The Guitars of Rolly Waters: Gibson ES-335

As you may know, the protagonist of my Rolly Waters Mystery series is a guitar-playing private detective named Rolly Waters. He performs regularly in the San Diego area and the books provide bits of guitar lore and technical information about the guitars that he plays.

Rolly can be fickle about his guitar choices. He keeps a half-dozen in his house at any given time, buys new ones, sells old ones and ocassionaly uses one as a weapon. For readers who don’t know the difference between a Stratocaster and Telecaster, here’s the first entry in what will be a regular (and somewhat random) series of posts about Rolly’s guitars.

In the first book, Black’s Beach Shuffle, a cherry-red Gibson ES-335 plays a starring role. Below is an example of that guitar model.

The Gibson ES-335 was the music industry’s very first semi-hollow electric guitar. What does that mean? Well the easiest way to explain it is to say that almost every acoustic guitar you’ve seen has a hollowbody and almost every electric guitar you’ve seen has a solidbody. The ES-335 is a combination of both. It merges a hollowbody’s warm acoustic tones with the amplified power of a solidbody guitar.

This combination makes the ES-335 an extremely versatile guitar that can be used in a wide variety of musical ways, from B.B. King’s stinging blues notes to Larry Carlton’s jazzy solos to Alex Lifeson’s prog rock riffs. Which is precisely why Rolly brings his ES-335 along in the opening chapters of Black’s Beach Shuffle. He’s playing at a private party, not one of his usual club dates. Unusual conditions may, and do, apply to this gig, as readers will discover. He’ll need the ES-335’s versatility.

A brand new ES-335 will cost you around $3,000 today. Vintage models like the cherry red one here can go for as much as $30,000. Below is some more info on the ES-335, for those who want to learn more. As for the fate of Rolly’s Cherry Red ES-335, you’ll need to read Black’s Beach Shuffle for that.