The Electric Guitar: A History of an American Icon

by André Millard, Ed.
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2004
248 pp., illus. 12 b/w, 35 col. Trade, $45.00
ISBN: 0-8018-7862-4.

Review by John F. Barber
Schools of Arts and Humanities, The University of Texas at Dallas

jfbarber@eaze.net

The power of any icon lies in its immediate recognition. Elvis Presley, Mickey Mouse, Zippo lighters, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles are good examples. A better one, however, is the electric guitar. Powerful, shiny, complex, rebellious, and eminently desirable, the electric guitar speaks to changing mythological, political, artistic, cultural, and technological values.

Such values are the focus of The Electric Guitar: A History of an American Icon, edited by André Millard, director of American studies and a professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

What makes this collection of essays by writers with backgrounds in history, economics, music, and the social sciences unique, intriguing, and informative, is its amalgamation of diverse interdisciplinary, overlapping approaches that produce a primer that explores the terrain and points the reader in interesting directions.

For example, Charles McGovern, curator of the Division of Cultural History, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC, argues in Chapter 1, "The Music," that even as the electric guitar evolved from diverse social paths, styles, and influences, it united guitarists and audiences because to both it represented individualism and freedom to invent themselves.

In "Inventing the Electric Guitar," Millard, the editor and primary writer of many of the book's chapters, argues that the electric guitar sprang from the restless spirit of American ingenuity and ambition. As such, he says, the electric guitar was one of the by-products of the desire to make something from the technologies that emerged during World War II.

And James P. Kraft, Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, in his chapter entitled "Manufacturing," places the electric guitar within the growing literature on the nature and history of small business enterprise in America, showing that much of the technological innovations associated with the development of the electric guitar came from small, innovative firms. Their success made guitar music more popular and mass production of guitars more practical.

Such interdisciplinary approaches show that technology is sometimes the critical factor in cultural as well as economic development. Specifically, The Electric Guitar shows a strong relationship between electric guitar technology and changing American culture, specifically with regard to the major role the electric guitar played in the creation of rock and roll music, the most widely disseminated music of the 20th century. The electric guitar, as the solo instrument in rock music, became central to the recording industry, the site of cultural production and in Chapter 5, "Recording," Millard details the efforts of maverick musicians and recording engineers to search for and capture the unique sound expressions of the electric guitar. The result, according to Millard, was the evolution of the guitar from a barely audible rhythm instrument to a vessel, along with amplifiers and sound effects technology, through which any imaginable sound might be reproduced.

Millard builds on this idea in Chapter 6, "Playing with Power," where he says the literal connection between electricity and the electric guitar spoke to the modern, newfound powers of electronics technology and provided not only a cachet of youthful rebellion but an incentive for inventors and tinkerers alike as they strove to develop amplification and effects technology designed to foster the search for the sound and expression of the electric guitar.

Concurrent with the evolution of electric guitar technology there was the need for musicians with a willingness to experiment and lead the development of their instrument in new directions. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 deal with "The Guitar Hero," "Heavy Metal," and "Women Guitarists" respectively. Avoiding the familiar stories, Millard looks at well-known and lesser-known electric guitarists whose efforts to expand the repertoire of their instruments not only played a vital role in constructing the sound of the electric guitar, but also profoundly influenced the development of their instrument and its uses, across musical genres, ultimately impacting popular culture and American identity.

In conclusion, the emergence of a new genre of music–rock'n'roll–provide opportunities for electric guitar players, as well as inventors and manufacturers of amplification and special effects equipment, not to mention the fans who bought the commercial recordings, to participate in an iconic objectification of a technological artifact and its ability to create sounds that mirrored changing social and cultural contexts from the 1940s to present day. As a result, the electric guitar, its shape and electrical components, is a symbol of progress, modernity, and ascendance of technology. Instantly recognizable and constantly evocative, the electric guitar is iconic of America and its sound. The Electronic Guitar, as a celebration and exploration of this American icon, is like a well-played solo, neither esoteric nor overly raucous. It will appeal to scholars as well as enthusiasts.