Unlike the usual acoustic guitars in jazz bands of the period, it was loud enough to take a more prominent position in ensembles.

[3] These electrified guitars were so successful that in the summer of 1936 two US retailers, Montgomery Ward and Spiegel, suggested that Gibson build what became the ES model.

[5] Early players included Eddie Durham, Floyd Smith and, the most famous of them, Charlie Christian, who bought an ES-150 in 1936.

His joining the Benny Goodman Sextet in August 1939 gave the ES-150 "a near-mythical status" (aided by a feature in that year's December issue of Down Beat).

[5] [verification needed] By 1940, sales had slumped, and Gibson enhanced the model, changing to pickups with Alnico magnets—the forerunner of the P-90, which is still in production.

Gibson still installed bar-style pickups on request on post-1940 models for Hank Garland, Barry Galbraith, and Barney Kessel.

It featured two humbuckers, a rosewood fingerboard with small block inlays, and a master volume knob on the lower cutaway.

The Charlie Christian pickup consists of a coil of copper wire wound around a black plastic bobbin.

Attached at right angles to the bottom of the polepiece are a pair of five-inch-long (13 cm) steel bar magnets, which remain out of sight inside the instrument.

These include the following: T-Bone Walker, Tiny Grimes, Oscar Moore, Barney Kessel, Alvino Rey, Jimmy Raney, Rene’ Thomas, Jimmy Gourley, Tal Farlow, Tony Mottola, Mary Osborne, Barry Galbraith, Elek Bacsik, Dennis Budimir, Dave Barbour, Eddie Duran, Hank Garland, Kenny Burrell, Louis Stewart.