The Gibson Everly Brothers Acoustic Guitar

Phil and Don Everly, otherwise known as The Everly Brothers, pretty much set the world on fire for a while with their country influenced American rock and roll music and their harmony singing. It's important to note that the music of The Everly Brothers was not British Invasion style rock and roll music at all - but was purely American.

The British Invasion rock and roll music was often based on rural African American blues, or early American rock and roll artists such as Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly. But The Everly Brothers produced music that might have been influenced in ways by their contemporaries such as Elvis or Buddy Holly - but their music was theirs, and no one else's.

The Everly Brothers created their music with ferocious amounts of rhythm guitar playing all done on acoustic steel string guitars made by the American guitar giant, the Gibson Guitar Company.

The music of The Everly Brothers is so classic as to be timeless, and Don and Phil Everly have been inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame, of course, but their style deserves some consideration. Their vocal harmonies were and are what is considered close harmony style - which is quite different from an open harmony style of singing or composing.

The music of The Everly Brothers was America's youth movements answer to more traditional country, folk, or bluegrass family music groups that featured close harmony styles - such as The Delmore Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, and the Osborne Brothers.

From gorgeous ballads with their close harmony vocals to much more up tempo songs - Don and Phil Everly did it all, and they did every last bit of it while playing their Gibson acoustic guitars.

During the heyday of The Everly Brothers music, Phil and Don Everly both played customized Gibson J 200 guitars. In 1962 The Gibson Guitar Company decided to make an Everly Brothers Artist series guitar that was similar to a Gibson J 185, but with a thinner depth, and this became the Gibson Everly Brothers Guitar.

Featured was a 16 inch width at the lower bout instrument with an adjustable saddle, pearl star inlay on a rosewood fingerboard, and a dual sided pick guard of tortoise shell. Mahogany was used for the neck, and the guitar featured a solid spruce sound board with solid maple back and sides with a black finish. Later on in 1963, a natural finish top became available with walnut back and sides. These guitars were discontinued as production instruments in 1972, followed by many a reissue, as follows.

1. A reissue of this guitar became available in 1986 - but the reissue was named the Gibson J 180.

2. In 1992 the exact same instrument was reissued yet again and called the Gibson Everly Brothers model guitar

3. . Despite any good reasoning that I know of, yet again, in 1994 the very same instrument was reissued yet another time - but was again called the Gibson J 180.

As had happened with Gibson's competitor, C.F. Martin and Company - critics, collectors, and players most often agree that during the 1960's and the 1970's both of the American Acoustic Guitar giants had slacked off quite a bit with the quality of their instruments. This is not to say that all or any instruments by these giants produced during those times were inferior - but merely that some of them were.

What happened was that many another guitar manufacturer realized what was going on - and jumped into the production fray in order to fill the demand for instruments of the same quality that Gibson and Martin had produced during the 1930's, and 1940's. Of course Martin and Gibson both realized their errors - and soon jumped back into creating instruments that met the standards of their earlier production years.

All Everly Brothers instruments by Gibson are bound to be terrific guitars - in fact, because they are nearly as large an instrument as is the Gibson J 200 - these guitars are likely to be able to compete with Martin's dreadnought guitars in terms of being a flatpicking instrument. It's very important to note, however, that the sound of a Gibson Everly Brothers guitar, because they are either maple or walnut in the back and sides of the instruments - they might not produce the type of tone that a player is looking for so far as playing flatpicking leads is concerned.

One only need trust their ears and instincts when playing one of these to determine whether or not the instrument is right for them. The music of The Everly Brothers, however, was never flatpicked fiddle tunes or Celtic melodies - but rather, was aggressive acoustic strumming with close harmony singing - and for that kind of music, who can argue with what these guitars have produced?

Here's the Prices that I'm finding for these guitars:

Vintage Price Value For 2007 :
1962 - 1964 > $8500 to $9500
1965 - 1967 > $6500 to $7000
1968 - 1972 > $3500 to $4000
1986 - 1999 > $1400 to $1500 ( reissue j-180 )