A Time-line History of the Electric Guitar

Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Barth, and George Beauchamp join forces to mass produce the “Frying Pan” Hawaiian guitar. Over 2,700 are made. Electrified stringed instruments are here to stay!

Rickenbacker launches the Electro Spanish, the world’s first production electric guitar.

Eddie Durham’s solo on “Hittin’The Bottle” is the first amplified guitar on a recording. Durham traded lines with vocalist, Sy Oliver in The Jimmy Lunceford Big Band. Lunceford would grab the microphone and bring it up to the guitar for Durham’s solos (bringing the guitar to the front of a big band for the first time).

Eddie Durham becomes known as the electric guitar’s principal exponent by using a guitar with an electric pick-up for live dates.

Gibson debuts the pick-up equipped ES-150 electric guitar and its companion EH-150 amplifier. Though other guitar manufacturers may have gotten there first- because of Gibson’s marketing and distribution advantages, the ES-150 is considered the world’s first electric guitar.

Eldon Shamblin becomes known as country music’s first guitar player to play a solid body electric guitar. He plays a tiny bakelite body Rickenbacker Electro Spanish Model B for one engagement with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. After the show, Mr. Wills said, “I don’t want you to play it anymore because people won’t know that you’re playin’ a guitar.”

Charlie Christian joins The Benny Goodman Band. In two years, Christian will bring the electric guitar to the forefront of other musical instruments for the first time. He writes in the December issue of Down Beat Magazine, “Amplifying my instrument has made it possible for me to get a wonderful break. A few weeks ago, I was working for beans down in Oklahoma, having a plenty tough time of getting along and playing the the way I wanted to play. So take heart, all you starving guitarists- I know that you play damned fine music, but now you’ve got a chance to bring the fact to the attention of not only short-sighted band leaders, but to the attention of the world.”

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