The Gibson Firebird is a solid-body electric guitar manufactured by Gibson from 1963 to the present.

The Gibson Guitar Corporation released several new styles during the 1950s to compete with Fender's instruments, such as the Telecaster and Stratocaster. After success with the Les Paul in the 1950s, Gibson's popularity began to end in the 1960s. Fender's colors, shapes and multiple pickups were endorsed by notable guitarists. Gibson guitars seemed old-fashioned, and this with higher prices contributed to a decline in sales.

Gibson had made forays into radical body shapes - the Flying V and Explorer in the 1950s - but they failed. The president of Gibson, Ted McCarty, hired car designer Ray Dietrich to design a guitar that would have popular appeal. Under Dietrich, the Firebird took on the lines of mid-50s car tailfins. Dietrich took the Explorer design and rounded the edges. The most unusual aspect is that the guitar is "backward" in that the right-hand (treble) horn of the body is longer than the other. Thus, the original Firebirds were unofficially referred to as "reverse".

Philip Xenidis, better known as Phil X (born 10 March 1966), is a Greek-born Canadian guitarist and co-founder of the Los Angeles-based turbo pop band Powder. He also has a second band, the Drills. He is best known as the guitarist who replaced Rik Emmett in the Canadian rock band Triumph, for the Edge of Excess album and tour and as the Guitar Reviewer of fretted americana on YouTube.

An early opportunity in Xenidis's career came when he was asked in 1990 to tour with Randy Coven, whom he met through Aldo Nova; in 1991, he toured the US with Aldo Nova.

Phil X is a prolific session guitarist, having played on albums by Tommy Lee, Methods of Mayhem, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Orianthi, Rob Zombie, Chris Daughtry, Alice Cooper, Thousand Foot Krutch and many others. He wrote the song "Tired" and also played guitar on Tommy Lee's Tommyland: The Ride album. He has appeared with Lee on Ellen and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Phil X was featured in the "making of" video for the movie Josie and the Pussycats. He, along with his Powder bandmates, taught the young actresses to appear as if they were actually playing their instruments.

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III (born February 23, 1944) is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters. Since his time with Waters, Johnny Winter has recorded several Grammy-nominated blues albums and continues to tour extensively. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2003, he was ranked 74th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" He was born with albinism.

Johnny Winter, along with his brother Edgar Winter, were nurtured at an early age by their parents in musical pursuits. Both he and his brother, who were born with albinism, began performing at an early age. When he was ten years old, Winter appeared on a local children's show, playing ukelele and singing Everly Brothers songs with his brother.

His recording career began at the age of fifteen, when his band Johnny and the Jammers released "School Day Blues" on a Houston record label. During this same period, he was able to see performances by classic blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Bobby Bland. In the early days Winter would sometimes sit in with Roy Head and the Traits when they performed in the Beaumont, Texas area, and in 1967, Winter recorded a single with the Traits: "Tramp" backed with "Parchman Farm" (Universal Records 30496). In 1968, he released his first album The Progressive Blues Experiment, on Austin's Sonobeat Records.