Epiphone

The Epiphone Story

The Epiphone name first appeared in 1928 as The Epiphone Banjo Company and is derived from the nickname of its founder, Epaminondas Stathopoulo, ‘Epi’, and ‘phone’, the Greek for ‘sound.’

Epaminondas Stathopoulo was the son of a Greek musical instrument maker who made fiddles, lutes, and Lioutos in Izmir, Turkey in the late 19th Century. Stathopoulo senior, Anastasios, moved to the US in 1903 and started making mandolins as well as his existing range of instruments. After his death in 1915, Epaminondas took over and in 1918 started to make banjos.

The first Epiphone guitar was made in 1928 and the company continued making guitars until Epaminondous’ death in 1943. Following Epi’s death, control of the Epiphone Banjo Company passed to his brothers who did a poor job of running the company. In 1951 workers went on strike for four months and the company relocated from New York to Philadelphia.

During the period from 1928, Epiphone made a range of archtop guitars such as the Emperor, Deluxe, Broadway, and Triumph which were a match for those produced by arch-rival, Gibson. It was probably inevitable then that, with Epiphone in trouble and the brothers seemingly incapable of resolving the problems, the Epiphone Banjo Company was bought by Gibson in 1957.

Following its acquisition, Gibson produced a guitar which was a close copy of its ES-330, the Epiphone Casino. The Casino counted amoung its admirers, three Beatles. Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and John Lennon all bought one and McCartney’s can be heard on his solo on Taxman. It’s also very much in evidence on the Revolver album. Lennon used the Casino regularly after that, both as a Beatle and a solo artist and McCartney still uses his today. McCartney also uses an Epiphone acoustic when performing Yesterday in concert.

Since the 1970’s the Epiphone brand has largely been used to produce less expensive versions of Gibson guitars, such as the SG and several versions of the Les Paul, first of all in Japan, then in under licence in Korea. Since 2002, Gibson has made Epiphone guitars in its own factory in China.
In addition to electric and acoustic guitars, Epiphone also makes amplifiers, such as the Epiphone Valve Junior.

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