Book review - Flying V, Explorer, Firebird: An Odd-Shaped History of Gibson's Weird Electric Guitars by Tony Bacon
I'm on the last couple of pages of this book now so I'll give it a review. I have several of Mr Bacon's books, one is signed by him after I met him at some guitar show some years back. He researches well and writes in a good manner and normally they are excellently illustrated. This is a good read even if it is a bit jumbled as it is simply a timeline of these guitars starting from the birth of the idea for the "modernistic" trio in the mid/late 50s as Gibson looked to fight back against the fuddy-duddy image that it had from it's association with flat top acoustics, mandolins and archtop jazz guitars. You have to say that the flying V and Explorer must have seemed like something from another planet when they came along. Whilst focused on the Gibson roots there are several off-piste points talking about the "lawsuit" Ibanez trilogy in the mid 70s and the many offshoots that have come from the Gibson pointy boys lineage, so reference to Jackso...