Guitars - Coiled and Re-Coiled

"As a matter of fact, I think Jimi Hendrix caused more Stratocasters to be sold than all the Fender salesmen put together." - Dale Hyatt, a Fender employee.

So what is it that makes a guitarist choose a certain guitar over another? To get to the bottom of this question, one needs to look closely into what makes one guitar, say a Fender, different from, say a Gibson. For the sake of this discussion I will limit myself to only electric guitars. Also, in this post, I'll be primarily looking at Fenders and Gibsons with maybe passing references to other guitars. So what exactly is an electric guitar? An electric guitar is a guitar which features electromagnets to pick up the string vibrations. These are sent to the amplifier to produce sound.

In 1936, Gibson introduced their first "electric Spanish" model, the ES-150. This model is generally recognised as the first succesful electric guitar. In 1952, Gibson launched a solid-bodied guitar designed in collaboration with the popular guiarist Les Paul. By the late 1950s, a series of innovatively designed guitars were available in the market. These guitars, like the Gibson Explorer and the Flying V featured the "humbucker" pick-ups. The "humbucker" pick-ups, to put it simply, feature, instead of a single electromagnet, two electromagnets with opposite coil-winding to eliminate the hum produced by the single-coil pickup. This gave the guitar a richer and smoother sound, instead of the metallic, "twangy" sound produced by the single-coil pick-up. The Les Paul (though originally with two single-coil pick-ups) guitars were at first offered in a variety of models such as the Standard, the Special, the Custom and the Junior. However, by 1961, the body design of the Les Paul had to be changed due to the high cost incurred in making the elaborate maple/mahogony body. The new body design came to be known as the Gibson SG. Both the Les Paul and the SG later became very popular with hard rock and heavy metal guitarists. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Slash of Guns 'n' Roses are known for their preference for a Les Paul Standard while Angus Young of AC/DC and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath are some of the better known SG players.

In the late 1930s, in California, a radio-repair shop owner, a certain Leo Fender, was gaining recognition as not only an expert radio and phonograph repairer but also as a maker of musical instrument amplifiers. In the early 1940s he formed a company named "K & F Manufacturing Corp." alongwith another local electronics enthusiast named Clayton Orr Kauffman to design, manufacture and sell electric instruments and amplifiers. By 1946, Kauffman and Fender had parted ways amicably, as Fender believed that manufacturing was was more profitable than repair. Kauffman was unconvinced. With the exit of Kauffman, Leo Fender renamed his company "Fender Electric Instrument Company". In 1947, Fender introduced the Broadcaster which would later evolve into the legendary Telecaster. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is one of the many guitarists who have remained faithful to the Telecaster over other years. In 1954, the Stratocaster was introduced. Instead of the two single-coil pickups featured in the Telecaster, the Stratocaster featured three single-coil pick-ups. It gave a better range of tones available, and became a favourite of all blues players.


The popularity of the Stratocaster can be attributed to its versatility. The original Stratocaster came with a three-way pickup selector which was labelled "rhythm", "normal", and "lead" (for the neck, middle and bridge pick-ups respectively) in the original manual. From the ingenuine, bluesy solos of Jimi Hendrix to the melodious licks of Mark Knopfler, it was all possible on the Fender Stratocaster. Today it has become the most copied style of electric guitars. The bone-simple Telecaster also remained in production, and both the Stratocaster and the Telecaster flourished into diverse families of guitars, with many variants. Each continues to enjoy its own following among guitarists.

So why does David Gilmour choose a Fender over a Les Paul again? Well, the basic difference lies in the very tone that one can get out of a Fender or a Gibson. While Fender has a classic metallic sound, which is ideal for playing the blues and blues-oriented rock, Gibson has a richer and warmer tone. This is due to the "humbucker" pick-ups used and the type of wood used for the body(Gibson uses a variety of woods but essentially mahogony).
Again, some guitarists like to use a certain guitar and mould it into a part of his image. The iconic white Stratocaster (strung upside down for left-handed use) used by Jimi Hendrix in Woodstock or the Gibson ES-335 used by B.B. King (which he named Lucille) became a part of rock history as much as the player himself. Others moved from one guitar to the other, searching the for the sound they wanted. Jimmy Page in the early recordings with Led Zeppelin used a Telecaster (e.g. in Stairway to Heaven). Later, he switched to the Gibson SG doubleneck (ED1275), which he made into a trademark for his live shows. Since 1970 he has used the 1959 Les Paul which he describes as his favourite. Pete Townshend of The Who used a Rickenbacker in his early days but was always seen with Gibson SGs and Les Pauls during the 1960s and 1970s. These days he's often seen with a modified Eric Clapton Stratocaster. The Beatles for their famous pre-sixties tours used a wide variety of guitars including Gretsch, Rickenbacker, Hofner, Gibson (but most notably, excluding Fenders). After 1965, when they moved to the studios exclusively, both Harrison and Lennon picked up Fenders. They varied their choice of guitars from song to song and shuttled between Gibsons, Fenders and Epiphones(used by Lennon).

The basis of the choice therefore seems to differ from guitarist to guitarist. While some make the guitar a part of their image, others like to change their guitars with the kind of sound they expect from the song. I guess, to sum it all up, it mostly depends on the range of music that the guitarist is aiming to create. For the Beatles, their range of sounds demand a greater variety of guitars while Hendrix's classic tone becomes the very identity of the player.