The Gibson Blueshawk is a discontinued model of semi-hollow body

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

. It was available between 1996 and 2006 as a

Gibson Gibson may refer to: People * Gibson (surname) Businesses * Gibson Brands, Inc., an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and audio equipment * Gibson Technology, and English automotive and motorsport company based * Gi ...

model designed mainly for

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

players (hence the name). It superficially resembles the

Les Paul Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar, and his prototype ...

in that the body outline is similar. The Blueshawk was discontinued by Gibson in Spring 2006, and returned in 2015 under the

Epiphone Epiphone is an American musical instrument brand that traces its roots to a musical instrument manufacturing business founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over his f ...

brand.

Carl Perkins Carl Lee Perkins (April 9, 1932 – January 19, 1998)#nytimesobit, Pareles. was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rockabilly great and pioneer of rock and roll, he began his recording career at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, Tennes ...

received the first prototype Blueshawk in 1996. A variant on the Blueshawk is named ''

Gibson Little Lucille The Little Lucille is a relatively recently designed (1996-2006) Gibson model designed mainly for blues players. It superficially resembles the Les Paul in that the body outline is similar. The ''Little Lucille'' was discontinued by Gibson in 20 ...

'' and features a stop tailpiece and tune-o-matic bridge.

Construction

The Blueshawk has a number of distinctive features that distinguish it from virtually all other Gibsons. The Blueshawk's body outline is the same as a slightly earlier range of guitars — the Nighthawks (1993–1999) — but unlike the Nighthawks, the Blueshawk is a semi-hollow bodied guitar with twin

f-hole A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board. Sound holes have different shapes: * round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins; * F-holes in instruments from the vi ...

s. Other distinctive / innovative features include: * 25.5 inch scale length (the same as many Fenders, Gibsons more typically have a 24.75 inch scale length). * Through-body stringing and bridge construction - similar to the

Fender Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful Les Paul had built a prototype solid bo ...

* Blues 90 pickups (superficially resembling a

P-90 The P-90 (sometimes written P90) is a single coil electric guitar pickup produced by Gibson since 1946. Gibson is still producing P-90s, and there are outside companies that manufacture replacement versions. Compared to other single coil desig ...

pickup) * Noise reduction circuitry which employs a dummy coil * A Varitone circuit (similar to that used on the

Gibson ES-345 The Gibson ES-345 is a stereo guitar manufactured by the Gibson Guitar Company. The guitar was produced from 1959 to 1981. It was designed as a jazz guitar and an upscale version of the ES-335. History The 345 was developed in 1958 as an upscale ...

) - the Varitone circuit is a mid-cut/

band-stop filter In signal processing, a band-stop filter or band-rejection filter is a filter that passes most frequencies unaltered, but attenuates those in a specific range to very low levels. It is the opposite of a band-pass filter. A notch filter is a ba ...

with a choice of five center frequencies * The Blueshawk is a light guitar (less than 7lbs) - the body is made from poplar, capped with maple - the body is small and relatively thin and has two cavities - the hardware is minimal. * The Blueshawk has a contour carved into the back - similar to the

Fender Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously ...

. * Simple control set - master volume, master tone, 3-way pickup selector, 6 way rotary Varitone control switch. * Just above the fingerboard and parallel to it, between the front (neck) pickup and the front strap pin, there is a cursive-writing emblem using paint, saying “Blues Hawk.”

Epiphone version

During the 2015 Winter

NAMM show The NAMM Show is an annual event in the United States that is organized by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), who describe it as "the industry’s largest stage, uniting the global music, sound and entertainment technology commun ...

, Epiphone revealed a "reissue" of the Gibson Bluehawk called the Epiphone Blueshawk Deluxe. While it has similar specifications to the original Gibson version, the Blueshawk Deluxe features a flamed maple veneer on top of a solid maple top, Epiphone's own PRO-90 single-coil pickups, a bound fingerboard, and no option for a Maestro tremolo, instead of a non-figured maple top, Blues 90s single coils, unbound fingerboard, and option for a tremolo.Epiphone
Epiphone presents the new Blueshawk Deluxe.
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Musicians using a Blueshawk

References

External links

{{Guitars Blueshawk Semi-acoustic guitars