Billy Gibbons, founder and guitarist of ZZ Top, once said that the car is the backbone of American culture, and the guitar is the backbone of American music. I would add that women are just straight-up backbone, causing American men to drive badass cars and play badass guitars. Well, this article is about guitars, so I will save women and cars for another time.
The vibrating-string instrument has been around forever: the lyre in the ancient Greece, the oud (which means "wood") from ancient Arabia, and later the lute and classical guitar from medieval Europe. The six-string guitar eventually found its way to America, where it was instrumental (pun, yes) in creating a new art form...and a true art form is a rare thing indeed. Art tends to form out of chaos and the conflict of opposites, and that’s exactly what we have with the guitar in America 150 years ago. It begins with the enslaved Africans who found themselves in a strange and tragic situation with no way out.
Using the only vibrating instrument they could afford—their own vocal cords—they expressed their perpetual angst through the human moan. It was a blend of tribal chant from their African homeland and simple scales perhaps unconsciously picked up from the folk music of their Euro-American slavers. This resulted in a unique series of curving notes that became known as the “field holler”, which slaves would chant while chopping cotton. The field holler evolved in two directions, the church, showing up in gospel music; and the street, eventually arriving in the roadhouse joint as blues. Nowadays it is called the pentatonic scale.
The importance of what was just described should not be underestimated, because this unique sound pattern underlies the whole of American music, that today we collectively called Roots.
As American blacks eked out meager livings after the abolition of slavery in the 1860's, they discovered that in addition to the human voice, one of the best ways to express themselves emotionally and musically was the guitar, probably because it was the most affordable and portable means of accompaniment. No one knows what these first guitar slinger/singers sounded like because recording had not yet been invented, but it passed along orally and shows up in the earlier 20th century, through artists like Blind Lemon and later, Robert Johnson.
The incredible diversity of the guitar shifted quickly from potentiality to reality in America, where innovation is always king. In both black blues and white country, the guitar expanded its range of voices from lonesome down-and-out to joyously triumph, to raw sexuality, to happy flat picking.
All these sounds were coaxed from its vibrating strings via a variety of techniques. The guitar could be nimbly finger-picked or fully strummed, creating patterns and rhythms never heard before. You could slap its hollow box for percussive effect. You could slide a knife blade or glass bottle across the strings to create long curved notes or shimmering vibratos.
Other techniques evolved after electrification. I’m imagining Eddie Van Halen harmonically finger-tapping, and Jimi Hendrix lighting his Stratocaster on fire, performing whammy-bar dive bombs through an overdriven Marshall amp.
The guitar was first electrified for the jazz field in the early 1930’s, so the instrument could compete with the collective volume of a 17-piece horn band. But these hollow body guitars had feedback problems when electrically amplified. This inspired Les Paul to create “the log” in 1945, his prototype solid-body electric guitar with its sawed off soundbox wings glued back on.
A year later, Leo Fender created his first electric solid-body, a lap steel guitar. Leo expanded his vision, creating his solid-body Esquire sixstring in 1950, which became the Broadcaster and then the Telecaster, unchanged in basic design to this day.
Les Paul was doing something similar over at Gibson Guitars, creating the first prototypes of his namesake solid body guitar in 1950. The first production Les Paul emerged from Gibson in 1952, and the first Stratocaster over at Fender in 1954...again, both basically unchanged designs to this day.
The explosive development of the solid body guitar in the the middle of the 20th century was accompanied by its necessary mate, the vacuum tube amplifier. This is particularly important at Fender.
This immense creativity in guitar/amp technology was matched musically through all the playing styles that emerged in jazz, western swing, blues, rhythm & blues, country, rockabilly, rock & roll, and funk, all variations on or derivatives of that simple guitar-based art form. Horns and keyboards are also quite important, but the guitar is prevalent in all the styles mentioned and dominant in many.
I noted that the Telecaster, Stratocaster, and Les Paul are designs that have endured basically unchanged for sixty years. This speaks to their timeless aesthetics (cool shapes), manipulability (fretboard fingering), and incredible tone (they just sound awesome). This brings up the next point: Leo Fender designed his amplifers to bring out the natural tones of his guitars which have incredible range and color without any outboard signal processing.
For example, slowly strum the individual six notes of a low E chord on a basic Tele or a Strat through a Tweed Bassman or Blackface Deluxe Reverb Amp at Volume 4 or 5 and listen to that color pallet. It should generate a goose bump or two. You will hear and feel something similar with a vintage Les Paul, whose tones are different. Fender amps are great, and vintage Marshall and Vox amps from England also bring some sweet tones to the show.
Of course, the accidental discovery of harmonic distortion and natural sustain (overdriven guitar signal warmth and crunch) that occurred when a vacuum tube amp was driven beyond capacity, inspired a novel method of attacking the vibrating string, thereby creating a whole new genre of music that eventually became known as heavy metal.
I could go on forever about the power of the vibrating string in American Roots music, but will just say I feel quite lucky to have been born mid-century (I’m a ’55 model). It was a fertile time when American guitar was ascending to a musical peak. This ascent began in the culture dish of the late 1940’s, was vigoroursly simmering by the late 1950's, had reached a rolling boil by the mid-1960's, and continued on through the mid-1970’s . This era is so thick with innovation and creativity that it is easy to see how Billy Gibbons was right. And we all owe enormous respect and thanks to the American slaves, without whom Roots music would not exist.
Here is a link to my 2009 cover of a great American Roots tune written by a black and and white guy together (Steve Cropper and Don Covay from the Stax label), that Aretha Franklin made a hit in the mid-sixties: See Saw
The vibrating-string instrument has been around forever: the lyre in the ancient Greece, the oud (which means "wood") from ancient Arabia, and later the lute and classical guitar from medieval Europe. The six-string guitar eventually found its way to America, where it was instrumental (pun, yes) in creating a new art form...and a true art form is a rare thing indeed. Art tends to form out of chaos and the conflict of opposites, and that’s exactly what we have with the guitar in America 150 years ago. It begins with the enslaved Africans who found themselves in a strange and tragic situation with no way out.
Using the only vibrating instrument they could afford—their own vocal cords—they expressed their perpetual angst through the human moan. It was a blend of tribal chant from their African homeland and simple scales perhaps unconsciously picked up from the folk music of their Euro-American slavers. This resulted in a unique series of curving notes that became known as the “field holler”, which slaves would chant while chopping cotton. The field holler evolved in two directions, the church, showing up in gospel music; and the street, eventually arriving in the roadhouse joint as blues. Nowadays it is called the pentatonic scale.
The importance of what was just described should not be underestimated, because this unique sound pattern underlies the whole of American music, that today we collectively called Roots.
As American blacks eked out meager livings after the abolition of slavery in the 1860's, they discovered that in addition to the human voice, one of the best ways to express themselves emotionally and musically was the guitar, probably because it was the most affordable and portable means of accompaniment. No one knows what these first guitar slinger/singers sounded like because recording had not yet been invented, but it passed along orally and shows up in the earlier 20th century, through artists like Blind Lemon and later, Robert Johnson.
The incredible diversity of the guitar shifted quickly from potentiality to reality in America, where innovation is always king. In both black blues and white country, the guitar expanded its range of voices from lonesome down-and-out to joyously triumph, to raw sexuality, to happy flat picking.
All these sounds were coaxed from its vibrating strings via a variety of techniques. The guitar could be nimbly finger-picked or fully strummed, creating patterns and rhythms never heard before. You could slap its hollow box for percussive effect. You could slide a knife blade or glass bottle across the strings to create long curved notes or shimmering vibratos.
Other techniques evolved after electrification. I’m imagining Eddie Van Halen harmonically finger-tapping, and Jimi Hendrix lighting his Stratocaster on fire, performing whammy-bar dive bombs through an overdriven Marshall amp.
The guitar was first electrified for the jazz field in the early 1930’s, so the instrument could compete with the collective volume of a 17-piece horn band. But these hollow body guitars had feedback problems when electrically amplified. This inspired Les Paul to create “the log” in 1945, his prototype solid-body electric guitar with its sawed off soundbox wings glued back on.
A year later, Leo Fender created his first electric solid-body, a lap steel guitar. Leo expanded his vision, creating his solid-body Esquire sixstring in 1950, which became the Broadcaster and then the Telecaster, unchanged in basic design to this day.
Les Paul was doing something similar over at Gibson Guitars, creating the first prototypes of his namesake solid body guitar in 1950. The first production Les Paul emerged from Gibson in 1952, and the first Stratocaster over at Fender in 1954...again, both basically unchanged designs to this day.
The explosive development of the solid body guitar in the the middle of the 20th century was accompanied by its necessary mate, the vacuum tube amplifier. This is particularly important at Fender.
This immense creativity in guitar/amp technology was matched musically through all the playing styles that emerged in jazz, western swing, blues, rhythm & blues, country, rockabilly, rock & roll, and funk, all variations on or derivatives of that simple guitar-based art form. Horns and keyboards are also quite important, but the guitar is prevalent in all the styles mentioned and dominant in many.
I noted that the Telecaster, Stratocaster, and Les Paul are designs that have endured basically unchanged for sixty years. This speaks to their timeless aesthetics (cool shapes), manipulability (fretboard fingering), and incredible tone (they just sound awesome). This brings up the next point: Leo Fender designed his amplifers to bring out the natural tones of his guitars which have incredible range and color without any outboard signal processing.
For example, slowly strum the individual six notes of a low E chord on a basic Tele or a Strat through a Tweed Bassman or Blackface Deluxe Reverb Amp at Volume 4 or 5 and listen to that color pallet. It should generate a goose bump or two. You will hear and feel something similar with a vintage Les Paul, whose tones are different. Fender amps are great, and vintage Marshall and Vox amps from England also bring some sweet tones to the show.
Of course, the accidental discovery of harmonic distortion and natural sustain (overdriven guitar signal warmth and crunch) that occurred when a vacuum tube amp was driven beyond capacity, inspired a novel method of attacking the vibrating string, thereby creating a whole new genre of music that eventually became known as heavy metal.
I could go on forever about the power of the vibrating string in American Roots music, but will just say I feel quite lucky to have been born mid-century (I’m a ’55 model). It was a fertile time when American guitar was ascending to a musical peak. This ascent began in the culture dish of the late 1940’s, was vigoroursly simmering by the late 1950's, had reached a rolling boil by the mid-1960's, and continued on through the mid-1970’s . This era is so thick with innovation and creativity that it is easy to see how Billy Gibbons was right. And we all owe enormous respect and thanks to the American slaves, without whom Roots music would not exist.
Here is a link to my 2009 cover of a great American Roots tune written by a black and and white guy together (Steve Cropper and Don Covay from the Stax label), that Aretha Franklin made a hit in the mid-sixties: See Saw
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I like what I saw, I like what I heard!
ReplyDeleteGood stuff and I look forward to your post on women and cars.....lee
ReplyDeleteYes, cars and women...straight up backbone. Wasn't it Bonnie Raitt who said "I dont' want a man to rock me like my back ain't got no bone...I want a man to rock me like my backbone was his own."
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