The History of the Guitar Part 2
The History of the Guitar Part 2
By the 1930`s, guitar manufacturers had started to look for ways to increase the volume of the guitar. Ex National String Instrument Company employee George Beauchamp was one of these people, and after many months of trial and error, developed a pick up consisting of two horseshoe magnets and six pole pieces. He was about to forge his name into guitar history.
Upon successful development of this pickup, Beauchamp contacted Harry Watson, who, at the time, worked for The National String Instrument Company. He then commissioned a highly skilled craftsman to hand carve the neck and body of the world’s first prototype electric guitar.
With the prototype now fully developed, Beauchamp approached Adolph Rickenbacher. Beauchamp had previous connections with Rickenbacher, as his tool and die company had been used to press the metal bodies of National resonator guitars. Using Rickenbacher`s influence and financial standing, they formed a company to build these guitars which were to be called “Rickenbackers”.
They started to manufacture the “Rickenbackers”, and they gained immediate popularity with Hawaiian lap steel slide guitarists, which, in itself set the Rickenbacker Company on its own pioneering journey of becoming the first manufacturer of electric guitars in guitar history.
Probably the first man in guitar history to build and market a “Spanish” style electric guitar was a Gibson acoustical engineer by the name of Lloyd Loar. Loar himself was, at the time, renowned for his development of the mandolin. Having spent most of the 1920`s experimenting with amplification of the guitar, Loar created the company “Vivi-Tone”, an independent sub division of Gibson in 1933.
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