Jazz needed volume first
The first musicians to adopt the electric guitar were not rock players, because rock did not yet exist. They were jazz and dance-band guitarists who simply wanted to be heard. In the 1930s, a rhythm guitarist in a big band typically strummed chords that listeners could barely hear above the brass and drums. An amplified guitar could keep time more audibly, and for a few players it opened a bigger prospect: playing solos like a trumpet or saxophone.
Several instruments of the period had pickups, including the Rickenbacker and Gibson models that appeared in the mid-1930s. Which player first recorded on one is a matter of some dispute, and early names such as Eddie Durham, who is often mentioned in connection with amplified guitar solos in the late 1930s, appear in many accounts. George Barnes is another name that comes up for early recorded electric guitar in 1938. Treat any claim of “the first” with caution.
Charlie Christian
The most influential early figure is Charlie Christian. He joined Benny Goodman’s sextet in 1939 and played an amplified Gibson, taking solos built from long, flowing single-note lines instead of chords. In practice, that meant the guitar could join the front line of a jazz group rather than only supply rhythm. Christian also played in informal late-night sessions at Minton’s Playhouse in New York, which are often described as a gathering place for the musicians who developed bebop. He died of tuberculosis in 1942 at the age of 25, leaving a small but widely studied body of recordings.
Many later guitarists, in jazz and elsewhere, cited his phrasing as an influence.
Blues, country and rhythm and blues
Jazz was only one route. T-Bone Walker, who played an electric guitar in the 1940s, brought a crisp, single-string style to blues. Muddy Waters, after moving to Chicago in the 1940s, picked up an electric guitar partly because acoustic instruments were drowned out in noisy clubs. Country and Western swing musicians used electric steel and standard guitars in dance bands, and Les Paul used multi-track recording and magnetic tape to build elaborate pop records in the late 1940s and 1950s. Sister Rosetta Tharpe combined gospel with a hard-edged electric guitar tone.
By the early 1950s, the guitar was central to rhythm and blues. These styles fed directly into rock and roll, and the music played on radio broadcasting helped carry them to listeners who might never have visited a Chicago club.
Distortion becomes a feature
Early amplifier designers aimed for clean, undistorted sound. Pushed past their limits, however, tube amplifiers add a rough edge. Some players noticed it and began to use it deliberately. A frequently told story concerns the 1951 record “Rocket 88,” which has been described as featuring a fuzzy guitar sound caused by a damaged amplifier, although details vary between retellings.
In the late 1950s and 1960s the practice spread. Link Wray’s 1958 instrumental “Rumble” is known for a raw, aggressive tone. In 1964 the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” featured a distorted riff, and a popular account says the guitarist Dave Davies modified his amplifier’s speaker to get the sound, though the details are disputed. Gibson’s Maestro Fuzz-Tone pedal, released in 1962, was a commercial product designed to produce a similar effect on demand, and it became widely known after its use on the Rolling Stones’ 1965 hit “Satisfaction.”
Louder amplifiers
British bands wanted louder amps for larger audiences. Vox produced the AC30 in the late 1950s, associated with groups of the early 1960s, and Jim Marshall, who ran a drum shop in London, began producing amplifiers in 1962 at the request of local players. Marshall amps were designed to be loud, with the result that guitarists turned them up and found they overdrove the circuits. Stacks of speaker cabinets later became a visual symbol of rock.
Meanwhile, American makers such as Fender built amplifiers that remained popular for their cleaner tones. By the end of the 1960s, players such as Jimi Hendrix were deliberately combining high volume, feedback and effects. Hendrix’s performances are widely regarded as having expanded what an electric guitar could do, but as with any such claim the effect is a matter of opinion rather than measurement.
Television and records
Rock guitar reached a mass audience through records, radio and television broadcasting. Chuck Berry’s rhythmic riffs in the 1950s, the Beatles’ 1964 appearance on American television and the arrival of FM radio, which offered album-length programming, all fed demand. Teenagers bought guitars in large numbers, and instrument makers expanded to meet the demand.
Jazz did not disappear
The move from jazz to rock was not a clean replacement. Jazz guitarists continued to use hollow-body instruments with clean tones, and many rock players learned from jazz and blues records. The connection can be heard in the use of the same basic pickups and amplifier circuits across many styles.
Bottom line
The electric guitar began as a way to make a rhythm instrument audible, became a solo voice in jazz, and grew into a source of volume and distortion in rock. Each stage depended on technology, but also on players who heard a possibility the designers had not planned for.