The Gibson ES-335

Chuck Berry played plenty of rock and roll on an ES-350 early in his career and it sounded awfully good. He later switched to a 355 and other semis but back at the beginning of rock, full hollow guitars were de rigueur. That’s what Michael Fox should have been playing rather than a non existent 345 in Back to the Future.

Super 400’s, L-5’s, ES-5’s, ES-350’s and 175’s and many other vintage Gibsons fit the description. Arch Tops were the Rolls Royce of guitars during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Their popularity waned in the 60’s as rock and roll took center stage but there were still plenty of jazz players and even big bands and orchestras with a guitar player who usually played an archtop. A 335 could be described as an archtop but semi hollow archtops are another class of guitars altogether.

In the early days of rock and roll, archtops were still largely the guitar of choice. Scotty Moore played an ES-295, Gene Vincent played a Gretsch archtop, Chuck Berry played an ES-350 and so on. 335’s didn’t exist until 1958 and by then, rock and roll was here to stay. Even though Telecasters and Strats were around at rock’s outset, they weren’t as visible as the archtops with the notable exception of Buddy Holly and perhaps Muddy Waters’ gold top Les Paul. I’m not a rock historian so don’t deluge me with comments telling me who played Fenders. Of course, today, solid body guitars are everywhere-in all genres.

So, what’s different when compared to a 335 which is considered semi hollow? There’s quite a lot of overlap between, say an ES-350 and a 335. Both are capable of biting treble from the bridge pickup although hollow bodies tend to feed back at high volume. Back in the 60’s that was sometimes a plus (I played a 330 back in the psychedelic age) and it would howl and not always when I wanted it to. But it’s the neck pickup where a hollow body can do things a semi hollow or solid doesn’t do as well. Now, I always have a problem describing tone-it’s s little like describing the color red to a blind man. I guess I can call it airy. A full depth hollow body, like an ES-5, can generate a tone that sounds something like a miked acoustic. I would imagine the jazz guys love that tone which may be why they are attracted to arch tops.

There are a lot of knobs to choose from on an ES-5. It took me a minute to figure out which one did what. It’s a bit different than a 335 and, in some ways, makes more sense (the bottom ones are the bridge pickup). I had a lot of fun playing this one.

I sat down with a 1960 ES-5 (Switchmaster) that I took in trade with the intention of scavenging the PAFs and replacing them with boutique pickups like Throbaks. But I couldn’t do it. I sat down intending to play for maybe 15 minutes. Two hours later, I’m still banging away on it. I rarely play for two hours any more due to my old and worn out joints-especially my arthritic thumbs. It sounded so good and notably different to what I’m used to. I play acoustics (I have a J-200 and a Breedlove 12 string), a solid body with P90’s (Epiphone Wilshire) and, of course a 59 335. I so rarely have an arch top in stock that I simply have little experience with them. I don’t think I’ll end up keeping the ES-5 but I intend to enjoy it until somebody else wants it. It’s a shame they aren’t more practical for rock and blues-the access to the upper frets is limited and they do tend to feed back at high volume. These were the high end of the Gibson line and enjoyed a great deal of popularity until an upstart named Leo turned guitar making on it’s ear. The decline started there and never stopped.

Saturday, June 6th, 2026 at 6:54 pm • Gibson General • RSS 2.0 feed • leave a response or trackback