Played by everyone from Magic Sam and Otis Rush to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robbie Robertson, Noel Gallagher, and Robben Ford, the Riviera remains Epiphone's semi-hollow superstar

1964 Epiphone Riviera: By 1964, the earlier ‘Mickey Mouse’ body ears of the Riviera had slimmed. The six-string is an unusual sunburst with narrower dark edges, while the 12-string E360TD-12 is the more common Royal Tan.

Epaminondos ‘Epi’ Stathopoulos – a well‑educated, worldly and dapper young man who went by the nickname of ‘The Duke’ – was 22 years old when his father, Anastasios, died in 1915 and he took charge of the family’s musical instrument business, renaming it The House of Stathopoulo. Soon, the US’s early 20th century craze for mandolins would morph into a new passion for jazz.

The business’s early focus was banjos, where it quickly came to rival established makers such as Bacon & Day, Lange/Paramount, and Vega-Fairbanks, becoming the Epiphone Banjo Company in 1928. However, by then Epi had already seen the future and that same year he launched his first range of acoustic guitars, as Jimmie Rodgers, The Carter Family, and New York’s Nick Lucas spearheaded a new age of music.