The pickups deliver the full and warm clarity we associate with mid-50s P-90s, with more than a hint of brassiness as they push a valve amp into overdrive. We also hear a woodier twang from the wound strings than makes the ES-175 just a touch more old-school.Īlthough fun to play acoustically, the ES-175 only comes to life when amplified. Again, this could be attributable to the strings or the floating bridge, but the ES-175 has a more even response and a quick decay that enhances the percussive aspects of rhythm playing.
The ES-175’s unplugged tone isn’t as loud or as full as our ’62 ES-330. Since they’re not exactly conducive to bluesy bends, we might feel differently with our regular roundwound set. Then again, the guitar arrived strung with half-round strings – a midpoint between roundwounds and flatwounds. Some may struggle with thin and low fretwire, but we have no issues with these. There’s no discernible fingerboard wear and the original frets are in similarly fine fettle. We’ve since discovered that 50s Gibson necks are pretty consistent and this guitar has a great example. But after a few minutes, that profile went from feeling big to feeling like the most comfortable, ergonomic and least tiring neck of all time. It was chunkier than anything we’d played before. When we got our first opportunity to play a 1950s Gibson jazzbox, the neck profile left a powerful impression. If you’re going to put one anywhere, it’s arguably a better location than on the heel – assuming, of course, that the screw is biting into the neck block. More upmarket than the ES-225, Gibson used multi-ply front binding on the ES-175, but it’s single-ply on the back.Įverything appears present and correct on this guitar, but we suspect the strap button at the neck is a later addition. The maple outer layers on this example are quite plain and there’s more figuring on the back than the front. Laminated bodies are quicker and cheaper to make, but added benefits include greater strength and stability and better feedback resistance.Ĭonsequently, this model has proved popular with pop, rock and fusion players – including Roddy Frame, Steve Howe and Pat Metheny. As such, it was never a ‘high end’ Gibson, but that didn’t deter such jazz luminaries as Joe Pass, Herb Ellis and the young Wes Montgomery. Unlike the carved top L-4 models, the ES-175 has always had a laminated body. Both features were inherited from the L-4C. This one comes with the earlier-style tailpiece, featuring three raised parallelograms to match the markers in the Brazilian rosewood fingerboard. Vintage ES-175s always had a carved rosewood bridge with intonation compensation for wound G strings. The strings are about 23mm above the body when they reach the bridge, but on an ES-330 it’s closer to 18mm. The minimal lacquer-checking also suggests it enjoyed life in a warm environment. If it has spent most of its life in the South, the sunburst’s vibrant colour and absence of tan lines under the slightly warped pickguard suggest the guitar was kept away from sunlight, perhaps spending most of its time ensconced in its case. Although we can merely speculate about its history, the aforementioned sticker and stellar all-original condition of this ES-175 suggests that it has remained untainted by the devil’s music since it left Kalamazoo in 1956. There are plenty of anecdotes about vintage guitars surviving unscathed after only seeing use in weekly church services.
A hand-made leather cover is laced over the ever-vulnerable handle and on the lid, there’s a well-worn sticker advertising The Church Of God Of Prophecy, a Pentecostal Holiness Christian church with its origins in early 20th-century Tennessee. Looking for vintage mojo? The history here is palpable before you even open the period Lifton case.