Electric guitar History

Electric guitar History

ga, Tanzania (prHWY.com) July 14, 2011 - Various experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string

instrument date back to the early part of the twentieth century. Patents from

the 1910s show telephone transmitters adapted and placed inside violins and

banjos to amplify the sound. Hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button

microphones attached to the bridge, however these detected vibration from the

bridge on top of the instrument, resulting in a weak signal.[1] With numerous

people experimenting with electrical instruments in the 1920s and early 1930s,

there are many claimants to have been the first to invent an electric guitar.

Electric guitars were originally designed by guitar makers and instrument

manufacturers. Guitar innovator Les Paul experimented with microphones attached

to guitars. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow bodied

acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups. The first electrically

amplified guitar was invented by George Beauchamp in 1931. Commercial

production began in late summer of 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation (Electro-

Patent-Instrument Company Los Angeles),[2][3] a partnership of Beauchamp,

Adolph Rickenbacker, and Paul Barth. The wooden body of the prototype was built

by Harry Watson, a craftsman who had worked for the National Resophonic Guitar

Company (where the men met). By 1934 the company was renamed Rickenbacker

Electro Stringed Instrument Company.

The need for the amplified guitar became apparent during the big band era as

orchestras increased in size, particularly when guitars had to compete with

large brass sections. The first electric guitars used in jazz were hollow

archtop acoustic guitar bodies with electromagnetic transducers. By 1932 an

electrically amplified guitar was commercially available. Early

Left Handed Electric Guitar

manufacturers include: Rickenbacker (first called Ro-Pat-In) in 1932, Dobro in

1933, National, AudioVox and Volu-tone in 1934,Vega, Epiphone (Electrophone and

Electar), and Gibson in 1935 and many others by 1936.

The solid body electric guitar is made of solid wood, without functionally

resonating air spaces. Rickenbacher offered a cast aluminum electric steel

guitar, nicknamed "The Frying Pan" or "The Pancake Guitar", developed in 1931

with production beginning in the summer of 1932. This guitar sounds quite

modern and aggressive.

The first solid body "Spanish" standard guitar was offered by Vivi-Tone no

later than 1934. An example of this model, featuring a guitar-shaped body of a

single sheet of plywood affixed to a wood frame. Another early, substantially

solid Spanish electric guitar, called Electro Spanish, was marketed by the

"Rickenbacker" guitar company in 1935 and made of Bakelite. By 1936, the

Slingerland company introduced a wooden solid body electric model.

The earliest documented performance with an electrically amplified guitar was

in 1932, by Gage Brewer.[1] The Wichita, Kansas-based musician had an Electric

Hawaiian A-25 (frypan, lap-steel) and a standard Electric Spanish from George

Beauchamp of Los Angeles, California. Brewer publicized his new instruments in

an article in the Wichita Beacon of October 2, 1932 and through performances

that month.

The first recordings using the electric guitar were by Hawaiian style players,

in 1933. Bob Dunn of Milton Brown's Musical Brownies introduced the electric

Hawaiian guitar to Western Swing with his January 1935 Decca recordings,

departing almost entirely from Hawaiian musical influence and heading towards

Jazz and Blues. Alvino Rey was an artist who took this instrument to a wide

audience in a large orchestral setting and later developed the pedal steel

guitar for Gibson. An early proponent of the electric Spanish guitar was jazz

guitarist George Barnes who used the instrument in two songs recorded in

Chicago on March 1, 1938, "Sweetheart Land" and "It's a Low-Down Dirty Shame".

Some incorrectly attribute the first recording to Eddie Durham, but his

recording with the Kansas City Five was 15 days later.[4] Durham introduced the

instrument to a young Charlie Christian, who made the instrument famous in his

brief life and would be a major influence on jazz guitarists for decades

thereafter.[citation needed]

Gibson's first production gibson guitars, marketed in 1936, was the ES-150 model

("ES" for "Electric Spanish"; and "150" reflecting the $150 price of the

instrument, along with a matching amplifier). The ES-150 guitar featured a

single-coil, hexagonally shaped "bar" pickup, which was designed by Walt

Fuller. It became known as the "Charlie Christian" pickup (named for the great

jazz guitarist who was among the first to perform with the ES-150 guitar). The

ES-150 achieved some popularity, but was suffered from unequal loudness across

the six strings.

At an Engineering Fair in 1940, first prize went to NC State University physics

professor Sidney Wilson for his invention of the world's first fully electric

guitar. Wilson's guitar was also the first to have single-string pick-up, which

addressed the unequal loudness problem of the ES-150's single coil. Professor

Wilson also disposed of the acoustical body, reasoning that it was not

necessary for a fully electric instrument. He developed the guitar shown here

and entered it in the annual engineering fair. Patents from academia were quite

unusual in the 1940s, so Professor Wilson did not patent his invention. In 1949

Gibson incorporated both the individual string pick-up and the cut-away body in

its model ES-175. The design was attributed to Ted McCarthy of Gibson

Corporation, but the features were first conceived and implemented by NC State

physicists.

Early proponents of the electric guitar on record include: Jack Miller (Orville

Knapp Orchestra), Alvino Rey (Phil Spitalney Orchestra), Les Paul (Fred Waring

Orchestra), Danny Stewart (Andy Iona Orchestra), George Barnes (under many

aliases), Lonnie Johnson, Floyd Smith, Big Bill Broonzy, T-Bone Walker, George

Van Eps, Charlie Christian (Benny Goodman Orchestra) Tampa Red, Memphis Minnie,

and Arthur Crudup.

A functionally solid body electric guitar was designed and built by Les Paul

from an Epiphone acoustic archtop. His "log guitar" (so called because it

consisted of a simple 4x4 wood post with a neck attached to it and homemade

pickups and hardware, with two detachable Swedish hollow body halves attached

to the sides for appearance only) shares nothing in design or hardware with the

solid body "Les Paul" model sold by Gibson. However, the feedback problem

associated with hollow-bodied electric guitars was understood long before

Paul's "log" was created in 1940; Gage Brewer's Ro-Pat-In of 1932 had a top so

heavily reinforced that it essentially functioned as a solid-body instrument.

[1]

In 1945, Richard D. Bourgerie made an electric guitar pickup and amplifier for

professional guitar player George Barnes. Bourgerie worked through World War II

at Howard Radio Company making electronic equipment for the American military.

Barnes showed the result to Les Paul, who then arranged for Bourgerie to have

one made for him.

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