The electric guitar spawned garage bands, rock-god dreams — and generations of popular music
Jun 5, 2026, 10:54 AM
A miniature electric guitar in Phoenix, Saturday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)
Credit: AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills
(AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)
ATLANTA (AP) — What is more American than taking a musical instrument with ancient roots and zapping it with electricity? That new creation, the electric guitar, has launched the dreams of millions of teenagers.
It turned garages into impromptu rehearsal spaces for would-be rock stars across the American suburbs. For those who couldn’t play, couldn’t try to play or couldn’t get some friends with instruments together, there was always the air guitar. (Does anyone ever play an acoustic air guitar?)
Nearly 100 years ago, Americans’ love of tinkering, music and just making things louder combined when George Beauchamp created and Adolph Rickenbacker produced the first commercially successful electric guitar. That was “the Frying Pan.”
The tinkering continued. Musician and inventor Les Paul put strings and pickups on a block of wood called “the Log” and made it one of the first solid body electric guitars. And now we’re talking.
Imagine the intro to Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” without the electric guitar. Would that song about a guitar player even exist? It’s the engine powering Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” It spawned the ax man, the guitar god and the apotheosis of look-at-me American exceptionalism, the guitar solo.
It’s in your face and loud. It goes to 11, after all.
It was so provocative that many felt deep betrayal when Bob Dylan plugged in.
It became so ubiquitous, so essential to rock and pop music, that MTV created its successful “Unplugged” franchise, where bands were forced to play nonelectric instruments as an acoustic counterprogramming novelty.
And like all the best American inventions, it was exported around the world, where it still has the power to make kids dream. As long as they have somewhere to plug in.
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Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.
