[Dixielandjazz] Electric guitar (was Dixielandjazz Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2)

[Bill Haesler]

Larry Walton wrote:
> Wasn't the electric pickup invented by Les Paul sometime in the late 
> 30's or early 40's.  I didn't think that they were even available 
> until after the war sometime.  I suppose they could have miked them 
> before that but I didn't think it was possible to own an electric 
> guitar before the war.

Dear Larry,
The credit for amplifying the guitar for big band performances is 
usually given to Eddie Durham, trombonist/guitarist with the Bennie 
Moten Kansas City Orchestra who, in about 1929, fitted a microphone to 
his guitar and wired it to an amplifier.
He can be heard soloing with it on the Moten's Dec 1932 recordings of 
"Toby" and "Moten Swing". He can also be heard on Jimmy Lunceford's 
"Hittin' The Bottle" from Sept 1935. Other guitarists followed. However 
it was the Gibson guitar company which developed the electric guitar 
from the mid 1930s. But it was Charlie Christian (influenced by Durham) 
with the Goodman orch who really demonstrated on record what it was all 
about.
All you need to know about the development of the electric guitar from 
the 1920s onward can be found  at:
   http://www.angelfire.com/music2/myguitar
from which the following has been extracted.

A Brief History of the Electric Guitar by Jeff Maguire.
     Probably the first man to build and market an electric "Spanish" 
style guitar was Lloyd Loar. Loar was an accoustical engineer for 
Gibson, and legendary for his contributions to the design and 
development of the mandolin. Loar had also been experimenting with the 
electrical amplification of the guitar since the early 1920's, and in 
1933 created a new company Vivi-Tone as an independent subdivision of 
Gibson. Vivi-Tone was dedicated to the production of one thing, Spanish 
style electric guitars.
    Vivi-Tone aggressively marketed the electric Spanish guitar but with 
little succes. The design was poor, and there was not yet a sufficient 
market to sustain a small company whose only product was a Spanish 
style electric guitar. Within a year Vivi-Tone failed, but the internal 
seeds had been planted at Gibson, the electric Spanish was the future 
of the guitar and the failed Vivi-Tone would go on to inspire Gibson to 
create the electric guitar that would revolutionize the instrument, the 
ES-150.
    In 1935 Gibson commissioned Alvino Rey, a prominant slide guitarist 
of the era to assist in the development of a new guitar pickup. The 
prototype was developed by Rey, in conjunction with enginners at the 
Lyon & Healy company of Chicago and the final version was built by 
Gibson employee Walter Fuller. The pickup was initially incorporated on 
a lap steel model in late 1935, but shortly thereafter was introduced 
onto a standard f-hole archtop guitar and designated the ES-150, ( ES 
for Electro Spanish, 150 the price in dollars ). The first one was 
shipped from Kalamazoo Michigan on May 20,1936. The first modern 
electric guitar had been born, guitar history was being made.
    The ES-150 became an instant success, guitar players from all over 
the country and from every style flocked to purchase one, most noteable 
among them was Charlie Christian who took advantage of the increased 
volume of the instrument and began to use the guitar as a Jazz soloist 
in the same way that only a horn player previously could have. His 
performances with the Benny Goodman Orchestra ultimately revolutionized 
the way all musicians thought about the guitar. To this day the ES-150 
is known as the "Charlie Christian" model.

Kind regards,
Bill.