Johnny Winter playing a Gibson Firebird
This is the final installment in a three story series about the guitars known as Gibson Exotics: the Flying V, the Explorer, and the Firebird. This time we’ll look at the Firebird, which, to my eye, is the most refined of the exotics and the one that I would not be at all ashamed to be seen playing.
Though it’s strange to consider given how popular these guitars are now, Gibson’s first exotic guitars, the Flying V and the Explorer, were commercial failures at the time. They were discontinued in 1959.
In the early ‘60s Gibson’s then president, Ted McCarthy, enlisted renown car designer Ray Dietrich to create a guitar that would be more popular. The design that Dietrich came up with took cues from the Explorer but rounded over the edges and made it less pointy.
Like the Explorer, the lower horn of the guitar was longer than the upper horn. Soon people started referring to the Firebirds as “reverse” in comparison to other guitars of the time.
The headstocks of the Firebirds also were reversed and used banjo tuning machines so that tuning wouldn’t be a hassle. The neck of the Firebird is Gibson’s first neck-through solid-body electric (that is, the neck actually extends all the way through the body instead of ending where it joins the body).
The pickups that went into the Firebird were different than what went into the other exotics. The Firebird’s pickups are referred to as “mini-humbucking” pickups. They have a lower output than standard humbuckers and have different tone. Neil Young’s standby axe, Old Black , has one of these in the neck position and is widely credited as a huge part of his signature tone.
The Firebird was introduced in 1963 and was released in four different models with different configurations. The most basic model had a single pickup and no vibrato tailpiece where all the others had two pickups and various tailpiece/vibrato setups.
Gibson’s initial run of Firebirds wasn’t commercially successful and this prompted them to put out a “non-reverse” Firebird that essentially flipped the design of the guitar so that the top horn was longer. These continued to be produced from 1965 to 1969 when they were discontinued.
The original “reverse” Firebirds were first reissued in 1972 and they have been steadily produced since that time. You can still buy a new one with either the Gibson name or the Epiphone name. Vintage reverse-body Firebirds command top dollar and are pretty out of reach for most of us. But from what I’ve heard, the new ones play well and sound great.
The modern design of Gibson’s Flying V, Explorer, and Firebird guitars were clearly way ahead of their time. They have carved out their own oddly shaped spots in the pantheon of rock axes and become as classic as the guitars they were intended to outsell.
