In assessing popular music in the last half of the 20th century, rock music was a massive cultural phenomenon…initially driven by young baby boomers, rock grew bigger and stronger, starting in the middle 60s, eclipsing all other genres…and central to this conquest was the electric guitar…

That sound, with all its power and distortion and infinitely diverse tonalities, can still drive music fans into ecstasy,

For many, the electric guitar is a symbol of rebellion and liberation…it was a new vehicle for freedom of expression…and it opened the doors to new types of creativity…and it was because of the electric guitar that rock went global…

Its history is a complicated one involving musicians, inventors, tinkerers, happy accidents, big multinational companies and lone wolves…some names are well known while others, despite their contributions to the decades-long evolution of instrument, languish in obscurity, known only to guitar geeks and obsessives…

And while there have been many occasions where pundits have declared that rock (and by extension, the tools to make this music) is dead, the electric guitar has proven to be extremely adaptable and has (so far) been able to take on all comers, especially when placed in the hands of radicals and rule-breakers…

If a power chord played through a Marshall stack has ever given you chills, then you’re in the right place…this is the history of the electric guitar, part 3…

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