GIBSON MURPHY LAB 1959 ES-335 ULTRA LIGHT AGED, MODERN COLLECTION ES-339 AND ORIGINAL COLLECTION ES-335 & ES-345
Gibson’s Memphis facility shuttered in early 2019, which meant that its thinline semi and hollowbody guitar production was relocated northeast to the company’s main USA manufacturing plant in Nashville. Along with some of the Memphis factory’s experienced staff, all of the equipment and tooling made the journey too, including some laminate presses that date back to Gibson’s Kalamazoo era.
Bringing everything under one roof has enabled Gibson to give the ES range an overhaul and bring it up to speed with the updates and improvements made recently across the company’s solidbody line. Here, in order to determine how things are working out, we’re checking out a cross section of Nashville-made ES models from the Original and Modern Collections, as well as the Custom Shop’s Murphy Lab. And what better way to kick things off than with the most compact and accessible member of our fab foursome.
MODERN COLLECTION ES-339
There are few guitarists who don’t enjoy the tone of a vintage-style Gibson semi. But there are those players – and this should be whispered in hushed tones when our editor is in earshot – who suggest that the ES-335 isn’t, in fact, the perfect electric guitar design. Some might even describe it as a little unwieldy. Highly subjective such notions may be but the ES-339 was designed to appeal to those looking for a more compact take on the ES-335 – and the fact that it has been in continual production since its introduction in 2007 suggests that Gibson’s instincts were on the money.
2021’s ES-339 immediately brings to mind the phrase ‘small
