The Epiphone Casino is a thinline hollow body electric guitar manufactured by Epiphone, a branch of Gibson. Both the middle and neck positions provide a seriously infectious platform for choppy Curtis Mayfield and Leo Nocentelli-style grooves, and the neck pickup offers plenty of character for dynamic blues and jazz too.Mahogany on most models in most periods sometimes maple

Though the Casino is famed for pop jangle – and with good reason – one of its other great strengths is vintage soul and funk. The neck pickup dominates proceedings slightly but a few turns on each of the bridge pickup’s pole screws helps redress the balance and only increases the nasal midrange honk that P-90 fans adore. Nickel and dime: the Gibson USA P-90 pickups feature nickel dogear covers The lack of height adjustment means that the pickups are set relatively low but there’s still plenty of power and chime, and all the complexity that can make Gibson’s humbucker-loaded semis sound a little safe and pedestrian in comparison.

Acoustically, there’s a pleasing balance and longer sustain than some examples of its type, and when amplified this translates into the kind of addictive white-knuckle ride that Casino and ES-330 devotees live for. The fingerboard binding is slightly thicker than we’d like and the ‘board edges would be more welcoming if they were rolled but we soon forget all about that as the Casino’s rounded C neck profile is just about perfect. Then again, if you ask Casino players such as Gary Clark Jr, Barrie Cadogan or Teenage Fanclub’s Raymond McGinley, they’ll probably tell you that struggling to tame a hollowbody on the edge of feedback is all part of the fun, likewise battling with the Casino’s 16th fret neck join.

This makes hollowbody guitars more viable today than they have been at almost any time since the Epiphone Casino first rolled out of Kalamazoo in 1961. These days, of course, stage volumes in most live venues are more conservative than ever before and, for a new breed of guitarists, the lion’s share of public performances take place via social media.

READ MORE: The history of the Epiphone Casino.

That said, like many feedback-prone hollowbody designs and its close cousin the Gibson ES-330, the Casino’s popularity waned considerably in the 1970s and 80s when hair was long and stacks were loud and high. With all three guitar-playing Beatles using Casinos at the band’s dazzling creative peak, the model’s hall-of-fame status has long been assured.

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