for: Electric Guitar (Fluke song)

An electric guitar is a type of guitar that uses pickups to convert the vibration of its steel-cored strings into an electrical current, which is made louder with an instrument amplifier and a speaker. The signal that comes from the guitar is sometimes electronically altered with guitar effects such as reverb or distortion. While most electric guitars have six strings, seven-string instruments are used by some jazz guitarists and metal guitarists (especially in nu metal ), and 12-string electric guitars (with six pairs of strings, four of which are tuned in octaves) are used in genres such as jangle pop and rock.

The electric guitar was first used by jazz guitarists, who used amplified hollow-bodied instruments to get a louder sound in Swing-era big bands. The earliest electric guitars were hollow bodied acoustic instruments with tungsten pickups made by the "Rickenbacker" company in 1931. While one of the first solid-body guitars was invented by Les Paul, the first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar was the Fender Esquire (1946). The electric guitar was a key instrument in the development of many musical styles that emerged since the late 1940s, such as Chicago blues, early rock and roll and rockabilly, and 1960s blues rock. It is also used in a range of other genres, including country music, ambient (or "new-age"), and in some contemporary classical music.

History

Early years

The earliest documented performance with an electric guitar was in 1932, by guitarist and bandleader Gage Brewer. The Wichita, Kansas-based musician had obtained two instruments from George Beauchamp of Los Angeles, California, and he publicized his new instruments in an article in the Wichita Beacon, October 2, 1932 and through a performance later that month. The first recording of an electric guitar was by jazz guitarist George Barnes who recorded two songs in Chicago on March 1st, 1938: Sweetheart Land and It's a Low-Down Dirty Shame. Many historians incorrectly attribute the first recording to Eddie Durham, but his recording with the Kansas City Five was not until 15 days later. Durham introduced the instrument to a young Charlie Christian, who made the instrument famous in his brief life and is generally known as the first electric guitarist and a major influence on jazz guitarists for decades thereafter.

The first recording of an electric 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). An even earlier Chicago recording of an electrically amplified guitaralbeit an amplified lap steel guitarwas 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.