Meet the American who invented the electric guitar and inspired rock ‘n’ roll

Incendiary sounds taking pictures like fireworks off the strings of an electric guitar have outlined pop music round the world for 70 years.

Credit Adolph Rickenbacker (1887-1976) for this world-wide marvel of the airwaves. The Swiss-born entrepreneur invented the electric guitar in California alongside companion George Beauchamp in the midst of the Great Depression of the Nineteen Thirties. 

The highly effective new instrument inspired a uniquely American artwork type that grew to dominate international pop music tradition. 

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They known as it rock ‘n’ roll. 

Electric guitars “were affordable, they were loud and they were relatively easy to learn,” Nicholas Toth, a professor emeritus of anthropology and cognitive science at Indiana University — and a stringed instrument collector — instructed Fox News Digital in an interview.

“The electric guitar was a great social equalizer.”

Indiana University professor emeritus, co-chair of the Stone Age Institute, and instrument collector Nicholas Toth shows his circa-1934 Rickenbacker Frying Pan, the earliest electric guitar.  (Nicholas Toth)

The electric guitar produced extra than simply sound and energy. It gave musicians an outlet to specific each possible emotion — whereas additionally giving listeners the capability to really feel an artist’s pleasure, ache, elation or desperation seep into their very own souls.

Beatles guitarist George Harrison, when he was simply 25 years previous and caught up in ungodly fame and fortune, lamented the world’s love nonetheless to be realized “while my guitar gently weeps.”

A younger New Jersey musician struggled to seek out his voice in a Vietnam War-torn America. Then “I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk,” Bruce Springsteen boasted to tortured love curiosity Mary on “Thunder Road.”

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“Just one guitar, slung way down low/Was a one-way ticket, only one way to go,” raved the fist-pumping British-American act Foreigner in “Juke Box Hero” — reflecting the numerous goals of stardom inspired by six strings and an amplifier. 

The earliest mannequin electric guitar was dubbed the Rickenbacker Frying Pan. It resembled a spherical cast-iron pan with an extended deal with. In this case, nevertheless, it had a neck of metal guitar strings. 

Toth and his spouse, Dr. Kathy Schick, additionally an Indiana University professor emeritus, personal certainly one of the earliest-known fashions of the devices, a circa-1934 mannequin Frying Pan with the identify spelled “Richenbacher.”

“The electric guitar was a great social equalizer.” 

The inventor modified his identify later in the Nineteen Thirties amid rising anti-German sentiment earlier than World War II. His cousin Eddie Rickenbacker, America’s best flying ace of World War I, had modified his identify years earlier. 

The slick entrepreneur appeared to capitalize on his war-hero cousin’s nationwide reputation, some rock specialists have argued, noting that the inventor stored the identify Rickenbacher in private use. 

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The Rickenbacker Frying Pan shortly proved a industrial success whereas inspiring waves of imitators, improvements and enhancements. 

The slick entrepreneur appeared to capitalize on his war-hero cousin’s nationwide reputation, some rock specialists have argued, noting that the inventor stored the identify Rickenbacher in private use. 

Ted Nugent, proven acting at a live performance at the House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2007, spoke of the intense energy that comes from enjoying an electric guitar on stage. (Reuters)

The Rickenbacker Frying Pan shortly proved a industrial success whereas inspiring waves of imitators, improvements and enhancements. 

Designers equivalent to Les Paul, Leo Fender and Roger Rossmeisl all constructed upon the expertise pioneered by the Rickenbacker Frying Pan — in the end empowering a uncooked, energetic and, at first, uniquely American fashion of music. 

“The guitar remains the primary sonic sexual and sensual stimuli for excitable people everywhere,” rock star Ted Nugent instructed Fox News Digital, whereas describing the intense energy that comes from wielding an electric guitar in entrance of a reside viewers.

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“If ever there was an expertise obtainable to mankind that qualifies as ‘out-of-body,’ it would be sharing, mining, milking, exploring and collaborating musical guitar-fire with people that love it as much as I do,” he also said.

Overcoming tough odds

Adolf Adam Richenbacher was born on April 1, 1887, at 7 Gemsberg St. in Basel, Switzerland. He overcame great personal challenges on his way to reshaping global pop culture.

His father, Adolf Sr., “ran a small business as a cabinetmaker and model-builder,” wrote Swiss journalist Baenz Friedli in a biography of the inventor at Rickenbacker.com. The guitar company still bears his Americanized name today. 

“While the economic gloom of the 1870s had lifted, the rich had fled the inner city for the suburbs, leaving the narrow, crowded old town to the have-nots.”

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Amid restricted prospects as lower-class residents of Europe, the household, together with Adolf’s oldest sister Emma and new child brother Robert, left for the United States by way of the French port of Le Havre in 1891. 

Rickenbacker’s father misplaced each legs in a practice accident “and began to drink away his pain and grief.”

They arrived every week later at Castle Garden, the pre-Ellis Island immigration middle at the southern tip of Manhattan, earlier than settling in Columbus, Ohio. 

Rickenbacher as a younger boy discovered life no simpler in the U.S. His mom Elisabeth died shortly after their arrival, in accordance with the firm biography. His dad misplaced each legs in a practice accident “and began to drink away his pain and grief.”

Detail of the headstock on a classic 1967 Rickenbacker 366-12 Convertible electric guitar with a Fireglo end, taken on September 29, 2017.  (Photo by Joseph Branston/Guitarist Magazine/Future by way of Getty Images)

Journalist Friedli described a harrowing childhood after the crippled and alcoholic elder Rickenbacher deserted his personal youngsters. 

“Emma rescued her younger brothers from an icy death when she found them, covered with snow, asleep in a doorway,” Friedli wrote. “With her rudimentary English, and barely out of childhood herself, she found work as a maid with a wealthy family in the southern end of town, and got permission to lodge Adolf Junior and Robert in her room as well. For seven years Emma raised them there.”

The know-how and the funding

Rickenbacher ultimately married Charlotte (“Lottie”) Kammerer, a first-generation German-American whose household had grown rich in the Pennsylvania oil enterprise. He modified his first identify to Adolph. 

The earliest fashions of the Rickenbacker Frying Pan, the first electric guitar, have been labeled Richenbacher earlier than inventor Adolph Rickenbacker Americanized his identify. (Nicholas Toth)

Around 1918, they moved to Los Angeles, the place Rickenbacker put his mind to make use of, constructing a producing firm that supplied metallic elements for numerous industries. 

One of its purchasers was the National String Instrument Co. — whose co-founder George Beauchamp was pissed off in his efforts to affect guitars. 

The two males filed the patent for the “electrical stringed musical instrument” in 1934 and acquired it in 1937.

Rickenbacker supplied the instruments, know-how and capital and manufactured the new guitars. Beauchamp was the tinkerer, together with others. Together they created an instrument with electromagnetic pick-up that turned the vibration of strings into electric pulses, which could possibly be dramatically amplified in methods different guitars couldn’t. 

The electric guitar was born. 

Electrical engineer Adolph Rickenbacker and companion George Beauchamp invented the first mass-market electric guitar in the Nineteen Thirties.  (Public Domain)

The two males filed the patent for the “electrical stringed musical instrument” in 1934 and acquired it in 1937.

The earliest electric guitars have been largely common amongst Hawaiian musicians, mentioned Toth.

The nation at the time was in the midst of an obsession with Hawaiian tradition — the similar craze that fueled, round the similar time, the rise of Hawaiian tiki cocktail tradition from the likes of Trader Vic or Don the Beachcomber. 

American invention embraced by British

American youngsters from all walks of life quickly grew to become conscious of the energy and potential of the electric guitar that supplied the soundtrack to Hawaiian seaside vibes.  

These have been principally youngsters crammed with uncooked vitality and an intense curiosity in new musical tastes. They’d been weaned on a dynamic American stringed-music tradition of blues, jazz, bluegrass and different influences — and they have been buoyed by the intense financial success of victorious post-World War II America. 

Chuck Berry performs throughout a live performance celebration for his sixtieth birthday at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Mo., on Oct. 17, 1986. The live performance was filmed for a movement image documentary, “Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll.”  (AP Photo/James A. Finley)

“Innovative artists in the 1940s and 1950s like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Les Paul, Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry revolutionized [the electric guitar] and ultimately made it become the primary instrument of rock ‘n’ roll throughout the 1960s and beyond,” Andy Leach, senior director of museum and archival collections at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, instructed Fox News Digital.

The electric guitar proved the excellent instrument for an egalitarian society of various cultures and influences.

When The Beatles got here to America, it was like seeing a brand new coloration for the first time.

“I find it very appealing, as an American, that you didn’t need money, prestige or the right background to be a successful musician,” mentioned Toth of Indiana University. “The electric guitar was affordable to most people.”

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Americans invented rock ‘n’ roll. But the British added a certain flair. 

Young English kids such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page — among a long list of other British musicians — grew mesmerized in the 1950s and 1960s by the pulsating electric guitar sounds emanating across the ocean. 

John Lennon played his prized 1958 Rickenbacker 325 when The Beatles appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on Sunday, Feb. 9, 1964, from CBS’s Studio 50 in New York City. “Rickenbacker” can be seen across the neck stock of Lennon’s guitar.  (CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)

The Beatles counted American rockers Berry, Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley among their greatest influences. 

The Fab Four then made American music better and more popular than ever, as the global phenomenon of Beatlemania proved in the 1960s.

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“When the Beatles came to America, it was like seeing a new color for the first time,” a devotee of the band once said. 

That brilliant new color was painted with Rickenbacker’s electric guitar. 

John Lennon strummed his prized 1958 Rickenbacker 325 when he harmonized “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah” for the first time in America on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in early 1964.

The Beatles — from left, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr — acting on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964.  (Circa Images/GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group by way of Getty Images)

The phrase “Rickenbacker” was emblazoned throughout the head inventory of Lennon’s guitar that evening. 

He was reportedly given a brand new 1964 Rickenbacker 325 only a few days later — and performed the new mannequin when The Beatles returned to “The Ed Sullivan Show” that very same February. 

Embodiment of the American Dream

After a battle with most cancers, Rickenbacker died on March 21, 1976, in Fullerton, Calif. He was 89 years previous.

He died with a superb reward. He had lived to see his invention, the electric guitar, develop into a robust drive in popular culture. 

Pete Townshend of The Who performing his guitar windmill on stage. Townshend performed a Les Paul right here however was inspired to play Rickenbacker guitars after John Lennon popularized the mannequin on American TV.  (Graham Wiltshire/Redferns)

The reputation of Rickenbacker guitars, plus Adolph Rickenbacker’s affiliation with rock ‘n’ roll lore, skyrocketed in the quick aftermath of The Beatles’ arrival in the U.S.

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“[Roger] McGuinn bought a Rickenbacker 360/12 after seeing the movie ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and literally made the bell-like quality of its tone the foundation of the Byrds’ early style,” in accordance with the Rickenbacker’s firm historical past. 

He reportedly handed out enterprise playing cards that learn “Adolph Rickenbacher, Father of the Electric Guitar.”

“The Who’s Peter Townshend, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty, Steppenwolf’s John Kay and many other well-known 1960s guitarists became faithful Rickenbacker users,” the similar supply mentioned.

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“What had been a six-week waiting period from the factory for some models became a six-month (or longer) waiting period in the mid-1960s.” 

Rickenbacker flaunted his position in shaping music historical past. He reportedly handed out enterprise playing cards that learn “Adolph Rickenbacher, Father of the Electric Guitar.”

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“Rickenbacher was the embodiment of the American dream,” wrote Friedli, the Swiss biographer. 

“He had come [to the U.S.] in 1891 as a poor kid, and he died a wealthy man.”

To learn extra tales on this distinctive “Meet the American Who…” collection from Fox News Digital, click here.