The Gibson 175: Its History and Its Players

Good info. The Kindle book would be overpriced no matter how good the book was, but I knew that. The main beef I have is twofold:1) The book is far too short. I could have researched and written this book myself in 30 days. 2) The Kindle edition, at least, has so, so, so many spelling and formatting errors AND the images and charts are so low quality they're completely unreadable. Anecdotal content would have been appreciated, as well as more interview content. Worth it only if you feel you must have this.

This "book" is more promotional material than anything else. It is a bit deceiving on more than one front. The Pat Metheny "foreword" is just a short quote--more of an epigraph. The history part covers up to the 1980s. Anything after that is just a jumble in need of an editor. The whole book in fact could bear another round of proof reading. Considering how ubiquitous the 175 has been, the selection of images seems lazy and random. You could do better with a google image search. But the thing that bothered me the most was that after reading the whole thing in about an hour I realized that I had been duped into paying a lot of money to buy what is basically an ad. In the whole thing there is only one short quote (by Joe Pass) that touches on why the instrument seems good to him. So, kind of a lost opportunity. I was ready for a book, but got a 50-odd page ad instead.

The ES175 is a jazz classic heard used by many famous guitarists, also made for a long time. This book does a pretty fair job of portraying the chief jazz electric of the 50's,60's,70's, and also a totally fineinstrument. I own a 1951 ES175 and would have like a little more on the subtle changes throughout the years. The earliest models were still very much the idea of an electrified acoustic where as later theybecame electric hollowbodies. Weight, thickness of wood, pickups, construction, finishes changed as did the company itself. I am very glad to have this.

This is considered the best book on the ES-175 and there is some justification for that, it traces the history, gives insights into the design features and how they evolved, contains numerous photographs and has comments from major artists who employed this guitar regularly as their instrument of choice. However, it reads now as quite dated, probably not having been edited since the mid-1990s, so more recent designs are missing. Further, paragraph closing sentences are chopped off in one or two places and specific details in the text such as instrument measurements are left as "?" presumably under the assumption that they would be filled in at proofing, which clearly did not happen, making for a sloppy delivery of the author's efforts. Still, if you want to get familiar with the instrument, this is as good a place as any to start. A little pricey for what you get but, how true that is of anything Gibson.

Love the books by this guy. Well done.

Good book about the history of the ES-175 and some of the artists who played it. Details the different modifications that occurred over the years as the archtop evolved from a single P90 pickup (1949) to dual PAF humbuckers (1957). Book also outlines various derivatives of the ES-175 made by Gibson as well as modern reissues from the Gibson Custom shop and other makers. Plenty of pictures, though would have preferred more color photos. Overall a good book for jazz aficionados and Gibson-philes.

This over-priced "pamphlet" clearly was not edited. Some paragraphs start but don't end; others start mid-sentence. Many of the "facts" are questionable. Several of the shipping totals are off by one year in the charts in the appendix. For example, the ES-175 totals from 1961 - 1970 are among the numbers are shifted one column to the left in error. How can you write a book about the ES-175 and get the shipping totals wrong? Save your money.

This is a good book for one of the most classic jazz guitar of all time. Photos in black/white and color, and a history of the guitar. With the same format as in the same book publisher dedicated to the Gibson L-5 and Gibson 335.

I bought this as I am considering purchasing a 50's 175 and wanted more information before spending the cash. So far its been informative but it isn't necessarily extensive however there is enough content to assess a purchase but I would have preferred a more in depth book. That said its served its purpose and I've enjoyed the book over the xmas break.

Great that someone has produced a very decent book on one of Gibson's less fashionable but awesome guitars. Well worth it for Gibson obsessives - especially if you have a 1961 with PAFs!!

Good book - but lack of colour pics

Described as 272 pages I thought I was getting an in depth history of the ES-175, what I got was an 86 page glossy pamphlet. It's a nice enough pamphlet but I'd like to know what happened to the other 186 pages. Some nice pictures of the guitar though.

Great book, a must for any Gibson fan