PAUL
VERNON CHESTER
Manouche Maestro
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Manouche Maestro |
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Gibson L5 In 1922, Lloyd Loar was hired by the Gibson Company to redesign their instrument line in an effort to counter flagging sales, and in that same year the Gibson L5 was released to his design. Although the new instrument models flopped commercially and Loar left Gibson after only a couple of years, Gibson instruments signed by Loar now are among the most prized and celebrated in stringed-instrument history. Perhaps the most revered instrument from this period is the F5 mandolin, but probably the more broadly influential was the L5 guitar, which remains in production to this day.
Gibson’s L-5 debuted in 1922 as part of designer Lloyd Loar’s Master Series of instruments. It represented some of the most significant advancements ever brought to the archtop acoustic guitar, and, although it didn’t retain quite the seminal status that its sibling the F-5 mandolin enjoys to this day, it did lay the groundwork for the great Gibson archtops of the ’30s. Maybelle Carter’s 1928 L-5, made just four years after Loar left Gibson in 1924, was a fairly austere instrument by the standards of later archtops, with simple dot inlays on the fingerboard, unbound f-holes, and a basic three-ply binding around its carved solid-spruce top, but it did sport a very resonant, lively construction, and innovations such as an adjustable bridge and an adjustable truss rod (both firsts for the archtop guitar when Gibson brought them to the L-5 later in 1922). Today we might think of these archtops as archetypal “jazz boxes”, but in the early to mid ’20s the guitar was still a minority player in the jazz world, with the tenor banjo making the bigger noise up on the bandstand. Some groundbreaking jazz artists, Eddie Lang for one, did take up the L-5, but it was just as likely to be seen in the hands of players on the burgeoning country scene of the day, in an era when the flat-top acoustic had yet to establish its primacy in that genre. Django playing a Gibson L5 with Challain Ferret, Nice 1948 In 1934 the L-5’s body was “advanced” to 17" wide, and its look was enhanced by five-ply fingerboard and peghead binding and other elements. Later that same year, Gibson introduced the 18"-wide Super 400, a guitar that would become “king of the archtops”, although the L-5 endured until 1958 in its non-cutaway form, and until 1982 as the L-5C with cutaway.
A 1946 non-cutaway deep body archtop. It has a vintage sunburst finish, and the carved Maple back has that wide, deep flame. The sides and neck are also flamed. Script headstock logo with flowerpot, Kluson Sealfast gold plated gears, pearl 'block' inlays in the bound Ebony fingerboard. Original compensated Rosewood bridge and Varitone tailpiece.
Eddie Lang's Acoustic Gibson L5 The ES-5 was the first electric model inspired by the L-5 guitar, first introduced in 1949, and later modified as the Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster. The L-5CES was a direct electric version of the L5, introduced in 1951. These originally used P-90 pickups, The Gibson L5 Guitar (Book)
L5 enthusiasts might enjoy the book 'The Gibson L5 Guitar'
by Adrian Ingram. First published in 1997, this book takes a look at the
history of the L5 and the guitarists who helped it rise to prominence. The
book is also lavishly illustrated with full colour photographs.
The EH-150 amp cabinet was covered in "Aeroplane cloth", luggage tweed, with contrasting vertical brown stripes. A black perforated aluminium grille protects the ten inch "Ultrasonic High Fidelity Reproducer" speaker. Later Gibson would often affix red stickers onto the back of speakers with the printed text "Ultrasonic Speaker". Especially during the '60s and '70s. Chassis were mounted at the bottom of cabinets. The features of the early EH-150 amp include one input for microphone and three inputs for instruments, separate volume controls for the microphone and instruments sections, a bass-tone expander switch, and an "Echo" extension speaker jack. For the microphone
input stage of the early EH-150 one 6F5 tube (high mu triode) was used and one
half of an 6N7 (dual high mu triode) to provide gain for the instruments input
and the second half to a second gain stage for both input stages, one 6C5 tube
(medium mu triode) to serve as a third gain stage and a transformer to split the
phase of the amplified signal into two 6N6 output tubes (direct-coupled power
triodes. The '37 EH-150 was the first ever class A tube amp with an overdrive channel. It is claimed it still sounds better than just about anything out there. It has one knob---volume More Pic's Post WWII Gibson Amplifiers
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