Electricity Meets Guitar
If you really want to explore the history of the guitar, that begs the question: how far back do you want to go? I lean towards going too far. Always. Should we go as far back as 500AD, when the first guitars (portable wooden stringed instruments with fretted necks and hollow bodies) appeared in artwork produced by the Hittites? Or should we travel back to 1311, when the coronation of Alfonso XI (the king of Castile, León, and Galicia) was celebrated by blasts of every instrument available at the time, including guitar? Should we make a stop in 1660, when the guitar was catapulted to the very summit of English society when the exiled King Charles II returned to England to take the throne, bringing with him a new wife and a love for the guitar imparted by the great Italian guitarist Francisco Corbetta?
We could. But then the name of this article is Electricity Meets Guitar. So let’s start with a man, a key and a kite.
THE RIGHT KEY
In June, blazing a trail that almost 200 years later would transform an ancient wooden box with strings into a culture-shaking instrument of change. He was unknowingly helping to electrify our guitars. I like to think he would be proud of what he helped accomplish – and I like to think he’d have enjoyed the 1980s.
