Gibson Firebird VII

Electric guitar kings Gibson and Fender have both had some growing pains since I began playing guitar many years ago. What were once only tepid sellers have become classics, simply because times were too hard to sell many of the expensive instruments.

Gibson, particularly, had quite a number of discontinued models that have since been reissued in a bewildering array of choices for the more lucrative new century. Even the fabled “Les Paul,” of which I was only aware of two kinds (black or “Custom” and gold or “Standard“) have been tweaked and massaged to become a plethora of options in a rainbow of colors that I’m sure even Les Paul himself never imagined in his wildest dreams.

In the late 1950s, when cars had fins, Gibson tried a trio of daring guitars, the “Explorer,” the “Moderne,” and the familiar “Flying V,” the only one that sold many copies back then. If you have one of these 1958 originals, they are literally worth their weight in gold. Like I said, the reason these vintage instruments are so valuable is they did not sell, hence they were only produced in small numbers. Today, you can buy either the “Flying V” or the “Explorer” as a standard item, which kind of shows they were a bit before their time.

In 1963, Gibson tried again. It hired auto designer Ray Dietrich to come up with a wild looking guitar to compete with the Fender Stratocaster. Dietrich came up with a design that looked a little bit like a reversed Fender Stratocaster. The similarities ended there, however, as the Firebird was all Gibson and had a number of innovations.

The most noticeable feature of the Firebird is the neck through body construction. The center of the body and the neck are one solid piece of wood with the two body sides added as “wings.” Some of the Firebird VIIs have laminated bodies, with nine layers of mahogany and walnut making up the body. With the translucent finished Firebirds, you can see the layers while the opaque finished ones you can’t. All the Firebirds have the center board of the body where the pickups reside raised above the wings. The rear of the body is contoured like a Fender Strat to make it more comfortable against your ribs.

The neck is either solid mahogany or laminated and has a reversed peghead with banjo-type through the neck tuners. In other words, the tuner knob is straight behind the capstan, or part the string winds on. These features add an additional weird flair to the appearance. The 22 frets are free of the body so you can reach them all with no problem.

The pickups are Gibson mini-humbuckers, and there are three of them on the Firebird VII. Don’t let their size fool you; they are high output and have similar sound and a little more bite than the full size PAF humbuckers on the Les Paul Custom. The electrics are classic Gibson with a three way selector switch and two volume and tone controls. The pickup selector is located in the front lower bout with the up position selecting the neck pickup, center selecting the center and bridge pickups and down selecting the bridge pickup, giving you a wide choice of sounds.

The strings are anchored with a lyre “Vibrola” tailpiece, to give it a tremolo. I don’t like the Gibson Vibrola as much as the Fender tremolo, but your mileage might vary. The pick guard is white and has a firebird engraved on it.

The Firebird VII is the top of the line Firebird model, I remember that there were III and V models at one time also. The VII has large block pearl fret markers, a fully bound neck, and a sculpted peghead. The hardware is gold plated or chrome, depending on the body color. The guitar comes complete with a fitted hard shell case to protect your investment.

If you like a Gibson electric guitar and want something different than the endless variations on the Les Paul or Flying V, you might want to try a Firebird VII. It’s Johnny Winter’s favorite guitar.

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