IN THE FIRST PART OF AN EXCLUSIVE NEW HISTORY ... - Epiphone

GBFEATURE
THE HISTORY OF EPIPHONE: PART ONE
THE
STORY
IN THE FIRST PART OF AN EXCLUSIVE NEW HISTORY OF THE
EPIPHONE BRAND, PAUL ALCANTARA TRACES THE ORIGINS
OF THE COMPANY AND CHARTS ITS RISE TO PROMINENCE
Chances are that your first
... Les Paul was an Epiphone, a
solidly built instrument that played
well and sounded good but
nevertheless wasn’t quite the real
thing. The perception of the brand
as the poor man’s Gibson is so
deeply entrenched that today few
are aware that Epiphone was once
Gibson’s main rival, the two
companies engaged in a battle for
supremacy that made the 1930s
one of the most exciting and
innovative decades in the history
of the guitar.
In the first installment of this
two-part feature, we’ll look at the
origins of the company, its rise
through the 1920s and 1930s and
the circumstances that led to its
eventual demise in the postwar era.
ROOTS
The story of Epiphone begins back in
the late 19th Century with one
Anastasios Nicolas Stathopoulos,
the son of a Greek timber merchant
who, rather than follow his father
into the family business, chose
instead to pursue a career as a
luthier.
In 1877, the Stathopoulos family
sailed across the Aegean Sea to
settle in Smyrna, in Asiatic Turkey,
where Anastasios eventually set up
a successful instrument-making
factory and started a family of his
own. His first child, a boy, arrived in
1893 and was named Epaminondas.
To escape the persecution that
Greek immigrants suffered at the
hands of the native Turks, the
Stathopoulos family decided to
emigrate to America, and in 1903
arrived in Manhattan, New York
where Anastasios set up shop as a
manufacturer and repairer of
musical instruments.
On arrival in America, the family
name was shortened to
‘Stathopoulo’, so that the labels on
Anastasios’ instruments now read:
“A. Stathopoulo, Manufacturer-
Repairer Of All Kinds Of Musical
Instruments”. The mandolin craze,
which had begun some 20 years
earlier, was still in full swing and
Anastasios’ experience stood him in
good stead. His business prospered,
thus enabling him able to provide his
children with a comfortable lifestyle
and a good education.
■ Epaminondas ‘Epi’
Stathopoulo: that’s Mr
Epiphone to me and you
EPI STATHOPOULO
Epaminondas – by now known as
‘Epi’ – was just 22 years old when
his father died of cancer on the
22nd of July 1915.
From a young age he had helped
Anastasios in the workshop and as a
result was well versed in the art of
lutherie. Moreover, a
University education had
imbued him with the
vision and sense of
purpose required to
oversee the
transformation of his
father’s company from a
neighborhood business to
an internationally
recognised musical
instrument manufacturer.
In 1917 he changed the
company’s name to ‘House
of Stathopoulo’ and more
significantly perhaps, was
granted his first patent –
for the tone ring and rim
➔
construction of a banjo.
➔
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GBFEATURE
THE HISTORY OF EPIPHONE: PART ONE
JAZZ AGE
The end of the First World War
ushered in a colourful decade that is
often referred to as the Roaring
Twenties or the Jazz Age. Young
women wearing bobbed hair and
skirts that exposed their knees
danced the Charleston and the Black
Bottom to a new kind of music that
outraged an older generation in
much the same way that rock and
roll would do some 40 years later.
“The music is sensuous, the
female is only half dressed and the
motions may not be described in a
family newspaper,” ranted the
Catholic Telegraph, while The Ladies’
Home Journal of August 1921 posed
the question, “Does Jazz Put the
Sin in Syncopation?” (to which one
Mrs Marx E. Oberndorfer, of the
General Federation of Women’s
Clubs replied, “Such music has
become an influence for evil!”).
BANJO BOOM
America’s love affair with the dulcet
tones of the mandolin was over and
the instrument was set aside in
favour of the tenor banjo, a shortscale
instrument with four metal
strings that, unlike the mandolin,
could be heard above the din of
massed saxophones, cornets and
trombones. Moreover, the tenor
banjo, like the mandolin, was tuned in
fifths, a fact that allowed erstwhile
mandolin players to switch to the
new instrument with ease.
Epi showed little compunction in
abandoning the mandolin family
instruments that his father had
made. He intended to make a
success of the family business, and
if banjos were the up and coming
thing then banjos were what the
‘House of Stathopoulo’ was going to
build!
■ Epi’s first
patent was for a
banjo tone ring
■ A 1920s ad for the
House of Stathopulo’s
Epiphone Recording
Series banjo, featuring
banjoist Frank Reino
■ Epiphone launched
their Recording
Series guitars in 1928
Introduced in the mid-1920s, the
Epiphone Recording Series (named
after Epi) initially comprised five
high-quality models, the Recording,
Artist, Bandmaster, Concert and De
Luxe as well as a two budget
models, the Professional and the
Wonder.
The line was an immediate
success and, by the close of the
decade, Epiphone had added several
new models to its catalogue. Priced
at $500 (around $5,700 in today’s
money), the Emperor banjo was a
fabulous concoction of pearloid and
rhinestones that boasted an ebony
neck with nine laminates of
multicoloured wood, an ornately
carved heel and engraved,
gold-plated hardware.
The Epiphone name was now
better known than ‘House of
Stathopoulo’ and as a result the
company name was changed to
‘Epiphone Banjo Corporation’ in
1928.
With a catalogue that presented
a line of banjos matching the best
offered by Paramount, B&D (Bacon
And Day), Ludwig or Weymann, the
future of the Epiphone Banjo
Corporation must have appeared
secure. Howver, with the Great
Depression on the horizon and the
Jazz Age drawing to a close, a
threat to the banjo’s dominance
was about to appear in the form
of the humble six-string guitar.
EDDIE’S ARCHTOP
The banjo’s role in the jazz rhythm
section might have continued
unchallenged were it not for the
influence of guitar virtuoso Eddie
Lang. From the mid-1920s to his
untimely death in 1933, Lang
played and/or recorded with jazz
greats such as King Oliver, Louis
Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke,
Benny Goodman and the Dorsey
Brothers, while his work with jazz
fiddler Joe Venuti established
the guitar/violin template
that would later be
exploited with great
success by Django
Reinhardt and Stephane
Grappelli.
Carl Kress, George
Van Eps and Dick
McDonough were
but three of the
banjo players who
turned to the
guitar after hearing
Eddie, who
■ A 1920s Recording
Series guitar: these
oddly shaped, round
soundhole guitars
were not a success
■ Now that’s more
like it: Epi nailed
the archtop market
with the Masterbilt
Series, including
this De Luxe
incidentally had worked as a banjo
player himself in the early 1920s.
Eddie Lang’s choice of guitar
– a Gibson L-5 – would prove as
influential as his playing style.
Launched in 1922 alongside the
F-5 mandolin (the H-5 mandola was
added a year later and the K-5
mandocello in 1924), the L-5 was
part of Gibson’s new Style 5
Master Model Line, an attempt
on the part of the company to
revive the flagging fortunes of the
mandolin orchestra (at the time
Gibson regarded the guitar as a
member of the mandolin family).
Though this strategy would
ultimately prove unsuccessful, the
L-5 possessed sufficient volume,
attack and ‘cutting power’ to hold
its own amongst the horns and
percussion that comprised the
period’s dance bands.
At 16 inches across at its
widest point, with a carved top,
14 frets clear of the body and
violin style f-holes, the L-5
embodied the future of
the guitar. Seemingly
unaware of what it had
created, Gibson failed to
capitalise on the
model’s potential and
for several years the
L-5 remained the
company’s only f-hole
archtop.
SIX-STRING RIVALS
In 1928, at the height of the banjo
boom, Epiphone introduced the
Recording Series of guitars. Though
the move demonstrated remarkable
prescience on the part of Epi, the
Recording Series was not a
success. With their round
soundholes, laminated backs and
idiosyncratic body shapes, the
guitars lacked the volume and
projection that had made the Gibson
L-5 the instrument of choice for
dance band guitarists.
Quick to acknowledge that it had
misjudged the market, Epiphone
announced a new line of guitars in
June 1931. This time the
significance of the L-5 had not been
lost on Epi and the introduction of
the Masterbilt Series (a reference
no doubt to Gibson’s Master Model
instruments) marked the first of
many attempts on Epiphone’s part
to appropriate the Kalamazoo-based
company’s crown.
The Masterbilt line was topped by
the maple-bodied De Luxe, which in
terms of size and appointments was
designed to surpass the L-5. To this
end, the guitar measured 16.375
inches across and featured ornate
fingerboard inlays and a fancy
headstock complete with three
pearl banners engraved with
‘Epiphone’, ‘De Luxe’ and
‘Masterbilt’. Like the L-5 it boasted
violin-style f-holes and a carved top
and back.
Other Masterbilt archtops ranged
from the walnut-bodied Broadway –
the same size as the Deluxe but not
quite as fancy – to the 13-inch-wide
Olympic, which had no binding or
logo. Incidentally, the modern
Epiphone company revived the
Masterbilt name for a range of upmarket
acoustic guitars, launched in
2004. Appropriately, these new
Masterbilts feature the pre-Gibson,
script-style Epiphone logo.
SUPER SIZE ME
The original Masterbilt Series
totaled 12 archtop models (including
tenor guitars). Epiphone had thrown
down the gauntlet and in 1934
Gibson responded by ‘advancing’ all
four of its 16-inch models to a 17-
inch body width (between 1929 and
1932 Gibson had added three new
16-inch f-hole models to its line: the
L-10, L-12 and L-7).
If this wasn’t enough, the
company unveiled its new secret
weapon: the Super 400. Measuring
a full 18 inches across its lower
bout, Gibson’s new archtop was
ostentatiously named for its price
of $400 (around $6000 in today’s
money). It was more expensive than
any guitar that Gibson, or for that
matter any of Gibson’s competitors,
had offered to date.
Not to be outdone, Epiphone
increased the size of the De Luxe,
Broadway and Triumph by an inch,
thereby maintaining a 0.375-inch
advantage over their Gibson
counterparts, and in 1935 hit back
at the Super 400 with a still larger
guitar, the 18.5-inch-wide Emperor,
as pictured on the opening pages of
this article. The name was chosen
to capitalise on the furore caused
by the Duke of Windsor renouncing
the throne to marry an American).
The model was promoted with a
provocative advertising campaign
that pictured the guitar cradled in
the arms of a semi-clothed woman!
EPIPHONE PLUGS IN
Epiphone’s first electric guitars
were unveiled in 1935, briefly under
the ‘Electraphone’ brand name, then
later as the Electar Series. Just as
the ‘Masterbilt’ name had sought to
capitalise on Gibson’s Master Model
line, ‘Electraphone’ and ‘Electar’
alluded to the electric instruments
introduced by the Electro String
Company in 1932. That company’s
brand name was changed to
Rickenbacker in 1934.
Early Epiphone electrics (1935 to
1936) were fitted with a
Rickenbacker-style horseshoe pickup
with magnets that wrapped over
the strings (to its credit, Epiphone
paid Rickenbacker
royalties on its
pickup patent). In
1937 this unit
was replaced with
an oblong-shaped
pickup that was
fitted with a bar
magnet. A
variation, known as
the ‘Truebalance’
pickup, featured
large slot-head
polepieces (see the
‘Patent Pickups’
box on page 62).
By 1936,
Epiphone offered
four Hawaiian
models – the
Electar Hawaiian
(with a teardrop
THE LES PAUL CONNECTION
BEFORE GIBSON, LES WAS AN EPIPHONE MAN
■ An early champion of the
solid body electric guitar,
Les Paul built his famous
‘Log’ – a 4x4-inch length of
pine to which a guitar neck
and body ‘wings’ from an
Epiphone archtop were
attached – at the Epiphone
factory in 1941.
“The guys at Epiphone let me
use the factory on Sundays,
that’s where I built the Log,” Les
recalled when we spoke to him
last year (see issue 61 for the full
interview). The function of the
hollow body ‘wings’ was purely
cosmetic: “It didn’t look like a
guitar and when I played it at a
nightclub, there was no response
from the audience at all. So I
went back to the factory, built
‘wings’ and attached them to the
Log in order to make it look
more like a guitar. They were just
props. I went back to the same
nightclub, sat down and tore the
place apart. Everybody loved it.
I said, ‘My goodness, people hear
with their eyes!’”
Though some sources suggest
that the Log was fitted with a
Gibson neck, Les has stated that
the neck, like the ‘wings’, were
from an Epiphone guitar. Walter
Carter, author of Epiphone: The
Complete History (Hal Leonard,
■ As this ad for the
Emperor shows, using
scantily clad females to
flog guitars is nothing new
ISBN 0-7935-4203-0) concurs:
“(It was) a stock Epiphone neck,
although Paul used a fingerboard
made by the Chicago-based
Larson Brothers. In the early
1950s when Paul signed an
endorsement agreement with
Gibson, Gibson put a new veneer
with a Gibson logo on the
headstock of the Log.”
During the 1940s Les used
various other heavily modified
Epiphone hollowbodies, like the
one he’s pictured with above, the
‘trapdoor’ at the back of the
body making it easy to change
the pickups and alter the
electronics. ‘How High The
Moon’, ‘Bye Bye Blues’ and
numerous other hits were
recorded using one of these
guitars, which Les referred to
as his ‘clunkers’.
shaped body and single horseshoe
pickup), the Electar Model M
Hawaiian (with ‘stairstep’ body,
metal top and single horshoe
pickup), the Electar Model C
Hawaiian (featuring a guitar-shaped
body and oblong bar pickup) and the
Tony Rocco signature model double
neck (a rectangular body with angled
corners, metal top and horseshoe
pickups).
The range of Electric Spanish
models (regular hollowbody electric
guitars) comprised the Electar
Model M Spanish (a 14.75-inch-wide
laminated maple body with a single
horseshoe pickup) and the Electar
Model C Spanish (with a 13.5-inchwide
laminated maple body and a
single blade pickup). An electric
banjo with a sunburst finished
maple top and single horseshoe
pickup was available in both tenor
and plectrum formats.
Most of the Epiphone electric
guitars built in the 1930s featured
a ‘trapdoor’ arrangement on the
back, complete with a detachable
cloth-covered plate that provided
easy access ➔ to the electronics. ➔
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GBFEATURE
THE HISTORY OF EPIPHONE: PART ONE
EPIPHONE
PATENT PICKUPS
ANOTHER EPIPHONE FIRST: ADJUSTABLE
POLEPIECES
TIMELINE
1877
The Stathopoulos family moves to Smyrna
in Asiatic Turkey where Anastasios
Stathopoulos later establishes a successful
instrument-making factory
1893
Epaminondas (later nicknamed Epi) is born
1903
In order to escape persecution by the Turks,
Anastasios moves his family to New York
City
1915
Anastasios dies, leaving Epi in charge
1917
Epi changes the company name to ‘House
of Stathopoulo’ and is granted his first
patent for the tone ring and rim
construction of a banjo
1924
Epi registers the Epiphone brand name
1925
The Epiphone name appears on the
company’s new Epiphone Recording Series
banjos
1928
The House of Stathopoulo officially becomes
the Epiphone Banjo Corporation. Epiphone
introduces the Recording Series guitars
1931
Epiphone introduces the Masterbilt line of
f-hole archtop guitars
1935
The company name is changed to Epiphone
Inc; Epiphone introduces the 18.5-inch-wide
Emperor; first electric guitars announced
1937
Epiphone introduces the Truebalance pickup
with adjustable pole pieces, the first design
of its kind
1943
Epi Stathopoulo dies aged 50, leaving
brothers Orphie and Frixo in charge
1948
Following disagreements with Orphoe, Frixo
sells his stock in the company
1953
Following strike action, the Epiphone
factory is moved from Manhattan to
Philadelphia. Many of the company’s
longtime employees choose to remain in
New York and the quality of Epiphone’s
products declines as a result
■ Epiphone was the first company to
introduce a pickup that featured
adjustable polepieces.
The unit that Gibson had fitted to its first
‘Electric Spanish’ model, the ES-150 of 1936,
featured a single blade that extended beneath the
strings across the pickup’s upper surface (the
‘blade’ was actually the visible end of a metal plate
that protruded up through the pickup’s coil). In
an attempt to counter uneven output, Gibson
issued a second version in 1938 that featured a
notch beneath the second string. Meanwhile,
Epiphone’s Herb Sunshine came up with an
alternative approach in the form of the
‘Truebalance’ pickup that Epiphone introduced in
1937. By positioning an adjustable pole-piece (a
slot-head screw) beneath each string, the player
could fine-tune the pickup’s output to
complement the strings and amplifier used.
END OF AN ERA
As the 1930s drew to a close, the
debonair Epi could look back on the
decade with pride. Epiphone guitars were
now seen in the hands of top players like
Tony Mottola (George Hall Band), Dick
McDonough (Benny Goodman) and
George Van Eps (Ray Noble) and the
company had matched the mighty Gibson
blow for blow since the introduction of
the Masterbilt models in 1931.
Married to a glamorous ex-‘Ziegfeld
Girl’ (these were the chorus girls from
Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies Bergeres-style
theatre shows, many of whom went on
to screen stardom), Epi could afford a
lifestyle befitting the President of one of
America’s most prestigious musical
instrument manufacturers. Moreover,
the competition between Epiphone and
Gibson showed no indication of slowing
down, and all signs suggested that the
best was yet to come.
POSTWAR UPHEAVAL
■ This ad from December, 1936
promotes one of Epiphone’s first
electric instruments, the Electar
Model C hawaiian guitar
As things turned out, Epi died of leukemia
on the 6th of June 1943, aged just 50.
Responsibility for the company passed to
his younger brothers, Orphie and Frixo,
Orphie taking over as President, with
Frixo as Vice President and Treasurer.
By 1948 Epiphone was offering the
Emperor and De Luxe with a cutaway, a
feature that Gibson had introduced back
in 1939 on the L-5 Premier and Super-
400 Premier. Next, Gibson introduced
the three-pickup ES-5 and Epiphone
responded with a three pickup guitar of
its own, the Zephyr Emperor Regent.
While the Gibson had three volume knobs
and a master tone control, the Epiphone
boasted a bank of six push buttons plus
the usual tone and volume knobs!
The rivalry between the two companies
had picked up from where it left off prior
the war and ostensibly things continued
as before. But behind the scenes all was
not well. The Stathopoulo brothers fell
out and in 1948 Frixo resigned, selling
his share to Orphie. Then, in 1953,
following a four-month strike at
Epiphone’s New York plant, the Epiphone
factory was moved to Philadelphia. Many
long-time employees refused to leave
New York and as a result, the quality of
Epiphone’s products suffered.
After several failed attempts to go
into business on his own, Frixo returned
to New York. There was talk of the two
brothers restarting Epiphone together
but Frixo died in 1957 at the age of 52.
Orphie, who by now had had enough,
looked for a buyer for the company, but
the reputation for quality and innovation
that Epi had worked so hard to build had
now been squandered. “(Their guitars)
were so poor you couldn’t give them
away,” commented Gibson’s General
Manager, Ted McCarty.
The future looks bleak, but in the
second part of this feature we’ll discover
how Gibson resurrected Epiphone. GB ➔
62 GUITARBUYER APRIL 2007