Gibson's Hawk series was introduced in 1993, beginning with the Night Hawk and followed by the Hawk and Blues Hawk models in '96. (Gibson themselves seemed unable to ever decide whether the spelling was Night Hawk, Nighthawk or NightHawk, Blues Hawk, Blueshawk or BluesHawk) There was a bewildering number of Night Hawk variations, (nine in all!), just one of the Hawk, while for a couple of years the Blues Hawk could be ordered with Gibson's Maestro tremolo system. The public seemed not to care overly much for the Hawk and Night Hawk, with both disappearing by the new millennium. The Blues Hawk however was the star of the range, remaining in production until 2006 and making a lot of fans along the way. Big name Blues Hawk players include Nelly Furtado, (pictured, right), and the legendary Joe Walsh, while Will Ray of the Hellecasters reckons that owning a Blues Hawk is "like having a Les Paul, an ES-345, a Strat, a Tele and an ASAT, all rolled into one."
Body shape
A bit like a slightly squashed, slightly smaller Les Paul body shape, the Hawk design was one of Gibson's finest in many years. The guitar hangs really well, too, making for easy and comfortable playing, aided by a Strat-like "belly cut".
Pickups & Controls
Giving the Blues Hawk its special kick were the pickups, a pair of custom designed, hum-cancelling P-90 style units, dubbed the 'Blues 90'. The Blues 90 is significantly different inside to Gibson's standard P-90s, with enameled 42-guage copper wire and Alnico V pole-pieces. Both pickups are under-wound, to increase both the volume and edgy blues tones. As well as a hum-cancelling dummy-coil, neck and bridge units are magnetically reverse-oriented to each other, to further aid the hum-cancelling process.
Pickups are run through a Strat-style 3-way pickup selector, plus Gibson's famous 6-way Varitone selector, for a great range of tone options. With the combination of the Varitone and the 3-way pickup selector, the Blues Hawk normally offers an incredible 18 different tone choices – BUT, as described
HERE, a random selection of Blues Hawks were built with another half dozen "secret" tones! This model is one of them, making for an astonishing 24 tones!! (The hidden position is mid-way on the selector switch, same as position 4 on a 5-way switch)
Poplar / Maple / Mahogany
The Poplar f-hole body features a bound, solid Maple top with a set Mahogany neck. The neck has a very player friendly sixties profile, that's about as fast as fast can be! The Rosewood board (12" radius), has an extended 25½" scale, allowing more of a Fender-like twang, putting the Blues Hawk in roughly the same ballpark as a Thinline Tele, though the Varitone opens up so many more options that you'll find Les Paul tones and enough others to keep you almost agog at the possibilities!
Luxury touches
Luxury touches include a rich, yet still transparent, Heritage Cherry lacquer finish; gold hardware, including vintage-style Gibson/Kluson Deluxe tuners; diamond shaped fingerboard & headstock inlays; plus side dot markers.
Condition
Showing just some very light play wear – mostly on the back – this amazing little 15 year old Blues Hawk is in overall Excellent- condition. It plays super fast and easy and ships in its original hard shell case, as seen in pic # 3. (NOTE: This is now the third Blues Hawk that we've seen in one of these identical, generic-looking cases, and both previous times we were told that it was the original case. It doesn't say Gibson, inside or out, but, seeing this is the third time round – and we were once again told that this was the original case – we will say we believe this to be the original hard shell case)
Stock No. 8739
Just Guitars
