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Part IV: Sounding Like the Masters: Blues Styles through the Ages
In this chapter, you get to know some of the important blues players who’ve
made lasting contributions to the electrified form of blues guitar.
The Rise of the Electric Guitar in Blues
The electric guitar was invented for volume. Unamplified acoustic guitars
were hopelessly underpowered to compete with other instruments on the
bandstand. Putting a microphone in front of the guitar helped somewhat, but
it was awkward — a little clumsy (mic stands and wires everywhere) — and it
brought problems of feedback (the howling sound you hear when a mic is
brought too close to a speaker).
When pickups were developed, performing guitarists lept at the opportunity
to have at least a fighting chance to be louder. The new electrified sound
allowed guitars to take the spotlight as the featured instrument, and it
brought new forms of expression. Searing slide solos, sustained string bends,
and a more instrumentally virtuosic approach were the order of the day,
fueled by restless musicians anxious to infuse this previously rural sound
with urban postwar energy.
The ever-evolving electric body
Very soon after discovering the more sustained,
less banjo-like quality of the electronic or electric
guitar, guitarists realized that a guitar optimized
for acoustic performance actually worked
against its qualities as an electric. Big, open
bodies, which produced lots of acoustic punch
and thumping bass, were a liability in an electric
setting, because these larger, more resonant
sound chambers just caused feedback. Guitars
got thinner and thinner until the 1950s when
guitar makers realized you just didn’t need a resonating
chamber at all and came up with the allwood-filled
guitar — or solidbody. It had virtually
no acoustic sound, but it sure rocked the joint
when you plugged in! The electric solidbody,
which includes the Fender Stratocaster and
Gibson Les Paul, is the most popular electric
guitar model in the world today.
At first, early electric guitarists simply played
the way they always played when playing
acoustic and appreciated the benefits of not
having to play harder to play louder (instead
they just turned up the amp). But as techniques
developed, players began to understand that
the electric was an entirely different instrument
from the traditional acoustic, or “Spanish”
guitar. Musicians started adjusting their techniques
— and their whole approach to music —
accordingly to suit the new medium. With a
guitar that could hold its own with other principal
instruments on the bandstand, guitarists
now focused more on melodic and lead playing.
TEAM LinG