50 GUITARS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
There’s a good story told about Chet Atkins. One day, someone who had stopped to listen to him play said, “Man, that guitar sure sounds good!” According to the tale, Chet put the guitar down on a chair then said to its admirer: “How good does it sound now?” His point, of course, is that guitars are just lumps of metal and wood until a player brings them to life. As enjoyable as it is to pore over the technical evolution of famous guitar models – and we do plenty of that – instruments can’t be truly historic until they are used to make influential music. Pioneering musicians, in their turn, set the agenda for the next generation of instrument design – and so the wheel of history turns.
In that sense, the player and the instrument itself are forever entangled, indivisible. That’s why, when we decided to explore which guitars have had the most impact on history, we realised it must include not just classic models (though sometimes it is enough to simply invent something first to make history), but also identify specific iconic instruments that represented a fleeting moment when the world stopped to listen to a new sound and, in so doing, was changed forever. For example, it’s hard to imagine Peggy Sue without Buddy Holly’s ’55 Strat. By the same token, the Strat itself might never have become an icon of rock ’n’ roll without Buddy Holly.
The following pages therefore represent an attempt to trace the most crucial pairings of artist and instrument, each of which tilted history on its axis just a little and set music rolling down a new path. They also contain lesser-known contributions to the evolution of the instrument that were made by guitar designs that, without setting the world alight, nonetheless changed our perception of what the guitar could and should be.
Our guide in this endeavour is celebrated guitar historian Tony Bacon who compiled the following list of 50 extraordinary instruments that mark a watershed in the history of the instrument, both musically and technically. We hope you gain fresh insight into the evolution of guitar as you join us on the journey.
1 C.1590 UNKNOWN MAKER FIVE-COURSE GUITAR
This very early guitar is a rare survivor, thanks partly to its prized workmanship. It has five courses, a format that developed around the mid-16th century from the earlier ‘treble’ four-course instrument. A course can be a single, double (as here), or even triple string. Inevitably, this guitar has been restored: as such, the top has been replaced and the neck rebuilt and cut down, although a beautiful central ‘rose’ in the soundhole is original.
2 C.1804 PAGÉS SIX-COURSE GUITAR
Around the end of the 18th century, makers began to move from five to
