Famous guitar inventors
This page is basically a page about the history of all the great guitar inventors such as Leo Fender and Les Paul.
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Leo Fender (1909-1991) :The man who could not play a guitar, but could build one
It’s safe to say there would be no such thing as rock and roll without its distinctive instrumentation. To put it another way, rock and roll as we know it could not exist without Leo Fender, inventor of the first solid-body electric guitar to be mass-produced: the Fender Broadcaster. Fender’s instruments – which also include the Stratocaster, the Precision bass (the first electric bass) and some of the music world’s most coveted amplifiers – revolutionized popular music in general and rock and roll in particular. Leo Fender was born on August 10, 1909, near Anaheim, California, not far from the future site of his guitar factory. He was an electronics enthusiast and radio repairman who got involved with guitar design after guitar-playing customers kept bringing him their external pickups for repair. Before Fender came along, guitarists met their amplification needs by attaching pickups to the surface of their hollow-bodied instruments. While the question of who designed the first successful solid-body guitar is still being debated, Fender was the first to successfully design and market such an instrument with the introduction of the Broadcaster in 1948. Renamed the Telecaster two years later, Fender’s creation remains a mainstay of country and rock musicians who like its clean, biting sound. The guitar became an immediate success, particularly with country pickers. And now, more than 60 years after its introduction, the Telecaster still looks more or less the same. “Fender could look at something and immediately discern the simplest method of doing whatever had to be done,” said Les Paul. “He was a good, honest guy who made a straightforward guitar.” Fender’s Precision bass, introduced in 1950, brought a new sound and flexibility to the rhythm section of bands, liberating the bassist from cumbersome stand up instruments. The bass-driven soul music of Motown and Stax would have been inconceivable without Fender’s handiwork. In 1954, Fender introduced the Stratocaster, a flashier instrument featuring a contoured, double-cutaway body, three (as opposed to two) single-coil pickups and a revolutionary string-bending unit called temolo . Fender’s Stratocaster has been the favored model of such virtuosic rock guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1965, Fender sold his company to CBS for $13 million. Then, in 1971, he formed the Tri-Sonic Company. In 1974, he changed the company’s name to Music Man. One of that firm’s most notable instruments was the Stingray bass. Then, in 1979, he founded yet another company, G&L Musical Products. Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender was an American inventor who founded Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, or "Fender" for short. In January 1965, he sold the company to CBS and later founded two other musical instrument companies, Music Man and G&L Musical Instruments.The guitars, bass guitars, and amplifiers he designed from the 1940's on are still relevant: the Fender Telecaster (1950) was the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar; the Fender Stratocaster (1954) is among the world's most iconic electric guitars; the Fender Precision Bass (1951) set the standard for electric bass guitars, and the Fender Bass man amplifier, popular enough in its own right, became the basis for later amplifiers (notably by Marshall and Mesa Boogie) that dominated rock and roll music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, a unique achievement because Fender never learned how to play the instruments he made a career of building.In 1933, Fender met Esther Klosky, and they were married in 1934. About that time, he took a job as an accountant for the California Highway Department in San Luis Obispo. In a depression government change, his job was eliminated, and he then took a job in the accounting department of a tire company. After working there for six months, Leo lost his job along with the other accountants in the company.In 1938, with a borrowed $600, Leo and Esther returned to Fullerton, and Leo started his own radio repair shop, "Fender Radio Service." Soon, musicians and band leaders began coming to him for PA systems, which he built, rented, and sold. They also visited his store for amplification for the amplified acoustic guitars that were beginning to show up on the southern California music scene — in big band and jazz music, and for the electric "Hawaiian" or "lap steel" guitars becoming popular in country music. During World War II, Leo met Clayton Orr "Doc" Kauffman, an inventor and lap steel player who had worked for Rickenbacker, which had been building and selling lap steel guitars for a decade. While with Rickenbacker, Kauffman had invented the "Vibrola" tailpiece, a precursor to the later vibrato tailpiece. Fender convinced him that they should team up, and they started the "K & F Manufacturing Corporation" to design and build amplified Hawaiian guitars and amplifiers. In 1944, Leo and Doc patented a lap steel guitar with an electric pickup already patented by Fender. In 1945, they began selling the guitar, in a kit with an amplifier designed by Fender. As the Big Bands fell out of vogue towards the end of World War II, small combos playing boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues, western swing, and honky-tonk formed throughout the United States. Many of these outfits embraced the electric guitar because it could give a few players the power of an entire horn section. Pickup-equipped archtops were the guitars of choice in the dance bands of the late-'40's, but the increasing popularity of roadhouses and dance halls created a growing need for louder, cheaper, and more durable instruments. Players also needed faster necks and better intonation to play what the country players called "take-off lead guitar." In the late 1940's, solidbody electric guitars began to emerge in popularity, yet they were still considered novelty items, with the Rickenbacker Spanish Electro guitar being the most commercially available solidbody, and Les Paul's one-off home-made "Log" and the Bigsby Travis guitar made by Paul Bigsby for Merle Travis being the most visible early examples.Fender recognized the potential for an electric guitar that was easy to hold, tune, and play, and would not feed back at dance hall volumes as the typical archtop would. In 1949, he finished the prototype of a thin solid-body electric; it was first released in 1950 as the Fender Esquire (with a solid body and one pickup), and renamed first Broadcaster and then Telecaster (with two pickups) the year after. The Telecaster, originally equipped with two single-coil pickups and widely used among country and western players, became one of the most popular electric guitars in history.Instead of updating the Telecaster, Fender decided, based on customer feedback, to leave the Telecaster as it was and design a new, upscale solid-body guitar to sell alongside the basic Telecaster. Western swing guitarist Bill Carson was one of the chief critics of the Telecaster, stating that the new design should have individually adjustable bridge saddles, four or five pickups, a vibrato unit that could be used in either direction and return to proper tuning, and a contoured body for enhanced comfort over the slab-body Telecaster's harsh edges. Fender, assisted by draftsman Freddie Tavares, began designing the Stratocaster in late 1953. It included a rounder, less "club-like" neck (at least for the first year of issue) and a double cutaway for easier reach to the upper registers During this time, Fender also tackled the problems experienced by players of the acoustic double bass, who could no longer compete for volume with the other musicians. Besides, double basses were also large, bulky, and difficult to transport. With the Precision Bass (or "P-Bass"), released in 1951, Leo Fender addressed both issues: the Telecaster-based Precision Bass was small and portable, and its solid-body construction and four-magnet, single coil pickup let it play at higher volumes without feedback. Along with the Precision Bass (so named because its fretted neck allowed bassists to play with 'precision'), Fender introduced a bass amplifier, the Fender Bass man, a 45-watt amplifier with four 10" speakers (although initially with one 15" speaker).1954 saw a redesign of the Precision Bass to coincide with the introduction of the Stratocaster. Incorporating some of the body contours of the Stratocaster, the redesign also included a split single coil pickup and a gold anodized pickguard. In 1960, rosewood fingerboards, wider color selections and a three-ply pickguard became available for the P-Bass. 1960 saw the release of the Jazz Bass, a sleeker, updated bass with a slimmer neck, and offset waist body and two single coil pickups (as opposed to the Precision Bass and its split-humbucking pickup that had been introduced in 1957). Like its predecessor, the Jazz Bass (or simply "J-Bass") was an instant hit and has remained popular to this day, and early models are highly sought after by collectors.In the 1950's, Leo Fender contracted a streptococcal sinus infection that impaired his health to the point where he decided to wind up his business affairs, selling the Fender company to CBS in 1965. As part of this deal, Leo Fender signed a non-compete clause and remained a consultant with Fender for a while. Shortly after selling the company, he changed doctors and was cured of his illness. In 1971 Forrest White and Tom Walker formed the Tri-Sonix company (often incorrectly referred to as "Tri-Sonic"), based in Santa Ana, California. Tommy Walker and Forrest White went to Leo to help finance their company. It evolved into the formation through Tommy Walker to form Music Man, a name Leo Fender preferred over their name, Tri-Sonix. After considerable financing, in 1975, Leo Fender became its president.The StingRay bass was an innovative early instrument. Though the body design borrowed heavily from the Precision Bass, the StingRay is largely considered the first production bass with active electronics. The StingRay's two-band active equalizer, high output humbucking pickup, and smooth satin finished neck became a favorite of many influential bassists, including Louis Johnson,John Deacon, and Flea. Later, a three-band active equalizer was introduced on the StingRay. Music Man was active making amplifiers as well, but the HD-130 Reverb, designed to compete with the Twin Reverb, came at a time when the clean sounds of the Twin were going out of fashion. In 1979, Leo Fender and old friends George Fullerton and Dale Hyatt started a new company called G&L (George & Leo) Musical Products. G&L guitar designs tended to lean heavily upon the looks of Fender's original guitars such as the Stratocaster and Telecaster, but incorporated innovations such as enhanced tremolo systems and electronics. In 1979, Fender's wife Esther died of cancer. He remarried in 1980; Phyllis Fender is an Honorary Chairman of G&L. Despite suffering several minor strokes, Fender continued to produce guitars and basses. On March 21, 1991, he died, having long suffered from Parkinson's disease. He was buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, California. His accomplishments for "contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field" were acknowledged with a Technical Grammy Award in 2009.
Les Paul: the man who had brought back rock.
Les Paul designed a solid-body electric guitar in 1941, but by the time it was ready for production by Gibson in 1952, Leo Fender had already mass-produced the Fender Broadcaster four years earlier, thus beating Paul to popular credit for the invention. Nonetheless, the Les Paul acquired a devoted following, and its versatility and balance made it the favored guitar of many rock guitarists.An innovative musician and recording artist who developed the solid-body electric guitar, Les Paul was born Lester William Polsfuss on June 19, 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.By at least one account, Paul's early musical ability wasn't superb. "Your boy, Lester, will never learn music," one teacher wrote his mother. But nobody could dissuade him from trying, and as a young boy he taught himself the harmonica, guitar and banjo. By his teen years, Paul was playing in country bands around the Midwest. He also played live on Chicago radio stations, calling himself the Wizard of Waukesha. Coupled with Paul's interest in playing instruments was a love for modifying them. At the age of nine he built his first crystal radio. At 10 he built a harmonica holder out of a coat hanger, and then later constructed his own amplified guitar. Not content to strictly be a country musician, Paul developed an interest in jazz music and by the mid 1930's had moved to New York and formed the Les Paul Trio. By the 1940's Paul had established himself in the jazz world, recording with such stars as Nat King Cole, Rudy Vallee and Kate Smith.In 1941 the perfectionist in Paul believed he could improve upon the common amplified guitar. To do so he attached strings and two pickups to what was essentially a wooden board with a guitar neck. Paul called it the "the log," and while it drew some early criticism, mainly for its look, it produced just the kind of sound its creator had been looking for."You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be playing," he later described it. It was the first solid-body guitar, and it changed music in unbelievable ways. In the 1960's, the rock world embraced and adored his instrument. By then, Paul had teamed up with the guitar manufacturer Gibson, which had hired him to design a Les Paul guitar. Musicians such as Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney all used the guitar. Since its debut in 1952 the Gibson Les Paul was been one of the steadiest-selling guitars made. Paul's commitment to his music was such that in 1948 a car accident left him with a shattered right elbow. Faced with doctors setting the arm in a position that wouldn't again be movable, Paul, ever mindful of his career, asked that it be set at a slight angle so he could still play guitar.Paul's influence on the music world extended far beyond the guitar. With the encouragement of Bing Crosby, whom Paul had toured with, Paul built a recording studio in his garage in his Los Angeles home in 1945.There, Paul experimented with a number of different recording techniques.His breakthrough came in 1948 with a recording of the song "Lover," which utilized a variety of tracks. It wasn't long before Paul was creating 24-track recordings and producing hits like "How High the Moon" and "The World Is Waiting for Sunrise."After divorcing his first wife, Virginia Webb, Paul met the former Colleen Summers, a singer who'd toured with Gene Autry band. Paul changed her name to Mary Ford and began recording with her. They married in 1949, and for much of the 1950's the two had their own television show, "Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home."In addition the couple had more than three dozen hits together, all of them utilizing the recording techniques Paul had created in his studio. In his later years, Paul's standing and legend in the music industry only increased. His final recorded album, "American Made, World Played," debuted in 2005 and featured, among others, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, Sting and Eric Clapton. The record also netted Paul two Grammy Awards. Paul died from complications associated with pneumonia on August 13, 2009.
George Beauchamp: The Frickin Greatest Person Ever In The World Of Music!!!
George Delmetia Beauchamp (March 18, 1899 – March 30, 1941) was an American inventor of musical instruments and a co-founder of National Stringed Instrument Corporation and Rickenbacker guitars.Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups. The first electrically amplified guitar was designed in 1931 by George Beauchamp, General Manager at National Guitar Corporation with Paul Barth who was Vice President.
BiographyGeorge was born in Coleman County, Texas on March 18, 1899. Beauchamp performed in Vaudeville, playing the violin and the lap steel guitar, before he settled in Los Angeles, California. During the 1920s, he experimented with the creation of electric lap steel guitars, electric guitars, electric bass guitars, electric violins, and instrument amplifiers. In 1931 he joined with Paul Barth and Adolph Rickenbacker to form the Ro-Pat-In Corporation to produce and sell electrified string instruments. In 1937 Beauchamp secured a United States patent for the electric guitar.He died of a heart attack in 1941 while deep-sea fishing near Los Angeles. He was survived by his wife, Myrtle, and two children, Frances and Nolan. Inventions
The need for an electric guitar arose because the classic guitar was too quiet to contribute to the music a band produced in many settings. This problem particularly began being apparent in the concert hall music of the 1880s. Later, the Big Bands of the ‘20s got their power and swing from the drums and brass, so the acoustic guitar became a second-tier instrument, producing melodies that not even the musicians of the band could hear in many cases. The need for an innovation for the guitar was obvious. George Beauchamp, who designed the very first crude electric guitar right in his house, played Hawaiian guitar, and according to guitar historian Richard Smith, Hawaiian music as a genre was a key factor in the invention of the electric guitar. “You had the Hawaiian musicians,” Smith said, “where… the guitar was the melody instrument. So the real push to make the guitar electric came from the Hawaiian musicians.” |
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Orville Gibson: The founder of one of the worlds most greatest guitar companys ever known...Gibson Guitar Company!
Orville Gibson was not only Gibson's namesake and reason for being, but it was Orville's pure creativity that has set the bar for the company's unrelenting innovation for well over a hundred years. Orville Gibson was born in 1856 in rural New York, Orville was the son of American Amy Nichols and Englishman John Gibson, who was reportedly sent to the United States as a small boy with a note attached to his blazer for the couple who were going to greet him off the boat. John raised Orville, the youngest of his four children, in tiny Chateaugay, New York where Orville lived before moving to a small industrial city called Kalamazoo, Michigan which is where one of the first Gibson factory's where started(Gibson Guitar headquarters would remain there until the 1980s before relocating to Nashville, TN). It is unknown what brought Orville to Kalamazoo.
As a young man, Orville worked odd jobs clerking in a shoe store and a restaurant while nurturing, whittling, and woodworking hobbies on the side. Also an accomplished musician, Orville played guitar in a local quartet with Thaddeus McHugh, a later Gibson employee who would file the patent for the first trussrod in 1922.
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Eventually Orville acquired his own wood shop—renting a 10-foot by 12-foot space where the young inventor, who never married, dreamed up his startling designs—designs that would shape musical instrument manufacturing forever. Kalamazoo records list the address of "O.H. Gibson, Manufacturer, Musical Instruments" as 114 South Burdick Street. There, Orville made most of his mandolins and guitars out of scrap furniture. Orville based the construction of each of his instruments on his conviction that unstressed wood vibrates far better than wood that's been manipulated or bent, thus yielding superior tone. Previous manufacturers built their mandolins from several strips of wood and would press the rim to form its shape, but Orville carved his mandolins from a slab of wood. It was a more expensive and time-consuming process, but the result was total tonal brilliance. Working feverishly and constantly to produce only six or seven instruments annually, Orville was energized by the Industrial Revolution and his own designs. He pioneered the scroll-body F style mandolin and the teardrop-shaped A style mandolin. These solid, hand-carved models remain the most popular mandolins sold today. Utilizing the same principle with an instrument's top as he did with its sides, Orville painstakingly carved his arch-tops rather than bending the wood into an arched shape. In this way, he became known as the father of the arch-top guitar. Orville borrowed many of his ideas from violin-making techniques, and later Gibson company models would continue to graft elements of the violin onto guitars and mandolins. However, unlike a violin, Orville used oval soundholes rather than f-holes for his instruments.
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On February 1, 1898, Orville outlined his specifications in the one and only patent he'd file for an "improved mandolin," one whose design could be applied also to "guitars, mandolas, and lutes." The patent described a mandolin that had a hollowed-out neck and was made entirely—back, top, and sides—of a single piece of wood. In the patent, Orville explained: "Heretofore mandolins and like instruments have been constructed of too many separate parts bent or carved and glued or veneered and provided with internal braces, bridges, and splices to the extent that they have not possessed that degree of sensitive resonance and vibratory action necessary to produce the power and quality of tone and melody found in the use of the instrument below described." Orville then outlined the virtues of his design, saying, "The front or sounding-board and the back board are carved in a somewhat convex form to give them the proper stiffness and are preferably the thickest at and near the center. They are attached to the rim by gluing and form an upper and lower closure to the hollow body of the instrument. It will be observed that with the parts thus constructed and put together no braces, splices, blocks, or bridges are necessary in the interior of the body of the instrument, which, if employed, would rob the instrument of much of its volume of tone and the peculiar excellency thereof."
Orville's early designs were far from crude. Advanced both aesthetically and structurally, his instruments were baroque and ornate—marked by highly elaborate inlays, offset by black painted surfaces. With a penchant for making experimental hybrid instruments like the lyre-mandolin and the harp-zither, some of Orville's instruments were just plain odd. These designs brought Orville some ridicule, and in fact the Gibson name and instruments weren't granted much renown until Orville was out of the picture.
In 1902, after orders had begun to come in faster than he could make instruments, Orville was convinced to sell his name and his patent to five Kalamazoo businessmen for $2,500. The Gibson Mandolin – Guitar Co., Ltd was incorporated on October 11, 1902. Curiously, Orville was not appointed as one of the partners and remained relatively on the sidelines, for many years serving only as an ill-paid advisor. Apparently frustrated with this arrangement, he moved back to upstate New York in 1909.
It's often been said that genius and madness go hand in hand—a sentiment that applies to Orville, who appears to have suffered from mental illness. Historical records pertaining to Orville are spotty at best, but during his fifties, he was in and out of hospitals before dying on August 21, 1918, of endocarditis at age 62 at a psychiatric center in Ogdensburg, New York—80 miles west of his Chateaugay birthplace. Throughout his life, Orville was prolific enough that some of his instruments still surprise collectors by making their way onto the market for the first time. There they can fetch upwards of $50,000. Today Orville's hardworking ideals and his spirit of innovation remain the backbone of Gibson Guitar—a company that has issued a greater variety of acoustic and electric guitars than any other manufacturer. An early sticker fastened to Orville's instruments said, simply, "Superior to all others." More than one hundred years later, that's still what we aim for."