(prHWY.com) July 14, 2011 - ga, Tanzania -- 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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