Origins
Before 1952 Gibson produced only hollow body guitars, which are prone to feedback when amplified loudly. That year saw the introduction of their first solid body, the Gibson Les Paul, based on Les Paul's experiment, "The Log," which was merely a fence post with a neck, hardware, and pickup attached. By 1958 Gibson was making a few solid body models which had much lower feedback and better sustain but lacked the darker, warmer tone and unamplified volume of hollow bodies. The ES-335 is an attempt to find a middle ground: a warmer tone than a solid body with almost as little feedback. Though semi-hollow bodies like the ES-335 are essentially a compromise of earlier designs, for the same reason they are extremely flexible as evidenced by the ES-335's popularity in a wide range of music, including blues, jazz, and rock. With a basic price of $267.50 it quickly became a best-seller, and has been in continuous production since 1958.
Read more about this topic: Gibson ES-335
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)