An ambitious new book provides fascinating insights into the history of the instrument, diving into its place in society and pop culture

Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Style, Sound, & Revolution of the Electric Guitar is just that: a swooping, all-encompassing timeline of the instrument’s early days to its beyond-essential role in pop culture and music. Written by Brad Tolinski and Alan Di Perna, with a foreword by Carlos Santana, the book dives into the electric guitar’s place in our society, tracing its evolution in sound, style, look and purpose. Here are 10 things we learned from reading:

Leo Fender didn’t know how to play guitar. The inventor of the famous guitar brand, which includes the Telecaster and Stratocaster models (favored by Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix), never learned how to play his own instrument. Fender began as an accountant with a knack for repairing radios, later turning that hobby into a full-time electronics operation. The highly versatile Telecaster, which he developed in 1950, became the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar.

How the world plugged into the electric guitar Read more

The sounds of the electric guitar made it to outer space. In 1977, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched into space with remnants of international life and culture onboard. On each vessel was a gold-plated phonograph record with 115 sounds and images curated by a team led by astronomer Carl Sagan. Along with selections that included the likes of Bach and Beethoven, Sagan decided to throw in – however controversial it was at the time – Johnny B Goode by Chuck Berry, an American rock’n’roll anthem defined by its rollicking electric guitar lick.

George Delmetia Beauchamp is just as important as Leo Fender and Les Paul. His name may not ring a bell, but Beauchamp designed the first fully functional guitar pickup and secured a US patent for the electric guitar in 1937. The pickup, which converts string vibrations into amplifiable electrical signals, makes an electric guitar what it is; without one, there is no electric guitar. Beauchamp was also a founder of the popular Rickenbacker guitar brand alongside his friend and business partner Adolph Rickenbacker. Rickenbackers were often seen in use by both John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the era of the Beatles, also a go-to guitar for the classic rock sound of bands including the Who, the Eagles and Steppenwolf.

How the electric guitar I threw away 20 years ago found its way home Read more

Hawaii was key in the development of the electric guitar. There was a giant Hawaiian craze in the 1910s and 1920s, with a rise in popularity of the island’s sounds and culture (as often seen in movies and Broadway performances). Integral to Hawaiian music is the Hawaiian-style steel guitar, which most of early electric guitar development modeled itself after.

The first electric guitar was made out of cast aluminum. Hitting the market in 1932, the A-25 was also called the “Frying Pan”.

People didn’t like the Les Paul Trio at first. With a thrice-weekly performance slot on NBC’s Fred Waring’s radio program, The Chesterfield Hour, listeners often wrote in to complain about the “strange and unpleasant sound of the newfangled electric guitar Les Paul was playing”. In the late 1930s, there were many demands to fire him; today, the Les Paul guitar brand is an essential part of pop culture, and Paul himself is both in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Eric Clapton was in a bad mood during the photoshoot for Blues Breakers. The 1966 Clapton/John Mayall collaboration sees Clapton on the album art reading a copy of UK comic book the Beano. He was so aghast and bored by the idea of a photoshoot that day that he refused to make eye contact with the photographer, therefore settling on staring at a comic instead. Nicknamed “The Beano Album”, it’s often considered to be one of the most important guitar recordings ever made.

The Beatles made the very first rock record with guitar feedback. 1964’s I Feel Fine has a sound that was accidentally discovered by the band and put to use on the single, thanks to their open-minded producer George Martin.

Pete Townshend turned his guitar into a machine gun. That was the actual sound he went after, slamming his guitars into speaker cabinets and toggling the pickup-selector switch violently. “To me the guitar was a symbol,” explained the Who’s lead guitarist. “It was a metaphor for a machine gun. And the only thing you could do with a machine gun in the 60s was break it across your legs. That’s what I did.” You can hear these specific sonic strategies on songs like My Generation and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere.

Jimi Hendrix’s first Stratocaster was one of Keith Richards’ guitars. The white instrument was given to him by Linda Keith, Richards’ girlfriend at the time. Hendrix had wanted one for years because it was played by two of his biggest idols, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush. Supposedly, it was given to Hendrix without Richards knowing.