Les Paul and the Birth of Solid Body Electric Guitars
By Bryan Hillebrandt
It’s hard to adequately approximate the effect that the birth of the solid body electric guitar has had on popular music. This innovation, born of a few players’ desire for new sound possibilities, is the main catalyst that made possible everything from the lyrical solos of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour to the driving metal assault of Slayer, from Jimi’s wailing solos to the chicken pickin twang of James Burton. And if we look at the pioneers of the solid body electric–those who were responisble for its development–one name is inextricably linked: Les Paul.
The first electric guitars were nothing more than acoustic arch-top guitars with pickups on them. Popular with jazz players, these guitars would feed back if turned up too loud. Playing at lower volume was fine if you were playing a small club, but if you wanted to play larger venues—and be able to make more money per gig—you wouldn’t be able to turn your guitar up loud enough to be heard in the back of the room. Another problem was acoustic guitars rely on string vibration for volume. This decreases sustain, that is, the length of time that a note sounds.
These are the problems that Les Paul and others faced. The original Rickenbacker “Frying Pan” lap steel was built to deal with these same issues. And while the solution for the Rickenbacker was to cast the guitar in solid aluminum, Les Paul decided to stick with wood. Taking a 4×4 piece of railroad tie, Paul made what is now called “The Log.” He is famous for having said that you could pluck a note on it, go out to lunch, come back and the note would still be sounding.
Apparently audiences didn’t much like watching a guy play a piece of wood with strings on it. So Paul took an Epiphone archtop, sawed it down the middle and mounted the two halves on either side of the log. This made the instrument far more recognizable as a guitar and, one would imagine, a little more comfortable to play.
In the early fifties, Gibson Guitar Company produced a solid-body electric guitar based on suggestions that Paul had given. This guitar received his endorsement and became the guitar to bear his name. The Les Paul model has seen many changes since that time. When sales declined, Gibson redesigned the Les Paul (without Paul’s endorsement) into a thinner, double cutaway guitar. Paul didn’t want his name associated with it and it thereafter became known as the SG (get it, Solid Guitar?).
When the original Les Pauls gained more popularity due to being seen in the hands of several rock luminaries, Gibson started making them again, with the blessing of Les Paul, and it has been a consistent seller since then. It is an instantly recognizable shape that shows up in popular culture and art and seems to be a visual signifier linked forever to Rock and Roll.
So next time you pick up your Les Paul, whether it be a 52 Goldtop or a budget knockoff version you bought at a yard sale, be grateful for the guy whose name is on your guitar. Then turn it up, that’s what he made it for.
The Gibson EDS-1275 Double Neck
by Bryan Hillebrandt
Perhaps few guitars adequately express the true spirit of classic rock excess like the Gibson EDS-1275 double neck. During the 1970s, you could find an EDS-1275 in the hands of many legendary guitar players—most notably, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. Played on some of the most enduring classic rock opuses, this huge slab o’ guitar stands with many other signifiers of arena rock icons: the gong, the flash pots, and the Jack Daniels bottle filled with harmless iced tea.
The first double neck Gibsons were produced in 1958 and were actually similar to the Gibson ES-175 model which was popular with jazz guitarists. These guitars, like the ES-175s were actually hollow body guitars with both six string and twelve string necks and dual cutaways. In 1962 the EDS-1275 became a solid-body guitar resembling the Gibson SG. This is the model that Page and others brought into the spotlight.
The EDS-1275’s body is made of a solid block of mahogany and its necks are made of maple with rosewood fretboards. The 12-string neck is on top. There is a three-way selector switch to switch between the two necks. Interestingly, this makes it possible to set the guitar to have both guitars on at the same time. John McLaughlin, the guitarist who played on Miles Davis’ groundbreaking Bitches Brew album, used an EDS-1275 and has said that he would leave both necks on to take advantage of the sympathetic vibrations and overtones that the unused guitar would pick up. The guitar also has two volume and two tone controls. The pickups are traditionally the 490R Alnico humbuckers.
The EDS-1275 is perhaps most closely linked to Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Scenes of him wielding his 1275 in The Song Remains the Same are some of the most exciting classic rock moments captured on film. The story goes that he started playing the double neck guitar due to necessity. When the band were working out how to perform Stairway to Heaven in concert, Page needed a way to play both the quiet beginning part (the part played on acoustic in the studio recording) and the searing solo and ending. He decided that the 12 string part of the guitar would allow him to do the beginning and then allow him to switch seamlessly to the 6 string for the blistering ending.
Of course Page is not the only rock god to strap one of these beasts on. The Eagles have used them, most notably on Hotel California where Don Felder played a white 1275 during the famous duet solo with Joe Walsh. Other notable 1275 wielders are Alex Lifeson of Rush and Steve Howe of Yes. (Of course, we should mention that Slash has played one as well, but he came later and I think we can all agree that he probably only used one because all of his heroes did.)
So what are your options if you want to go double neck? Well, you can shell out a ton of cash for a vintage one or you can spend the same and buy a new one (the Gibson custom shop still makes a limited amount of these every year). If you don’t want to drop a ton of coin on a real Gibson, you can of course get a brand new Epiphone copy of the EDS-1275 at a fraction of the price. Of course, if you’re looking for an even more recession friendly option, there are about a million knock off models at bargain prices. I can’t personally speak to the quality of these guitars, but more often than not, you get what you pay for.
And if you’re hell bent on being as excessive as the most excessive classic rock acts, you may just have to go all out and get one of these slabs to go with your gong. (Remember what I said about the iced tea in the whiskey bottle though, that’ll get you into a lot of trouble.)
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Hello Guitar Players!There’s a lot of great stuff to tell you about this week, but let’s start off with the winner of this month’s Sweetwater Giveaway. The winner of the Ebow electronic bow is, drum roll please, MiahMinister! Congratulations MiahMinister and thanks again to Sweetwater for making our monthly giveaway possible.Next month we’ll be giving away a Digitech HarmonyMan intelligent pitch shifter. It’s super easy to sign up for the Sweetwater giveaway so watch this space next week for more details.We’re also working on a special promo right now and while we can’t let you in on what it is just yet, we should be able to tell you about next week. Watch this space for more next week.We’ve got two new tutorials that we’d like to tell you about. Ben Lindholm has got a great tutorial on diatonic intervals. This is a great tutorial for beginners. It introduces several key terms and concepts that you’ll use as you continue to learn more. You can find Ben’s tutorial here.For you more advanced players, Hanspeter Kruesi has an excellent new tutorial on advanced rock improvisation concepts. The seven lessons will give you a good basis to get into creative improvisation work in a very easy way. If you’ve already worked through Hanspeter’s basic and advanced rock licks and have mastered his basic improvisation lessons, this is the next step. The tutorial will get you to the point where you can start to be creative with the minor pentatonic scale over the entire fretboard. Click here to start the tutorial.As always, thanks for reading and keep on pickin.
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The Rickenbacker Frying Pan
by Bryan Hillebrandt
It’s hard to imagine, when looking at the range of electric guitars available, that everything from the most fancy boutique custom guitar to the mass-produced Les Paul and Strat knockoffs owe their very existence to a small cast aluminum lap-steel guitar known as the Rickenbacker Frying Pan. This instrument, besmirched now with the patina of aged aluminum, was the first solid body electric guitar. It stands now as the beginning of a new epoch that made possible everything from Bo Diddley to the metal insanity of Yngwie Malmsteen and all points in between and beyond.
The Frying Pan came into existence to fill a need. In the 1920s and 1930s Hawaiian music was enjoying considerable popularity in the US. The lead instrument in Hawaiian music was an acoustic guitar that was played much in the style of modern dobros, on one’s lap, with a steel (a bar of metal that works in the same way as a bottleneck or slide that blues players use).
The increased popularity of Hawaiian music created the opportunity to sell out larger venues. The only problem was that the acoustic instruments weren’t loud enough to be heard by the larger audiences.
George D. Beauchamp was a Hawaiian music enthusiast and musician. In an effort to amplify his acoustic guitar he mounted a magnetic pickup to the top of his guitar. While it did amplify the signal, it also produced copious amounts of feedback as a result of the guitar’s sympathetic vibration.
He resolved to deal with this problem by building a solid-body instrument. Beauchamp enlisted the help of a machinist by the name of Adolph Rickenbacker who Beauchamp had worked with while developing Dobro resonator guitars. Rickenbacker and Beauchamp together designed the guitar that came to be known as the Frying Pan.
The body and neck of the Frying Pan were cast of one piece of solid aluminum. The pickup consisted of two rather large horseshoe magnets wrapped with wire. These magnets surrounded the six strings and each string had a small iron pole piece to increase the pickup’s sensitivity. This was still a lap steel guitar, not meant to be held and played in the “Spanish style” like most modern guitars.
While the Frying Pan was only made between 1932 and 1939, its creation was one of the most catalyzing events in 20th century popular music. Other guitars which took advantage of the Frying Pad’s innovations were soon on the market. These guitars have shaped the sound of much of the popular music that has come after the Frying Pan’s creation.
So the next time you’re playing your electric guitar, whether that be a mint condition Fender Broadcaster or a $30 beater you found in a thrift store, take a moment to consider how we went from a lowly aluminum lap steel made for playing Hawaiian music to the axe you have in your hands now.
