Accidents account for many of the great sounds on early rock records. The grunge of Willie Kizart's guitar on "Rocket 88" came from the damage of a speaker that either fell off a car's roof or got left out in the rain, depending on who's telling the story. There was purposeful damage, too, like the holes Link Wray pierced in his speakers to get the crunch of "Rumble," causing a sound so bad-ass that it's probably the only instrumental banned by U.S. radio stations. Years later, Dave Davies of the Kinks would visit similar violence upon his guitar speakers for "You Really Got Me."

The fuzz produced by Grady Martin's bass on "Don't Worry" was also happenstance, but it earns a place in the annals of distortion because its makers captured what would otherwise have been a fluke. Recording engineer Glenn T. Snoddy tells Gary Gottlieb in his book "How Does It Sound Now?" that he figured out the faulty circuit so he could recreate "this awful sound" for other musicians. His master stroke, though, was replicating the sound with what would be the first commercially available fuzzbox. The Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone allowed guitarists to change their tone from clean to dirty with a tap of the foot, thanks to a rather simple circuit of three transistors and some capacitors and resistors. Initial sales lagged (due, perhaps, to marketing; ads promised that it would make guitars sound like saxophones and orchestra strings). But when the Rolling Stones used it on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," everyone wanted fuzz. (Other early, though less influential, adopters were the writers of the "Green Acres" theme song.)

The Fuzz-Tone stompbox also spawned the avid community of guitar effects aficionados. Their reverence for the Tone Bender, the Big Muff and the TS-808 Tube Screamer have driven vintage pedals values skyward. The Honus Wagner of effects, the rarely sighted EMS Synthi-Hi Fli, can fetch thousands of dollars on e-Bay. Like the shop talk of wine enthusiasts, discussions among distortion cognoscenti on nuances of tone can baffle outsiders. Some differences are obvious, but many aren't. Debate rages over whether the JRC4558 op amp chip in overdrive pedals is truly superior. Similar arguments erupt over whether fuzz sounds better with transistors made of silicon or the much rarer germanium. Tom Hughes, author of "Analog Man's Guide to Vintage Effects" uses those two elements (14th and 32nd on the periodic table, respectively) as the dividing line of Jimi Hendrix's career.

"Early Hendrix, that was a germanium Fuzz Face, right up to "Are You Experienced?,'" he says. "When he got to the Band of Gypsies, that was silicon."

Guitar distortion is a triumph of the counterintuitive. Earlier in the 20th cenury, sonically adventurous folks like Luigi Russolo and John Cage spent years promoting the idea that noise in music was good, but it took Keef and a sharp-eared recording engineer to prove it.