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10 Facts About The Legendary Gibson ES 335 Electric Guitar

By Jim J Ward

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Published: 13Dec2011
Word count: 914
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The Gibson ES 335 semi-acoustic electric guitar is one of those guitars that evokes many fond and exciting memories of my youth, when I was first hooked on learning to play the guitar.

So many of the bands and artists of the late 1950s and 60s seemed to have a guitarist proudly playing these F-holed beauties. The old black and white TV clips on shows like Top of the Pops would show the diverse musical genres that the 335 guitar could handle with ease. Blues, jazz, pop and rock and roll were typical musical styles that guitarists played on the Gibson 335.

Below are 10 interesting facts about this guitar:

1. The Gibson ES 335 was the world's first commercial semi-acoustic electric guitar.

2. Up until 1952 the Gibson company were only producing completely hollow bodied guitars. These guitars were very often prone to feedback squeals when played through an amplifier at high volume.

3. The 335 is neither a solid body or a hollow acoustic guitar. A solid block of wood runs through the centre of the body with hollow side's containing two F-holes creating the acoustic chambers. This helped to reduce the dreaded feedback.

4. The semi-acoustic design was a coming together of previous designs to produce the best of both worlds, in other words the combination of a solid and acoustic body.

5. Two legendary humbucking PAF guitar pickups were utilised in the original models. These humbucker pickups were exactly the same as installed on the Les Paul models at that time.

6. The resulting guitar was extremely flexible and as mentioned earlier suitable for many genres of music. Famous players of various styles of music include: B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Alex Lifeson, Dave Grohl, Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour and Carl Wilson.

7. Production started in 1958 with the basic price of $267. 50.

8. The wood used in the manufacturing process includes: a solid maple centre block with a maple plywood top and back, mahogany was used for the neck (maple was used very rarely) and generally rosewood fretboard though sometimes ebony.

9. The most desirable model was what became known as the 'dot neck' version. These utilised dot inlays in the fretboard as opposed to block inlays. The 1958 and 1959 models with dot inlays and also stop tailpieces are considered the very best.

10. 1962 saw the introduction of block fingerboard inlays, replacing the dots and also the shape of the double cutaways changed from the original 'Mickey Mouse' style ears to slightly more pointed.

So there you have it. A wonderful ES 335 really is a joy to hold and play and the model is still manufactured today. It is well worth testing one out in your local music store, even if it's just to experience it.

Jim Ward is a very keen guitarist and loves to write about various electric guitars. For a great guitar blog on famous guitarists and all aspects of guitar pickups he recommends visiting: TubGuitarPickups.co.uk. There's also lots of information there on upgrading your instrument's current Humbuckers.

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