INSTRUMENT PROFILE BY GEORGE GRUHN AND WALTER CARTER

into current produc- models in the current Epiphone tion, the Riviera went lines). In fact, vintage Casinos away with the entire Epi bring more than Rivieras, and line when Gibson sent the reason is simple: the Beatles Epi production to Japan played Casinos. Not only has The Epiphone in 1970. (It reappeared their indentifi cation – in par- briefly in 1982 and came ticular that of John Lennon back for good in the early – with the model made vintage ’90s, and is still produced Casinos more valuable than overseas.) Rivieras, it has also made Casinos Riviera Despite the Riviera’s similarity more valuable than equivalent to the ES-335, it has been overshad- Gibson ES-330s. The Epiphone Riviera helped reinvent Epiphone in the 1960s owed in the vintage market by the It is only by the fi ckle fi nger of as a modern guitar company whose instruments sported less-expensive Casino. The Casino, fate that the Riviera sits today in introduced in ’61, had single-coil the shadow of the Casino. After all, such contemporary features as thinline, semi-hollow, pickups and a fully hollow body. It the Beatles surely would have been double-cutaway bodies and humbucking pickups. • In the was to the Riviera what the ES-330 perfectly satisfi ed with Rivieras. was to the ES-335. For example, in The Riviera’s similarity to the minds of older guitarists, Epiphone was a traditional New ’66, the Riviera (shaded or cherry ES-335 makes it, in our opinion, York-based company, with roots in 19th-century Greece, fi nish, no vibrola) listed for $369.50 a “sleeper” in the vintage market. that came into prominence with tenor banjos in the Jazz and the Casino (two pickups, no While it is not wise to expect the vibrola) listed at $325 for cherry vintage market to behave in an Age and challenged Gibson in the archtop and electric fi nish and $310 for shaded fi nish. orderly manner, it is reasonable market of the 1930s. In the minds of younger guitarists of That same year, the ES-335 was to view vintage Rivieras as un- the late ’50s, however, Epi barely existed. The company $365 to $385 and the ES-330 was dervalued, with excellent future $335 to $350. investment potential, since they fl oundered after World War II due in large part to the death While 1960s ES-335s bring double are currently available for sig- of founder Epi Stathopoulo in ’43, and it was virtually dead or triple what a same-year ES-330 nifi cantly less than an equivalent would bring, the Riviera has not ES-335 and less even than many when Gibson’s parent company, Chicago Musical Instru- maintained the same relationship new guitars with similar appoint- ment Company (CMI), acquired it in ’57. with the Casino (except as new ments.

Although the reason for the acquisi- distinctive Epiphone peghead shape – tion was to give CMI/Gibson the capabil- more curvaceous than Gibson’s, but with ity of producing acoustic basses, Gibson Gibson’s “dove-wing” top edge design. president Ted McCarty recognized an The single-parallelogram fi ngerboard opportunity to create and exploit what inlay pattern is also distinctly Epiphone was essentially a second Gibson brand. and is shared by the double-cutaway fully McCarty drew up a new line of Epiphone hollow ’62 Casino (although it does show 1967 Epiphone Riviera guitars and debuted them in 1958. His up on occasional ES-335s in the ’60s). electric archtops represented an abrupt The pickups are humbuckers, but in departure from Epi’s past; four of the order to keep the Epiphone line slightly fi ve new models were thin-bodied, a below Gibson in status and sound, style Gibson had offered since ’55, but Epiphone humbuckers were slightly Epi had never done. And one of the new smaller. Consequently, they’ve become Epis – the Sheraton – was a semi-hollow known as mini-humbuckers. Although double-cutaway, a style Gibson was they’re not as desirable as the full-size introducing concurrently under the versions, Gibson did think enough of Gibson brand as the ES-335. them to make them standard equipment The semi-hollowbody design gained on the original Gibson Firebird line and immediate acceptance, and Gibson Les Paul Deluxe model. The vibrola on expanded the offering with the more- this example, which became available as ornamented ES-355 (later in ’58) and an option in ’67, is unique to Epiphones; midline ES-345 (’59). On the Epi side, the strings wrap around a shaft with a however, the Sheraton was a fancy model graduated diameter to compensate for – the equivalent of the ES-355 – so the different string diameters. expansion went in the opposite direc- As if those features weren’t enough to tion. The new model was introduced in distinguish the Riviera from a Gibson, ’62 and dubbed the Riviera. (Another the pickguard and the tailpiece insert semi-hollow Epi, the Professional, was sport the stylized upper-case E from the also introduced in ’62, but it was in a Epiphone peghead logo. It’s actually a class of its own, with guitar-mounted lower-case version of the Greek letter amplifi er controls, requiring its own epsilon, which ties in this modern specially designed amplifi er.) instrument with Epiphone’s roots. Some of the original Gibson-made The shape of the pickguard, too, is Epiphones featured Epi-style necks (ei- inspired by traditional Epi archtop ther leftover or newly made by Gibson) pickguards and is different from the and Epi’s “New York” pickups, which re- standard Gibson issue. semble humbuckers with the polepieces In other respects, the Riviera is the offset from the center, though they are same as the Gibson ES-335 in workman- single-coils. By the time of the Riviera, ship and design. Unfortunately, though, however, the makeover of Epiphone was while the ES-335 continued through

complete. This example illustrates the Gibson’s Norlin years (1970-’85) and Photo courtesy George Gruhn.

40 VINTAGE GUITAR DECEMBER 2005 vintageguitar.comvintageguitar.com