Electric Guitar Review

Back in the 1930s, as American jazz bands were getting ever larger and louder, the inevitable finally came about — as often happens with technical innovation, a number of guitar manufacturers almost simultaneously realized that the popular acoustic archtops of the day just couldn’t cut it in the era of the so-called Big Band.

Now, there’s a lot of debate as to who exactly produced the very first electric, amplified guitar, but there’s absolutely no doubt that Gibson’s first electric offering, the ES150, went on to help popularize the instrument in general — mostly through the hands of one of the guitar’s greatest players, the incomparable Charlie Christian.

Christian, who brought the Gibson ES150 (the “ES” stands for Electric Spanish) into the eye of the public via his groundbreaking work with Benny Goodman, would be forever associated with the instrument (there are numerous photos of the man playing this famous guitar,) and even today the ES150 is still popularly known as the Charlie Christian model.

My investigative work suggests that the original Gibson ES150 featured—

• Carved Spruce Top
• Northern Maple Back & Sides
• Mahogany Neck
• Rosewood Fingerboard With 19 Frets
• Adjustable Ebony Bridge
• Charlie Christian Type Bar Pickup
• Bakelite “Arrow” Tone & Volume Controls
• Chocolate Brown With Golden Starburst Finish

Unfortunately, this piece of true guitar history was taken out of production in 1956, and if you own one today, well… you’re a richer man than I.

Charlie Christian died in 1942 after contracting tuberculosis & pneumonia… he was just 25 years old.