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The History of The Electric Guitar
How Music Was Changed Forever
 In The Beginning
The guitar’s soft melodic tone made it difficult for people to hear it
when being played alongside other instruments. So during the 1930’s an
inventive individual decided to change that and invented the first electric
guitar. Little did he know, or have imagined way back then how the invention
of the electric guitar would significantly affect the course of 20th century
music.
Like most new things, the electric guitar had its critics but it quickly won
people over because of its ability to allow musicians to play much more
creatively and express their own individual styles.
The First Pickup
In 1924 an inventive engineer working for the Gibson guitar company
named Lloyd Loar, designed the first magnetic pickup. Using a magnet, he
converted guitar string vibrations into electrical signals, which then were
amplified through a speaker system. This first pickup was crude, but it was
a great beginning.
The First Electric Guitar
In 1931 the Electro String Company was founded by Paul Barth, George
Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker, and developed the first electric guitars
marketed to the general public. They made their guitars from cast aluminum
and were played on a person’s lap using a steel slide much like today's
steel guitar. Because of their unusual material, they were affectionately
called “Frying Pans.”
The early success of the frying pans prompted the Gibson guitar company to
build their first electric guitar, the ES-150 which is a legend today.
The First Solid-Body Electric Guitar
Electric guitars were quickly becoming popular, even though there was a
major problem with their construction. Their bodies would vibrate due to the
amplified sounds coming through the speakers they were played into, causing
what we know as feed-back. The obvious remedy was to build a guitar made
with a solid body which wouldn’t vibrate so easily.
As with most innovations, there is controversy over who invented the first
solid –body electric guitar. Guitar legend Les Paul in the 1940’s developed
his affectionately called “The Log” solid-body guitar by attaching a Gibson
neck to a solid piece of wood…a railroad tie, hence the name “Log.”
Around this same time, guitarist Merle Travis and engineer Paul Bigsby
developed a solid-body electric guitar that resembled the solid-body guitars
that we’re so familiar with today.
The First Mass Produced Electric Guitar
Leo Fender in 1950 was the first to mass produce an electric guitar
which was originally called the Fender Broadcaster. This guitar was quickly
re-named to the infamous Telecaster because the name “Broadcaster” was
already being used by another company. Leo followed this up in 1954 with the
most renowned guitar of all time…the Stratocaster.
Leo’s success led other guitar manufacturers into developing their own
mass-produced electric guitars. Most notable was the teaming-up of the
Gibson guitar company with Les Paul to create the famous Gibson Les Paul
electric guitar.
More Affordable Electric Guitars
During the 1960’s and 1970’s famous brand name electric guitars were too
expensive for the average person to buy. Less pricey imitations quickly came
to market but they were sub-standard in sound and playability. The Japanese,
in the 1980’s started manufacturing electric guitars of similar quality to
the more expensive American made models, but with much more affordable
pricing. This prompted Fender and other leading guitar manufacturers into
producing less expensive versions of their classic models. This resulted in
electric guitars now being more affordable and accessible to more people.
Today, the Gibson and Fender guitar companies are still producing some of
the most well-known and best made electric guitars on the market. But it’s
getting crowded with other high quality brands such as BC Rich, ESP and
Peavey. Innovative designs, shapes and materials are being incorporated with
new technologies to produce better sounding electric guitars.
Modern guitars have built-in software allowing them to sound like other
types of guitars. Some are even fitted with pickups that synthesize the
sound of different instruments or record the notes in musical notation.
The electric guitar has come a long way with an interesting and inventive
past and many in the industry say it has an even brighter future.
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