The first Gibson instruments, mandolins designed as an after-work hobby by company namesake Orville Gibson, date back to 1894. Headquartered in Nashville since 1984, Gibson Guitars, now one of America’s oldest musical instrument manufacturers, has produced an extensive collection of electric and acoustic models. Chief among its catalog is the Les Paul, a guitar revered by a diverse assortment of pickers, including blues great Eric Clapton and hard rocker Slash.
- Music enthusiasts will geek out at Nashville’s Gallery of Iconic Guitars at Belmont, home to nearly 500 rare and historical instruments. Seek out the headliner of the Gibson exhibit: a 1938 SJ-200, widely used by musicians such as Elvis and Bob Dylan and famed for its large body and deep, resonant sound.
- Next, hit up the flagship store, the Gibson Garage, a couple miles away in the Gulch for limited-edition guitars and gear, as well as original instruments handmade by Orville Gibson himself.
- Collectors with deep pockets can purchase near-exact reproductions of legendary Southern artists’ guitars from the Gibson Custom Shop. Standouts include replicas of Johnny Cash’s cherry-red SJ-200 ($15,000) and “Red Eye,” Jason Isbell’s Les Paul standard ($22,000).
- Come June, attend Gibson Garage Fest Week to celebrate the shop’s anniversary and catch live, cross-genre acts, music history talks, and guitar-technique workshops.
- An interpretive sign marks the site of a fateful B.B. King concert in Twist, Arkansas, that went up in flames (literally) after a fight broke out in the crowd over a woman named Lucille. King adopted her name for his trademark black Gibsons as a reminder to never deliver such a performance.
This article appears in the Winter 2025 issue of Southbound.
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