History of Electric Guitar

The guitar was one of the best candidates for amplification due to its acoustic properties and for its potential as a polyphonic solo instrument. The need for an 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.

Electric guitars were originally designed by luthiers, guitar makers, electronics enthusiasts, 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. An electrically amplified guitar was developed by George Beauchamp in 1931. Commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by Electro-Patent-Instrument Company Los Angeles, a partnership of Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Barth and George Beauchamp, the inventor. The wooden body of the prototype was built by Harry Watson, a craftsman who had worked for the National Resophonic Guitar Company.

The solid body electric guitar is made of solid wood, without functionally resonating air spaces. Rickenbacher, later spelled Rickenbacker, 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 as tested by vintage guitar researcher John Teagle. The company Audiovox built and may have offered an electric solid-body as early as the mid-1930s.

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, can be seen in the Experience Music Project. Another early, substantially solid Spanish electric guitar was marketed by the "Rickenbacker" guitar company in 1935 and made of an early cast plastic called Bakelite. By 1936 the Slingerland company introduced a solid body electric model made of solid wood.

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. Mr. Barnes showed the result to Les Paul, who then arranged for Mr. Bourgerie to have one made for him.