Redrawing The 'Bird

A fascinating reimagining of one of Gibson's more out-there designs, the Gravitas sticks with vintage vibe and mojo. Oh, and that sound...

- Dave Burrluck

A guitar design that was championed by a mere handful of playersJohnny Winter and Mike Campbell to name but two - the Gibson Firebird is a bona fide classic that far fewer of us own compared with the good ol' Les Paul. Why? Because it's huge! Great for big stages, but for most of today's musicians, well, good luck. It's exactly the experience of Darren Horton, the solo Brit-builder behind Daniels Guitars: "I made a Firebird I[-inspired model] for someone last year. I loved the sound of it: it blew me away. But then it's about 10ft long and I just thought, no."

Darren dropped off his latest guitar with us in a rather old-looking tweed case, and you can't help but do a double take when you open it. Is this an old Gibson that we've never seen before? Of course not, but while the offset shape - which loosely emulates a downsized Jazzmaster but with a more defined upper horn - is very different from either the original 'reverse' or the later mid-60s 'non-reverse' Firebird outlines.

And along with its Daniels logo'd backangled and three-a-side headstock, the actual construction, pickups and controls are an obvious homage to that first-series Firebird of old. "It's a slightly bigger offset than my Pugilist that you featured before [The Wishlist, issue 503] as I wanted to be able to load it with different vibratos and bigger pickups. I approached the design as purely a bit of fun.”