A 1955 Gibson Byrdland
DURING THE MID 1950s, sales of Gibson archtop models declined dramatically. Players were frustrated by the archtop electric’s bulky dimensions and tendency to feed back, but at the same time many were also displeased with the heavier weight and less-resonant acoustic properties of Gibson’s solidbody models. In response, Gibson introduced its first “Thinline” models in 1955, which offered a sort of “Goldilocks” solution where the traditional archtop’s depth was reduced by about half. Gibson’s first thinline model was the Byrdland, followed shortly afterwards by the somewhat similar ES-350T.
The Byrdland’s name combined the surnames of two pro guitarists, Billy Byrd and Hank Garland, who helped conceive the model. Byrd was a prominent country guitarist who played in Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry house band and was a member of Ernest Tubbs’ Texas Troubadours. Garland was a Nashville session player who later appeared on dozens of legendary country and rock ’n’ roll singles by artists like Elvis Presley and Patsy Cline and recorded the classic 1960 instrumental jazz guitar album Jazz Winds from a New Direction. “Billy and I told Gibson that we’d like an instrument like the L-5, but with a thinner body and a bunch of other stuff,” Garland told Guitar Player in 1981.