Early Electric Guitar Recordings

[The Grand Wazoo]

I was listening to some old Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown tracks (late '40's)the other day & since then, I've been thinking about very early recordings of the electric guitar.

I wonder what other folks have in the way of this sort of stuff? I'd be interested to hear.

I'm not sure what my oldest recordings would be - I'll have to do a little rootling around.
Charlie Christian? Lonnie Johnson? T-Bone Walker?


I understand the earliest recordings that were made were by George Barnes -who recorded 'Sweetheart Land' and It's a 'Low-Down Dirty Shame' in 1938.

[Stratmangler]

Hi Chris

You'd need to look in the direction of "Hawaiian Style" guitarists around about 1933. One of the first guitars with a pickup on was the Rickenbacker "Frying Pan", which was designed for lap playing.

You're looking a couple of years later for ES (Electric Spanish) style guitars.

Chris:)

[The Grand Wazoo]

Were they recorded though, Chris?
George Barnes reckoned he was playing them in 1931 & the Electro String Instrument Corp were manufacturing them then.

[Stratmangler]

Were they recorded though, Chris?

I believe so.
I lifted the following from Wikipedia


The first recordings using the electric guitar were by Hawaiian style players, including Andy Iona in 1933. Bob Dunn of Milton Brown's Musical Brownies introduced the electric Hawaiian guitar to Western Swing with his January 1935 Decca recordings, departing almost entirely from Hawaiian musical influence and heading towards Jazz and Blues. Alvino Rey was an artist who took this instrument to a wide audience in a large orchestral setting and later developed the pedal steel guitar for Gibson. An early proponent of the electric Spanish guitar was jazz guitarist George Barnes who used the instrument in two songs recorded in Chicago on March 1, 1938, Sweetheart Land and It's a Low-Down Dirty Shame. Some incorrectly attribute the first recording to Eddie Durham, but his recording with the Kansas City Five was 15 days later.[4] Durham introduced the instrument to a young Charlie Christian, who made the instrument famous in his brief life and would be a major influence on jazz guitarists for decades thereafter.



The first recording of an electric Spanish guitar, west of the Mississippi was in Dallas, in September 1935, during a session with Roy Newman and His Boys, an early Western swing dance band. Their guitarist, Jim Boyd, used his electrically amplified guitar during the recording of three songs, "Hot Dog Stomp" (DAL 178-Vo 03371), "Shine On, Harvest Moon" (DAL 180-Vo 03272), and "Corrine, Corrina" (DAL 181-Vo/OK 03117).[5][6][7] An even earlier Chicago recording of an electrically amplified guitar—albeit an amplified lap steel guitar—was during a series of session by Milton Brown and His Brownies (another early Western swing band) that took place January 27-28, 1935, wherein Bob Dunn played his amplified Hawaiian guitar.

I've currently got Charlie Christian playing with The Benny Goodman Sextet from 1939, courtesy of Spotify. And it's rather good.

Chris:)

[The Grand Wazoo]

Oh, OK - cheers for that.
I never looked at Wikipedia!

So what's your oldest track?

[Stratmangler]

Spotify also has recordings by Andy Iona - I don't think they'll be the very first though.
However, this site may be of interest http://www.archive.org/details/AndyIonaAndHisIslanders-PrettyRedHibiscus

Chris:)

[Stratmangler]

Oh, OK - cheers for that.
I never looked at Wikipedia!

So what's your oldest track?

Dunno.
I've got the Blues Collection series of CD's, so there's got to be some old electric guitar stuff with those discs.

Chris:)

[John]

Les Paul made the first electric guitar He was also responsible for multi tracking
The Charlie Christian stuff is wonderful a real shame he was not around for longer and in Django latter years he played electric guitar of course the pursuit hated it but Django really liked American jazz and wanted to develop this into his own music

[John]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Paul

[John]

Check out solo flight
z-U1-AB_vnM

[The Grand Wazoo]

John,
They were around before Les Paul's, his work was on solid bodies.

[John]

If you get the chance watch the Les Paul Documentry its pretty good at explaining what happened. Sorry I am work at the moment Chris so unable fully give you an accurate answer
I think the first one he made was from a railway grder and I think but not sure is the first use of a pick up but might be wrong

[symon]

I was going to suggest Charlie Christian and Les Paul, but I've been beaten to it. Les Paul played with Charlie Christian and learnt a lot from him.

I seem to remember there being some argument between Les Paul's account of the development of the electric guitar and Gibson's version. Les Paul's first pick up was a gramophone stylus! He was a very very clever bloke and a brilliant guitarist.

[Stratmangler]

Les Paul was indeed a phenomenal inventor and musician.
He is rightly lauded as a pioneer of the electric guitar.
However, he did not invent the electric guitar. He did not invent the solid body guitar.

The Rickenbacher "Frying Pan" is widely credited as being the first solid body electric guitar. It went on sale in 1932. Indeed it is one of the very first guitars to use a pickup full stop. The prototype instrument had a wooden neck and body, production models were made from cast aluminium.
The Frying Pan was a lap steel guitar.
Because the instrument was introduced at the height of the Great Depression uptake was slow.

Gibson developed their own pickup in 1935 and installed it on one of their lap steel guitars.
They installed the pickup in one of their normally held "Spanish" guitars in 1936. This guitar model was the ES150 that became synonymous with Charlie Christian.

These links are very interesting - Rickenbacker (http://www.rickenbacker.com/history_early.asp) - Gibson (http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Support/AboutUs/).

Chris:)

[John]

Cheers Chris

[John]

I was going to suggest Charlie Christian and Les Paul, but I've been beaten to it. Les Paul played with Charlie Christian and learnt a lot from him.

I seem to remember there being some argument between Les Paul's account of the development of the electric guitar and Gibson's version. Les Paul's first pick up was a gramophone stylus! He was a very very clever bloke and a brilliant guitarist.

Yes both were really great players. Charlie used to jam in the clubs with the likes of Charlie Parker in the very early days of Bebop. I do think some of Les style comes from a bit of Django and Charlie but plenty of his own stuff too, the whole music industry has a lot to thank Les for

My favourite guitar player from this period is Django he was just so inventive on guitar. He only played electric for the last few years of his life the purist hated it but I think for someone like Django trusting his musical muse was important
Cj_TOEXkH_Q
If you ever get the chance to watch the Django legacy go for it, just a wonderful music documentry.

[symon]

Les Paul adored Django and played with him. Listening (and possibly watching) Django almost made Les Paul stop playing guitar. There's a famous quote from Les Paul about his reaction to hearing Django play (but I can't remember it! D'oh!)

[John]

My fav Django story is when the famous classical guitarist Segovia saw him playing at a party
Segovia asks Django where he could get the manscript for the music he was playing and Django replies he is just improvasing

[John]

Another elctric player from the 40s is T Bone Walker

[The Grand Wazoo]

Les Paul was indeed a phenomenal inventor and musician.
He is rightly lauded as a pioneer of the electric guitar.
However, he did not invent the electric guitar. He did not invent the solid body guitar.

The Rickenbacher "Frying Pan" is widely credited as being the first solid body electric guitar. It went on sale in 1932. Indeed it is one of the very first guitars to use a pickup full stop. The prototype instrument had a wooden neck and body, production models were made from cast aluminium.
The Frying Pan was a lap steel guitar.



Chris,

To reinforce the above:

George Delmetia Beauchamp (March 18, 1899 – March 30, 1941) was an inventor of musical instruments and a co-founder of National Stringed Instrument Corporation and Rickenbacker guitars.

1929: Patent applied for the single-cone dobro guitar, patent #1,808,756
1934: Patent applied for the electric lap steel guitar (nicknamed the frying pan), patent #2,089,171
1936: Patent applied for the electric guitar (called the electro Spanish guitar, which was a hollow-body electric guitar)
1936: Patent applied for the electric violin (called the electro violin)

Catalogues from the Electro String Instrument Corporation show a range of electric instruments. In 1932, Beauchamp's Ro-pat company marketed the electric lap steel guitar. The electric guitar was supposedly marketed the same year; early catalogues showing the instrument are not dated.

Beauchamp was the first to invent and produce the electric guitar.
He was a Hawaiian-style guitar player.

John:

Another elctric player from the 40s is T Bone Walker

I still haven't had a chance to check my recordings but I suspect T-Bone is my earliest.

[John]

T Bone Walker was a blues player he recorded Stormy Mondays
BB King 3 major influnces on guitar would be T bone Walker Charlie Christain and Django

[The Grand Wazoo]

T Bone Walker was a blues player he recorded Stormy Mondays
BB King 3 major influnces on guitar would be T bone Walker Charlie Christain and Django

John,
Tragically misplaced text there - I really didn't think T-Bone was a Hawaiian guitar player!
That was the other guy!!
Now edited & corrected.

I don't know if BB King had Django as an early influence, but I'd agree with the others. But don't forget his older cousin, Bukka White, who he lived with in Memphis after he ran away from home after breaking the exhaust on the tractor he was employed to drive. (I've read his book!)

[John]

I actually heard BB King say he had Django as a major influnce in an interview a few years back hence the quote He was demostrating his guitar style and showed how the 3 hereos made up his music
A QUOTE FROM BB KING:
Django was one of my idols. He had a touch that made him Django Reinhardt and nobody else and
as far as I'm concerned, one of the greatest in the guitar business. He'd identify himself on his
instrument. Today we've got a lot of great guitarists, but most of them don't identify themselves.
But with Django, you knew without a doubt who he was the minute he'd start to play. And to me, it
was sweet music; his guitar seemed to talk, in other words, I heard it. He played music that was
sophisticated to me, but a layman like myself could still understand it. I've got more albums on him
than on anybody; when I was in France I must have bought fifty records of the Hot Club Of
France. I would never have the speed or the technique that Django had, but I love him so much
that I'm sure if you listened carefully you could hear a little bit of him in my playing. I just wish
everybody could hear him.

[The Grand Wazoo]

John,
Thanks, yes of course! You certainly can hear a bit of Django there.

I've just got the book off the shelf & it refers to him putting a pickup on a guitar - a Gibson L30, in about 1949.

Also Lonnie Johnson & Blind Lemon were major early influences.