Visiting Gibson Guitars’ Nashville Custom Shop

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | JULY 25, 2018

I have been playing Gibson guitars for about thirty years, so it was a thrill to have an opportunity to stop by Gibson’s Nashville Custom Shop for a visit earlier this year. The level of craftsmanship, passion and history was fascinating to experience first hand as we walked from station to station and met with the talented men and women who build some of Gibson’s most coveted instruments. 

My first Gibson was a cherry red ES-335 that I bought in high school with savings from a part-time job. At the time, I was heavily influenced by Pat Metheny, Lee Ritenour, B.B. King, Larry Coryell, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Hiram Bullock and Mike Stern, among many others. That 335 was my main instrument…well, along with a jet black Ibanez Jem-series solid body outfitted with hot-rod DiMarzio pickups and a Floyd Rose tremolo – the ultimate teenage boy’s heavy metal fantasy. My more rock-oriented influences included Alex Lifeson, The Edge, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Satriani, Angus Young, Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen. A few years later, while on my way to class at Berklee College of Music, I stopped by a music shop and spotted an early 1950s ES-175. I picked it up and bought it on the spot. Gibson guitars have been a part of my life for about as long as I can remember. So when the opportunity arose to visit the Nashville Custom Shop as part of a weekend centered around co-hosting a charity tasting of Masseto with winemaker Axel Heinz and country singer/songwriter Martina McBride, it took me a nanosecond to say yes.

Les Paul carved maple tops being pressed onto mahogany bodies 

Gibson belongs to a very small group of companies that are true cultural icons. Think about Scotty Moore playing his ES-295 alongside Elvis Presley, or Jimmy Page with his low-slung Les Paul during Led Zeppelin’s heyday, or B.B. King with his cherished Lucille ES-345 and that sweet tone.

Orville Gibson got his start building mandolins in a small workshop in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the 1890s. Gibson founded his namesake company, Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd., in 1902. Among his many achievements, Orville Gibson is credited with inventing the archtop guitar by applying the principles of violin and mandolin design.

Several visionaries have made enormous contributions to Gibson’s legacy. Lloyd Loar joined shortly after Orville Gibson’s passing in 1918. Loar designed the L-5 archtop guitar and H-5 mandolin, both of which remain in production. Well-preserved Loar-era instruments, mandolins in particular, are highly coveted and fetch prices well into six figures. Gibson Guitars was also a pioneer in the manufacturing of solid-body electrics. In 1950, Gibson President Ted McCarty and jazz musician Les Paul teamed up to create one of the most iconic guitars of all time. Interestingly, though, the Les Paul guitar did not take off commercially until the 1960s. Today, it accounts for 75% of the production at the Nashville Custom Shop. 

Gibson also invented the Tune-o-matic bridge, which allows the length of each string to be adjusted for a level of intonation accuracy that was not possible previously, and the iconic “Patent Applied For” humbucking pickup, known simply as the “PAF” in the modern musical lexicon.