(Monica Smith, Historian) In the nineteen twenties is the big bands were dominating music and
the guitar was in the rhythm section and
it could not be heard. Guitar players had to play
and harder. There are stories of people actually
getting bloody fingers from having to play so hard on these steel strings.
They were trying to figure out how to make it louder, so they added pickups to them.
One of the first that was really successful
of these electric guitars was the Gibson ES-150.
Musicians were
pleased that they could kind of make new sound. Makers and players are going back and forth sharing ideas
and in their discussions they started to realize that maybe there was
a different way.
The first company that was largely successful was Rickenbacker. They came up with
something that is nick-named, “The Frying Pan.”
It was a very small,
round guitar with a very big pickup on it. It didn’t sell a lot of guitars but it did sold enough to get people’s
attention. Someone could come up with the greatest idea,
but if that culture or
that marketplace is not ready for that
particular invention
it may not
go somewhere.
Inventors always risk
when they come up with new ideas. If you're not able to get it to the marketplace
and have other people use it and then innovate upon it,
then
you haven't had the impact that you're hoping to have.
It really took off in the fifties when people like Leo Fender and others started to make
soft-body guitars that were successful in the marketplace. They had completely new sound. No longer did you
have to be reliant on the symmetrical shape
of the guitar
You didn't have the feedback issues that you would have with the hollow-body guitar
and
you could really make this very unique sound.
(Will Eastmen, Historian) Fender designed his guitars for country music.
He’s a fan country music. He wasn’t a guitar player himself.
He liked the "twang" sound.
He made his guitars into instruments that could produce the "twang" sound.
(Historian) The Fender Stratocaster is iconic.
People who've never played the guitar recognize
this particular design. It was such a
revolutionary instrument to
the electric guitar world.
(Eastmen) Les Paul is the great popularizer of the electric guitar.
Fender wanted to go into business with him.
Les Paul decided to go with Gibson which was a reputable guitar maker. He had a
unique
background for this because he was a tinkerer
and he did
take things apart to see how they worked. He was also a musician. He had an uphill battle because
he had gone to them with his early prototype guitar and
they had dismissed him and said it wouldn’t work.
He had to convince Gibson to go into the solid-body electric guitar business.
(Smith) Inventions always come from something before
that people tweak, add to,
may change. Sometimes they may use in different way that wasn’t initially intended,
but it's always a continuum of
innovations
from lots of people.
Gibson in nineteen fifty-two came out with this guitar
they called, “The Gibson Les Paul”
It was also a rivalry between companies
in this new market.
As rock 'n roll took off in nineteen fifties,
this new sound of the solid-body electric guitar really made rock'n'roll what it is and made it really
different.
When Jimi Hendrix became well-known in nineteen Sixty-seven
The Stratocaster was the best-selling Fender guitar.
Hendricks was really pushing
the instrument beyond
limits,
at least the limits that people had
sort of assigned to it in their heads.
He was adding distorted sounds.
He was doing crazy stuff. Flamboyant stuff.
He took this clean sounding nineteen fifties instrument
and started
to make sounds out of it that people just couldn't believe.
In bringing back these
distortions,
it just gave it this really unique
sound that then they became associated with more of the rock and roll
from the sixties
onward.
(Eastmen) I think that there’s a great
invention story here with the electric guitar.
It's nexus between inventors and players.
You have creative people on both sides makers and players reacting to one another
and
you have guitar makers responding to the needs of
guitar players. Guitar players using electric guitars in ways that were
unintended by
the guitar maker.
Then, the circle keeps going around with new innovations. That new innovation just keeps going.
It’ll be interesting to see what comes out tomorrow!