What was the first solid body electric guitar and who made it?!
Question: I've gotten conflicting answers from local acquaintances who tell me, variously it was the Gibson Les Paul, The Fender Telecaster and something called the Fender "Broadcaster" which I have never heard of.
What say you?
Answers: I've gotten conflicting answers from local acquaintances who tell me, variously it was the Gibson Les Paul, The Fender Telecaster and something called the Fender "Broadcaster" which I have never heard of.
What say you?
None of the above.
The first commercially successful one was the Fender Esquire, which was briefly sold in one and two pickup versions and without a truss rod. It was then improved with a thicker body and a truss rod in the neck and reintroduced as the Fender Broadcaster, until the Gretsch company complained because they sold a line of drums called Broadkaster. Then Fender took the name entirely off the Broadcaster for awhile and eventually settled on the name Telecaster.
The Esquire eventually came back but solely as a single pickup version of the Telecaster.
Fenders offerings were preceded by experimental solid bodies made by Paul Bigsby, which included the six on a side tuner arrangement, but they never went anywhere commercially.