by Carolyn Bednarski

Chuck Berry is the name at the top of the list when it comes to citing influential rock guitar players. After a meeting with Muddy Waters led to Berry being on the same Chicago-based blues label, Chess Records, he initially set out to record the blues. His first R-&-B single in 1955, however, was the first to make a big impact on white audiences. He was a pioneering lyricist and a guitarist whose style mixed rhythm and lead elements—a major influence on later rock musicians.

At this stage in the performance game, the amplifier was used with a loudspeaker—referred to as a “combo”, but as rock audiences and venues grew in the ‘60s, the level of sound a guitarist could produce once again became a problem for performers. A British engineer, Jim Marshall, stepped in producing a 100-watt amplifier connected to a cabinet containing four 12-inch (30.5cm) speakers. This set-up was referred to as the Marshall “stack”, and it replaced the “combo” much of the time. With the use of the new equipment, guitarists began to integrate two of the traditional nightmares into their playing style—distortion and feedback.

Throughout the ‘50s, the electric guitar became a symbol of the generation gap between the young and old, with the emergence of stars like Elvis Presley who was frequently backed by the legendary Eddie Cochran. By the end of the decade, players like Duane Eddy (Peter Gunn) in the U-S and Hank Marvin in the U-K, turned on a whole generation of potential guitarists by popularizing the electric guitar sound and making it more accessible by playing simple and catchy tunes. As the ‘60s rolled in, so did the popularity of British-based, white blues-influenced musicians. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Peter Green were among some of the exceptional players of the day. It was in 1967, however, that Jimi Hendrix, the greatest innovator of the solid-body electric guitar hit the scene. Through creative use of fuzz, distortion and pyrotechnics, Hendrix gave other guitarists a true glimpse of the potential of the electric guitar in the future of music. As Charlie Christian influenced future generations of guitarists at the end of the ‘30s, so did Hendrix at the close of the ‘60s.

While Fender and Gibson models are favored by many of today’s top guitarists across musical genres, other American manufacturers hold equal appeal amongst guitarists. Names such as Gretsch and Epiphone produced popular models into the ‘60s, while Kramer, Guild and Ovation hit the market in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and Jackson, Charvel and Paul Reed Smith throughout the past decade. European makers such as Selmer, Vox, Hoffner and Burns also hold their own place in guitar history. In recent years, Japanese guitar makers such as Yamaha, Tokai, Westone, Aria and Ibanez have created a great deal of competition for the American manufacturers, even to the point that American players such as Steve Vai and Joe Satriani promote their products.