away. It was inevitable that Gibson would eventually develop a solidbody electric guitar, and it might have looked a lot like the Les Paul Model even without that name attached. But without Les Paulâs impetus, the guitar probably would have come along later, and arguably would not have made the same splash on the market without his signature on the headstock. What we can all most likely agree on is the fact that Gibson and Les Paul came together to unveil something marvelous, and that its impact was, and remains, far greater than that of either name on its own.
ORVILLE GIBSON AND THE BIRTH OF THE ARCHTOP GUITAR
Other acoustic-guitar makers were producing excellent instruments in the United States in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but right from its inception in the 1890s, Gibson was unique among them. All on his own, in a cramped backroom workshop in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Orville H. Gibson invented the archtop guitar. Consider that all such guitars of the past 120 years built to any approximation of that templateânot only by Gibson but also by Epiphone, Gretsch, DâAngelico, Stromberg, Guild, Benedetto, and so many othersâowe an eternal debt to Orville Gibsonâs creation, and his achievement comes into even keener focus.
Little is known of Orville H. Gibsonâs early life, other than that he was born in 1856 to British immigrant John W. Gibson and his wife Amy on a farm in upstate New York, and that he traveled west to Kalamazoo, Michigan, at the age of twenty-five. Even in the early 1880s, and before, Michigan represented a âWestâ that promised opportunity and the chance for an entrepreneur to make his own wayâshades of the boom times that would make nearby Detroit a world industrial power some years later. Kalamazoo itself was technically no more than a village at the time of Orvilleâs arrival, albeit a big one, and one that would rapidly grow toward âtownâ and even âcityâ status.
According to Walter Carterâs very informative book Gibson Guitars: 100 Years of an American Icon (General Publishing Group, 1994), Orville took a variety of jobs while apparently working toward his dream of building musical instruments. Positions as a clerk in a shoe store and at Butters Restaurant saw him through the mid-1880s and early 1890s, but by the mid-1890s the aspiring instrument maker had established a functioning workshop and was already on his way to making guitar history.
While we canât know exactly how or where Orville Gibson got his notions for guitar and mandolin making, we do know they established an original and even revolutionary new form in the industry. Basing his construction on that of the violin, he carved the tops and backs of his instruments from solid wood, following the theory that the strength of the arched, solid tops allowed the soundboards to vibrate more freely, requiring, as they did, fewer and lighter supporting elements. While these theories evolved into the renowned Gibson archtop guitars, mandolins were a far bigger craze in Orvilleâs day, and his early developments in instrument making arguably had an even biggerâor at least more directâimpact on that world. His carved-top A-style and F-style mandolins gained attention quickly and remain far and away the two standards in the industry, nearly 120 years later.
Even so, Orvilleâs archtop guitars were a major part of the burgeoning lineup, and the entire range of Gibson instruments earned a stellar reputation surprisingly quickly in that slower-paced age. Having been established in his instrument-making workshop for little more than half a decade, in 1902 Orville was courted by a group of Kalamazoo businessmenâincluding John W. Adams, Leroy Hornbeck, Sylvo Reams, Samuel H. Van Horn, and Lewis A. Williamsâwho sought to invest in the venture. Contracts agreed and signed by the end of the year established the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company, Limited, with its namesake as a consultant, while also paying Orville himself $2,500 (a whopping sum at the time) for the rights to the Gibson name. However, while the groupâs backing clearly helped Gibson to grow, and saw an acceleration in the brandâs uptake among musicians, it seems also to have signaled the decline of Orvilleâs own involvement in his creations.
In 1911, after a few years of apparent ill health signaled by occasional hospital stays, Orville returned to upstate New York in the care of a doctor. All accounts indicate that he had largely abandoned his involvement in the Gibson company years before. In his brief biography of Orville, David K. Bradford writes, âthe small amount of stock he owned in the company was sold to a local saloonkeeper within six months of the companyâs formation after a falling out with the managementâ (19thcenturyguitar.com, 2009). Although little is known of Orvilleâs personal life or his history after the formation of the Gibson company, Bradford also states that the founder of this burgeoning guitar empire was considered eccentric and âprobably suffered from mental illness.â On August 21, 1918, after several more stays in the hospital, Orville H. Gibson died. He was buried in Morningside Cemetery in Malone, New York.
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