A Brief History of the Invention of the Electric Guitar
Created | Updated Jun 21, 2013
The Electric Guitar. It is near impossible to find any song that doesn't have an electric guitar featured in it. But where did this instrument come from? In this entry, the invention, the use, and the players will be discussed. We will even touch on some of the latest brands and ideas that have been discovered. So, come on a nearly 70 year journey with one of the most widely used inventions in modern music: The Electric Guitar
In the 1940's, the Rickenbacker company, through experimentation, attached an electric guitar pickup to a solid round body with a long lap steel neck. This "Electric Spanish" (a term given for guitar held by a strap. The lap steels were invented in America, and the strap guitars Mexico) known as the Rickenbacker Frying Pan, holds the honor of the first electric guitar. Though not technically a guitar by a standard of ours; it was held, it had a solid body, and it was fully electric. The true idea came when a young man named Les Paul (while spending his weekends experimenting in the Epiphone factory) invented what he called "The Log." It was a 4" by 4" piece of pine wood, with a Gibson neck attached. To the pine he attached two handmade guitar pickups to the front. He gave it the appearance of a guitar by splitting a hollowbody guitar in half and attaching the two sides to the block. Knowing that Epiphone's dominance of the guitar market wouldnt last (and it didnt: Gibson bought them out in 1957) he took his prototype to Gibson. Basically, the hated it. At the time, electric spanish guitars just were not the "vouge" they've become today. The market just wasent ready, as it was still dominated by the lap steel guitar, which is now largely a country music instrument. But then, Leo Fender changed the playing field. In 1949, Fender released the first commerical solid body electric guitar, The Fender Broadcaster, after years of research and developement with the test guitars being sent to various musicians to gig them and record their comments. When the guitar was finally up to the tough standards of Leo Fender, it was marketed and sold nationally. Many initial offers never came to be, but slowly the idea began to catch on. However, due to a copyright infringment trouble with Grestch (they challanged the naming of the guitar for being too similar to their Broadkaster drum set.) Fender was forced to change the name of their flagship model to the Telecaster. Gibson, realizing their mistake, contacted Les Paul in 1952 (at this point a very big star in the worlds of pop and jazz music) and asked if he would endorse their solid body guitar, which he would help design. The Gibson Les Paul, at first, was to be named just the Les Paul, as Gibson was worried the guitar would tank. Eventually, the company did decide to pull the guitar for a brief period where it was temperorarly replaced with Gibson's second biggest model, the SG. After several years of dominance, Fender decided to bolster their music ranks with several new instruments: The Jaguar, the Jazzmaster, and maybe the single most popular guitar in popular music, the Fender Stratocaster. Gibson eventually returned the Les Paul to their ranks, and is now the other dominant force in the American guitar market.
In the 1940's, the Rickenbacker company, through experimentation, attached an electric guitar pickup to a solid round body with a long lap steel neck. This "Electric Spanish" (a term given for guitar held by a strap. The lap steels were invented in America, and the strap guitars Mexico) known as the Rickenbacker Frying Pan, holds the honor of the first electric guitar. Though not technically a guitar by a standard of ours; it was held, it had a solid body, and it was fully electric. The true idea came when a young man named Les Paul (while spending his weekends experimenting in the Epiphone factory) invented what he called "The Log." It was a 4" by 4" piece of pine wood, with a Gibson neck attached. To the pine he attached two handmade guitar pickups to the front. He gave it the appearance of a guitar by splitting a hollowbody guitar in half and attaching the two sides to the block. Knowing that Epiphone's dominance of the guitar market wouldnt last (and it didnt: Gibson bought them out in 1957) he took his prototype to Gibson. Basically, the hated it. At the time, electric spanish guitars just were not the "vouge" they've become today. The market just wasent ready, as it was still dominated by the lap steel guitar, which is now largely a country music instrument. But then, Leo Fender changed the playing field. In 1949, Fender released the first commerical solid body electric guitar, The Fender Broadcaster, after years of research and developement with the test guitars being sent to various musicians to gig them and record their comments. When the guitar was finally up to the tough standards of Leo Fender, it was marketed and sold nationally. Many initial offers never came to be, but slowly the idea began to catch on. However, due to a copyright infringment trouble with Grestch (they challanged the naming of the guitar for being too similar to their Broadkaster drum set.) Fender was forced to change the name of their flagship model to the Telecaster. Gibson, realizing their mistake, contacted Les Paul in 1952 (at this point a very big star in the worlds of pop and jazz music) and asked if he would endorse their solid body guitar, which he would help design. The Gibson Les Paul, at first, was to be named just the Les Paul, as Gibson was worried the guitar would tank. Eventually, the company did decide to pull the guitar for a brief period where it was temperorarly replaced with Gibson's second biggest model, the SG. After several years of dominance, Fender decided to bolster their music ranks with several new instruments: The Jaguar, the Jazzmaster, and maybe the single most popular guitar in popular music, the Fender Stratocaster. Gibson eventually returned the Les Paul to their ranks, and is now the other dominant force in the American guitar market.
