In the hands of everyone from Maybelle Carter to Big Bill Broonzy, Elvis Presley to Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan to John Lennon, Gibson acoustic guitars have resided front of stage for more than a century of popular music. Although they’ve always been versatile instruments, in the heyday of the Kalamazoo- and Nashville-made flat-tops the Gibson emblem was most notably seen on guitars like the big SJ-200 Super Jumbos, J-185 Jumbos, and J-45 round-shoulder dreadnoughts that pounded out the rhythm for countless bluegrass and country artists. Today, flat-tops handcrafted in Gibson’s Bozeman, Montana, workshop are acclaimed for their unparalleled versatility, and are proving themselves superior in all walks of music, from flat picking to fingerstyle to strum-and-jangle pop stylings.
In rendering this achievement, the Bozeman luthiers are blending legendary design virtues with features and modifications essential to the contemporary performing artist, and in doing so have created a new breed of Gibson classic—the Modern Classic—perhaps most perfectly embodied in the CJ-165 EC.
The CJ-165 EC carries the lushly curvaceous shape of the big SJ-200 launched way back in 1937, but is built to a smaller scale that has proved friendly to fleet-fingered pickers and fingerstylists. With a 15” wide body and a 24.75” scale length (compared to the SJ-200’s 17” and 25.5” dimensions) it’s easier to snuggle up to, while the neck’s 1.725” width at the nut still offers plenty of real estate around the rosewood ’board for speedy, tangle-free fingering. A rounded cutaway that gels beautifully with the body’s classic lines affords the high-fret access that modern players demand, and a gentle-V neck profile combined with Gibson’s new “Big Sky” radiused fingerboard edge (a gentle “rolling” of the neck edge into the fingerboard that yields a comfort level that has to be played to be believed) make it an extremely smooth ride across all 19 frets.
But don’t equate restricted dimensions with a constricted tone. The CJ-165 EC’s deep body contributes to a big voice, while the solid premium Sitka spruce top, solid premium Indian rosewood back and sides (AAA figured maple also available), genuine bone nut, and Tusq saddle help to keep it rich and balanced across the entire frequency spectrum. Look deeper, and better still, play the guitar a while, and you’ll see and hear what a coup the Bozeman craftsmen have achieved with the CJ-165 EC’s top: modified scalloped X-bracing beneath the carefully gauged spruce yields a combination that is light and resonant enough to sing and project beautifully for flesh-only fingerstyle players, but give it some gas with a firm pick and an aggressive rhythm, and it’s still sturdy enough to retain excellent clarity and definition, with impressive volume and projection.
Naturally you can take it all right to the stage with confidence thanks to the Fishman onboard Ellipse Aura System, often hailed as the best sounding and most fully featured system in the industry. With its Volume control and automatic Anti-Feedback and Phase feedback squelching controls, this powerful active preamp offers everything a player could need to tweak the CJ-165 EC’s amplified tone to suit any room. Beyond this, however, the Ellipse Aura System also offers the sophisticated Aura Acoustic Imaging Technology, which lets you select the sound of the CJ-165 EC as recorded through any of four classic microphones, to cut all the extra cables, restrictions, expense, and hassles out of getting top-quality, miked-up tone in the studio or on stage.
To bring out the distinctive tonal features from the rosewood and the maple CJ-165 EC, Fishman recorded both models in its state-of-the-art studio, using four specialty microphones. The combination and placement of the microphones is exclusive to these Gibson guitars, and has served to provide almost unlimited tonal selections, especially in combination with the under-the-saddle pickup which can be used as much or as little as the player wants with a flick of the Blend control.
Of course, there’s a big dose of “classic” in this Modern Classic model, too, and the CJ-165 EC exhibits evidence of its heritage at practically every turn. Located just within the sound hole, the Ellipse Aura System maintains the guitar’s clean, classic look while providing easy access to all controls. The distinctive mother-of-pearl (MOP) parallelogram markers of so many great high-end Gibsons of the past grace this new model’s neck, while a subtly stylish abalone rosette, four-ply top binding, and single-ply back binding adorn the body. Add to these the Grover Rotomatic tuners, MOP headstock logo, and the CJ-165 EC’s seamless blending of classic and contemporary is complete.
There’s more to “classic” than just appearance, though; thanks to the achievements in Bozeman, Gibson is today offering some of the best acoustic guitars the company has ever produced, and the workmanship on this professional-grade acoustic—from headstock to tailblock—stands tall alongside that of any flat-top builder on the planet. All in all, the CJ-165 EC is a professional performance tool to suit a myriad of requirements, and a guitar that just might be the most comprehensive all-rounder on the market today.
