THE STRATHMORE

GUITAR FESTIVAL

2010–2011 SEASON

THE GUITAR FESTIVAL IS SPONSORED IN PART BY

2

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GUITARBYTOMCOLE

Tom Cole is an editor at NPR and, for the past 33 years,

has hosted a weekly stringed instrument program called

“G-Strings,” for WPFW, 89.3 FM, in Washington.

Strathmore takes a season-long look at the most influential

musical instrument of the 20th century—along with its

cousins: the lute, Chinese pipa and mandolin. Strathmore’s

season-long Guitar Festival welcomes classical, jazz,

rock and experimental guitarists from across the

country and around the world. The Strathmore

Guitar Festival is produced by Shelley Brown

and Georgina Javor of Strathmore.

1

IntroductionThe guitar is not a formal instrument—that’s why we love it and why it is one of the most popular

musical instruments in the world. You can cradle it in your

arms. There are no intermediary keys between you and the

sound, as there are with pianos or most woodwinds; no

bows to balance just so—just fingers touching strings. It’s

easy to get a pleasant sound out of a guitar, yet it’s really

hard to play well. You can play just about anything on

it—as this series illustrates—from the deepest folk music

to the most intricate classical pieces and jazz to Balinese

court-inspired music to country and western to loud rock.

The instrument itself is accessible and so seems to open

itself to all music. Yet as popular as the guitar is, it is also

something of a mystery. For no one really knows where

or when the guitar—in a form we might recognize as a

guitar—originated.

OriginsWhile the guitar today can be found in virtually every

corner of the world, it seems to have been born in Spain.

We say “seems” because scholars are simply not sure.

Is the guitar a distant relative of the Ancient Greek

kithara—as the name similarity might imply? Images of

an instrument with a guitar-shaped body can be seen in

Central Asian carvings that date back to the 4th and 3rd

centuries BCE. Actual instruments—with small guitar-

shaped bodies and long necks meant to support four

strings—survive from 3rd and 4th century CE Egypt.

Was some form of the guitar indigenous to Europe? Or

was it—or its ancestor(s)—imported? There were certainly

plucked string instruments in Renaissance Europe: citoles,

citterns, gitterns. And there were various lutes all over

the world by this time—both bowed and plucked. One

possible theory carries us back to Medieval times: that the

guitar evolved from the vihuela, which evolved from the

lute, which evolved from the oud—which was brought

to Spain by the conquering Moors. All of these early

instruments can share a somewhat similar tuning. And

interestingly, for such a populist instrument, the guitar and

its antecedents had a remarkable history of dissemination

through conquest and imperialism. It seems they could be

carried as easily as a sword.

2

Lutes, Vihuelas, Early Guitars and a “Course” in TerminologyThe term lute applies to many, varied instruments dating

back centuries. The earliest examples had long and short

necks, often round with no frets (the ridges traversing the

neck of a modern guitar, for example, where the strings

are pressed down to create different notes), carrying two

strings. The bodies could be made of hollowed out gourds

or animal shells. They could be bowed or plucked. The

European lute, as we’ve said, is directly descended from

the Arabic oud (or ud—the word “lute” derives from the

Arabic, al-ud). Both have pear-shaped bodies, round backs

and anywhere from four to six “courses” of strings.

A “course” is the run of a string, or strings, from the

head at the top of the neck to the bridge on the table

(the flat part on top of the body of a stringed instrument

that resonates with the vibration of the strings to produce

sound). Think of the guitar most of us know: the standard

six-string guitar. It has six “courses” of single strings.

Now think of the 12-string guitar—the one folk and

blues musicians sometimes play. It too has six courses of

strings—but the strings are doubled: two strings running

down the neck close together, side by side, in six pairings...

or “courses.”

The European lute, the oud and the vihuela were strung

like a 12-string—often with the lower (bass) strings

doubled and the highest (treble) string in a single course.

The vihuela superceded the lute in Spain. Its body was

shaped like a guitar, only larger. Sometimes it had a flat

back; sometimes a round back, like a lute. It had six or

seven courses of strings. Some vihuelas were bowed; some

were plucked—by the 15th century the latter instrument

was called vihuela de mano.

And this, finally, leads us to the four-course Renaissance

guitar—the first instrument to really bear the name

“guitar.” It’s four courses of strings usually had the

lower three doubled and the treble as a single string. It

became more sophisticated by the 16th century and, most

importantly, the subject of literature that gives us some

actual description and documentation. It was smaller than

the guitar we know today and it often had an ornate

rosette in the center sound hole—like a lute. Its frets

were animal gut tied around the neck. It was tuned in a

variety of ways to suit both the specific instrument and the

kind of music being played. The Renaissance guitar was

used for solo pieces and as an accompaniment to vocals.

Composers started writing for it. Alonso Mudarra included

several pieces for guitar in a 1546 vihuela collection. The

four-course Renaissance guitar took off in France and

inspired a substantial number of compositions. Similar

instruments continue to be played today in Latin America.

In Europe, this style of guitar continued through the Baroque period. At the end of the 15th century another course of string(s)

was added. The tuning was not always straight forward

low-to-high—sometimes the lowest pitch(es) occurred in

the third course; sometimes the third course was tuned to

the upper octave. By the 17th century, such composers as

Gaspar Sanz, Robert de Visee and Ludovico Roncalli were

writing for the five-course guitar. Louis XIV studied it and

Francesco Corbetta dedicated an important collection to

him. Antonio Stradiveri made five-course guitars—two of

which are known to survive. Yet the Baroque guitar was

still very different from the guitars we know today.

3

The Six-String Guitar in a Century of ChangeThe guitar began to change by the middle of the 18th

century. The five-course Baroque guitar began to drop

strings—replacing the courses of double strings with single

strings. Then somebody decided to add an extra course

(another mystery, it would seem). One of the earliest

known six-course instruments dates from 1759. By the

next year, records show six-course guitars outselling five

course Baroque guitars in Spain. These mostly seem to

have featured six courses of double strings. But in southern

France and in Italy, guitarists and luthiers began to favor six

single strings. The holdovers from the lute also began to

disappear—most notably the intricate rosette was replaced

by an open sound hole. Wooden tuning pegs gave way

to keys and metal gears. Fixed frets replaced the gut tied

around the neck.

One of the most accomplished players of this early six-

string era remains one of the greatest contributors to

the guitar’s repertoire: Fernando Sor. Sor was born in

Barcelona—the exact date is unknown but records show

he was baptized in 1778—to a family of soldiers. Luckily,

his father introduced him to music. By the time he was

11, Fernando was writing songs. He wound up in military

school anyway and when Napoleon invaded Spain, Sor

wrote nationalistic songs to be accompanied by guitar and

may have even fought against the French. But when Spain

fell, Sor took a post in the occupation government. When

the Spanish overthrew the French, Sor fled to Paris and

began a career as a traveling recitalist. By some accounts,

he was the best guitarist of his day. He traveled to England

and his talents are credited with single-handedly sparking

a revival of interest in the guitar there. While in London,

he not only continued to compose for the guitar but

also wrote the acclaimed ballet music, “Cendrillon,”

one of seven ballets he composed. He also wrote three

symphonies and two operas, as well as numerous works

for the guitar, one of the best-known being “Introduction

and Variations on a Theme of Mozart,” based on music

from “The Magic Flute.” He published his “Methode pour

la guitare” in 1830—a work that is still studied today.

Fernando Sor died in Paris in 1839.

While Sor was composing and dazzling audiences, two

other noted composers became enamored of the guitar.

Niccolo Pananini, the virtuoso violinist, set that instrument

aside briefly to take up the guitar, writing a number of solo

and ensemble works for it. Hector Berlioz was reportedly a

passable guitarist and observed something that holds true

today: “It is almost impossible to write well for the guitar

without being a player on the instrument.”

Meanwhile, in Italy, Mauro Giuliani was coming up. He

actually made his name as a performer in Vienna during

the first two decades of the 19th century. Like Sor, he was

FERNANDOSOR

4

a virtuoso and earned acclaim in a city where Beethoven

and Rossini were celebrities. One of Giuliani’s daughters

was also an accomplished guitarist and they played recitals

together. Mauro Giuliani wrote some 150 works for the

guitar, including three concerti. He also published several

method books that continue to inform guitar students.

The instrument itself became more standardized around mid-century. A Spanish luthier named Antonio de Torres Jurado is

credited with coming up with a standard of 65 cm for the

length of the strings that vibrates and with developing a

bridge that remains pretty much unchanged (the bridge is

the part of the guitar that connects the strings to the top,

or table, of the guitar.

The last great guitarist/composer/teacher of the 19th

century was Francisco Tarrega—born in Villareal, Spain in

1852. An early illness left his eyesight impaired and one

of his only options back then to help his poor family was

music. Tarrega became an accomplished guitarist and

pianist. He also taught and two of his students became

respected guitarist/composers: Emilio Pujol and Miguel

Llobet. In addition to his own compositions—perhaps the

most famous being “Recuerdos de la Alhambra,” Tarrega

was responsible for another important page in the guitar’s

history: transcriptions. Berlioz once complained that the

major composers wrote little of value for the guitar (so

why didn’t he write more?). Tarrega’s solution was to use

his knowledge of the piano and adapt keyboard pieces

by Chopin, Beethoven and Mendelssohn for the guitar.

It helped fill out recital and concert programs with more

“substantial pieces” but it was no real substitute for music

written for the instrument.

By the end of the 19th century, the guitar was a popular

instrument, though it seems to have faded from the

concert stage in Europe. But it was everywhere else: it was

affordable; it was portable; and it didn’t take up as much

room as a piano. It was an adaptable ensemble instrument:

at the turn of the 20th century, orchestras made up of

guitars, mandolins, and other plucked string instruments

abounded in Europe and the U.S. The instrument that is

ubiquitous today began its ascendancy less than 150 years

ago. It would be looked down upon in “serious music”

circles until Andres Segovia hit the stage in the second

decade of the 20th century.

5

The Guitar in North AmericaAs mentioned earlier, the guitar spread through conquest

and missionary zeal. The first guitars on this side of the

Atlantic arrived with the first Spanish soldiers, sailors,

settlers and priests. They were used for entertainment and,

more ominously, to try to separate indigenous peoples

from their traditional culture.

In this country, Ben Franklin plucked a stringed instrument

called an “English guitar,” but this was a wire-strung

instrument similar to a cittern which, in turn, looked

something like a stripped-down, flat-back lute. One of the

first references to what might have been a six-stringed

classical guitar dates from 1774.

By 1833, Christian Frederick Martin had emigrated to the

U.S. from Germany. By 1860 he was selling about 300

Martin guitars a year. By 1899, the company that made

Washburn guitars (Lyon and Healy) reported that it had

sold 20,000 of its guitars through Montgomery Ward—

many of them likely through mail order. Mail order was

key to the proliferation—and so was price. At the turn of

the last century, Sears, Roebuck and Company was selling

guitars for under $3.00.

Guitar concerts and recitals were also a popular form of

entertainment in the mid 1800’s. There were a number

of acclaimed concert performers in the U.S. Dolores de

Goni was born in Spain and came to this country from

London. She enjoyed a successful career as a recitalist and

she endorsed Martin guitars, as did John Coupa, another

concert guitarist who became Martin’s business partner.

Perhaps the most colorful performer was G.E. Bini, a

serious musician and guitar maker who also performed

regularly at P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York.

Toward the end of the century, William Foden made his

name as “the Wizard of the Guitar.” He composed a

number of pieces for guitar that incorporate ragtime and

sentimental American popular song. He also taught and

wrote articles and instruction methods.

But concert programs took a back seat to minstrel shows

in the 1840’s and the guitar’s continued success in the U.S.

was stoked by amateurs. Its size and affordability made

it a popular alternative to the piano. At a time when the

inexorable gears of progress and the Industrial Revolution

threatened traditional values, music in the home was seen

as an indispensable antidote. In the Northeast, the primary

providers of this tonic were women. Their instrument

and style became known as “parlour guitar.” The music

was mostly accompaniment to popular songs and the

occasional simple solo piece.

In the South before the Civil War, the guitar was an

instrument for both men and women of the leisure class

and a link to the severed ties with European aristocracy.

It may well have been through white plantation families

that their slaves picked up the instrument. African slaves

were forbidden to play their own music. The vestiges of

the cultures from which they were ripped were basically

reduced to the songs they carried in their hearts and some

form of the stringed instrument that became the banjo.

They were allowed to learn the guitar to entertain their

“owners.”

In the Southeastern states the music that developed

among African American guitarists was a remarkable

blend of black and white. One of the best guitarists of the

1920’s recorded under the name Blind Blake. Very little is

known about him, though on a recording he said his first

name was Arthur. The intricate finger picking made Blind

Blake a revered and influential musician in the acoustic

blues tradition may have evolved from the way the banjo

is played—which, in turn, may have evolved from the way

the West African ngoni is plucked with the fingers. The

ngoni—which has a varying number of strings and is made

of an animal skin stretched across a hollowed-out calabash

gourd—is often cited as the direct ancestor of the banjo.

The Reverend Gary Davis, another brilliant guitarist, was

also an accomplished banjo player. But their syncopated,

6

ragtime style may also have evolved from the music their

ancestors learned from white parlor guitarists and passed

down. Blake was born in Florida or Georgia; Davis was

born in South Carolina and this ragtime style stretched up

and down the East Coast to include Blind Boy Fuller and

later, John Jackson and Etta Baker. It came to be called

Piedmont or East Coast Blues.

The story of the Mississippi Delta blues that traveled up the

river to electrify Chicago is well-known. Its most famous

players include Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Son

House, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Elmore James. The

music is more strident than the East Coast blues—perhaps

because life was harsher. And the guitar playing—though

no less complex—seems to be more closely linked to

the singing: the guitar erupting in quick bursts between

verses and soloing after a chorus—as opposed to the

more instrumentally-focused East Coast playing, where

the singing sometimes seemed to accompany the guitar

playing (as in Blind Blake’s “Too Tight” or “West Coast

Blues,” both from 1926).

In New Orleans, as you might expect, things were a little

different. Though the Spanish were the first Europeans

to visit Louisiana—and likely brought some stringed

instrument or another with them—it was the French who

settled the region in the 17th century. Remember Louis

XIV was an amateur guitarist, so odds are that more than

a few of those Baroque guitars landed with the settlers.

Cultures seemed to mix more freely, with Caribbean

influences carried in by slaves and traders blending with

the indigenous culture of the different Indian tribes and

that of the European colonizers.

Out of this gumbo (forgive the cliché but it fits) came a

remarkable guitarist: Lonnie Johnson. He was born Alonzo

Johnson in Orleans Parrish in 1899 to a musical family—all

of whom died save one brother in the influenza epidemic

of 1918. Lonnie Johnson played all kinds of popular and

dance music on violin and guitar until he entered a blues

contest in 1925 in St. Louis, where he settled with his

surviving brother. The prize was a recording contract with

Okeh Records—one of the leading “race” labels at the

time (labels that recorded black music). In seven years, he

cut more than 100 sides for Okeh—solo discs and as an

accompanist. He had a smooth singing voice that would

yield a crossover hit in 1948 with the ballad, “Tomorrow

Night.” But his guitar playing was nothing short of

dazzling. He was accomplished on both six- and twelve-

string guitar and his solos had the complexity of jazz. Some

credit him with being the first to record a full-blown guitar

solo—the kind that characterizes every rock, blues or jazz

tune that features a guitar solo.

In 1929, Johnson teamed up with the pioneering white

jazz guitarist Eddie Lang to record some of the first jazz

guitar duets—setting a benchmark that guitarists have tried

to meet ever since. Johnson went on to record with Louis

Armstrong and Duke Ellington—but there was a problem:

How to make the guitar heard over the ensemble.

JEFLEEJOHNSONPERFORMSSOMEOFTHEMUSICOFLONNIEJOHNSON

(PICTUREDABOVE)ONFEBRUARY10,2011ATSTRATHMORE.

7

The Pursuit of VolumeMost of the music we’ve talked about so far has been

played and written by and for solo performers—in the

proper setting, it’s no problem for them to be heard. But

the guitar does not project the way violins or trumpets do.

Once an acoustic guitar is placed in a group with other instruments, it’s usually drowned out.Guitarists have struggled with this problem from the

earliest days of the instrument. They only began to

overcome it in the mid 1800’s with the introduction of

steel strings.

Up until then, guitar strings were most often made of

animal gut—usually sheep or goat. The bass strings usually

had silk cores wound with wire. Remember the cittern

and English guitar had wire strings but players and makers

probably favored gut for its warmer sound. But by the

end of the 19th century, the guitar was playing in string

bands and string orchestras. It had to compete with other

instruments, notably the much louder mandolin.

Steel strings helped. But they also put greater tension on

the guitar’s neck and top (table). The very construction of

the instrument had to change to accommodate them. This

presents us with another mystery. For even though we’re

well within the era of documented history, there seem to

have been so many luthiers experimenting that no one

knows for sure who designed and built the first “steel

string guitar.” Joseph Bohmann, a Chicago guitar maker,

beefed up the bracing under the table in the 1880’s.

August Larson (of the Larson Brothers) apparently filed the

first patent for a guitar built to steel string specifications in

1904. Around 1915, C.F. Martin came up with what would

be a prototype for its “Dreadnought” guitars (named for

a battleship, in apparent reference to its larger size)—for

another company! Martin didn’t start marketing its own

celebrated D-18 and D-28 models until 1931. These larger,

louder guitars became the foundations of hillbilly music

and blues.

But another kind of guitar was also under development

during this period. The arched-top guitar is an American

invention (though this too is up for some debate: in the

early 1820’s, European makers introduced a six-stringed

instrument tuned like a guitar but meant to be played with

a bow—called an arpeggione—that had a curved, carved

top). Orville Gibson experimented with carved-top guitars

and mandolins in the 1890’s but the instruments weren’t

commercially produced until the 1920’s. One of the first

and most famous of these is the Gibson L-5, designed by

the legendary luthier Lloyd Loar.

These instruments were designed to be played in dance

bands. Until then, the louder banjo provided rhythm for

these groups. But with the advent of the arched-top,

guitarists began to take over the rhythm role and even got

to solo. These were the beginnings of jazz guitar—Eddie

Lang played an L-5.

In Europe, Mario Maccaferri designed a flat-top guitar—

with a distinctive D-shaped sound hole and an added

sound chamber inside the body—for the French Selmer

company. It became the instrument of choice for the

remarkable guitarist Django Reinhardt. He was remarkable

not only for his unique impact on the American art form of

jazz, but also on how he made that impact. Reinhardt was

a Roma, the proper term for the derisive “gypsy,” born in

a caravan outside the Belgian town of Liberchies in 1910.

By the time he was 18, he was already a virtuoso guitarist

8

and banjo player. Then he suffered a terrible accident.

Returning home late at night after a gig, he knocked over

a candle which ignited some celluloid flowers his wife had

made to sell at funerals. His caravan went up in flames and

he was badly burned saving his pregnant wife. Reinhardt

spent more than a year in treatment—his chances of

playing again were all but nil. Nevertheless, through

determined practice, he came up with a way to use the

two fingers on his fretting hand that weren’t burned and

went on to record the astoundingly fast and musical solos

that made him internationally famous.

His Maccaferri was the perfect foil for Stephane Grappelli’s

violin in the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. But even

Django began to experiment with the electric guitar in the

final years before his untimely death in 1953.

Before we go electric, there’s one more mechanical

modification luthiers tried to get more sound out of their

guitars: the resophonic or resonator guitar. The idea was

simple: rest the bridge that anchors the strings on the

small end of what is essentially a loudspeaker cone, with

the open end pointed into the body of the guitar. The

vibrations of the strings would vibrate the cone (in the

same way electrical impulses cause the speakers in your

stereo to vibrate) and amplify the sound. The “cone”

actually looked more like an inverted pie pan made out of

thin metal. Credit for inventing it goes to John Dopyera,

the son of a Czech violin maker. He and his brothers ran

the National String Instrument Corporation and the name

by which you may know this instrument comes from a

contraction of “Dopyera brothers:” Dobro. While the

instrument most often seen today in bluegrass bands

THEPUNCHBROTHERSHIGHLIGHTTHEGUITARANDMANDOLINONFRIDAY,NOVEMBER12,2010ATSTRATHMORE.

9

has a wooden body with the metal cone inside, the early

Nationals were nickel-plated brass. They rang like bells and

were favored by such blues guitarists as Son House and

Tampa Red.

Now it’s time to address electricity and another guitar

mystery: who came up with the first electric guitar? Les

Paul claimed credit. Leo Fender claimed credit. So did

several others. The debate has raged for years.

It actually seems that Hawaiian musicians first pressed for

electrification because their guitars carried the melody in

Hawaiian dance orchestras. They also made some of the

first electric guitar recordings in the early 1930’s. We’re

talking here about the Hawaiian slide guitar that produced

the weeping waterfalls of tropical melody we’ve come to

associate with Hawaiian music from that period. There’s

another kind of Hawaiian guitar playing called “slack key,”

notable for its varied tunings that have produced some

of the most beautiful sounds to be conjured from the

instrument at the hands of such masters as Gabby Pahinui

and Ledward Kaapana.

As with earlier guitar innovations, there were likely a lot of

people experimenting with ways of electrifying the guitar

around the same time. George Beauchamp was one of

them. He was playing resonator guitar in a Hawaiian band

in Los Angeles in the late 1920’s. But the resonator still

didn’t produce enough volume, so he began to build his

own electric guitar out of two horseshoe magnets. He got

together with engineer Adolph Rickenbacker and in 1931,

they came up with their first electric guitar—the body was

made out of cast aluminum and looked like the name it

was given: The Frying Pan. Beauchamp filed for a patent

in 1931 but it wasn’t granted until 1937 and by then a

number of companies were selling electric guitars.

In 1936, Gibson introduced the ES 150, an electric arched

top. It bore a pickup (the device on the guitar top under

the strings that “picks up” the string vibrations and turns

them into electrical impulses) that came to be named for

the man who put the ES 150 in the spotlight: jazz guitar

pioneer Charlie Christian.

Floyd Smith is credited with recording the first electric jazz

guitar tune: “Floyd’s Guitar Blues” in 1939. Eddie Durham,

George Barnes, and Eldon Shamblin (with Bob Wills) had

all played swinging electric guitar on records before Charlie

Christian.

But Christian really seemed to understand the possibilities of the electric. He was born in Texas in 1916 but raised in Oklahoma City.

His father died when he was 12 but by then Charlie was

already playing guitar. By 1936, he was playing electric

throughout the mid-West. The story goes that pianist,

composer and arranger Mary Lou Williams heard Christian

and recommended him to the powerful record producer

John Hammond, Sr.—who in turn recommended Christian

to Benny Goodman. The first meeting between the two

musicians in 1939 did not go well, so Hammond decided

to sneak Christian onto the bandstand during a Goodman

show that night. The clarinetist and bandleader was not

pleased. He decided to mess with Christian and called

a tune he was sure the guitarist did not know: “Rose

Room.” But Christian had learned it as a very young man.

He reportedly took some twenty solos in a jam on the tune

that lasted more than half an hour. Christian was hired. In

just three years with Goodman, Christian made the electric

guitar a force to be acknowledged in jazz. And it was—

Christian won numerous polls and is credited as one of the

founding forces of bebop. And he did it all by the time he

was 25. Charlie Christian died of tuberculosis in 1942. He’s

buried in an unmarked Texas grave.

10

WWII slowed electric guitar production but the

experimentation continued. Leo Fender, then a California

radio repairman, hooked up with a musician named Doc

Kauffman and, in 1943, they built their prototype electric

guitar. But it took them another seven years to figure out

how to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack.

They did it by figuring out a way to pair a simple design

with mass production. Their first model was the Esquire,

followed by the Broadcaster, then—drumroll please—

the iconic Telecaster, the first successful—and longest

continuously-produced—solid body electric guitar.

It became the signature sound of 1950’s country music

and one of its first and best players was Georgia born,

California based Jimmy Bryant, who made a number of

hot country jazz records for Capitol. James Burton used his

Tele to back up Elvis Presley. It was the sound of Muddy

Waters’ blues and Steve Cropper’s R&B with Booker T. and

the M.G.’s. Washington’s own Roy Buchanan and Danny

Gatton played indescribably beautiful and powerful music

with their Telecasters. And Joe Strummer pummeled his

Tele in the Clash.

The Telecaster was followed by the Stratocaster, whose

indisputable master was Jimi Hendrix. ‘Nuff said.

Gibson Guitars originally rejected a design for a solid body

electric submitted by none other than Les Paul. But, seeing

Fender’s success, the company relented and released an

instrument named for the ingenious musician and inventor

in 1952. The Gibson Les Paul was played brilliantly by its

creator, followed by the likes of Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page,

Duane Allman, Bob Marley, Pete Townsend, and Sister

Rosetta Tharpe.

Gibson produced other models that have put their stamp

on rock and blues. Rock would not be rock without the

musical ideas Chuck Berry voiced through his Gibsons,

most notably the double-cutaway ES-355. That was also

the guitar that, in the hands of B.B. King, became famous

around the world as “Lucille.”

Since the earliest days of the electric, there have been

almost as many variations and makers as there have

been professional players. It’s an understatement to say

that their efforts changed the sound of music in the 20th

century. But we’ll say it: the electric guitar CHANGED THE

SOUND OF MUSIC. But it didn’t drown out everything else

that was going on.

FENDERTELECASTERGUITAR

11

The Guitar Takes a Trip Abroad and Back HomeA quieter revolution was taking place at the instigation of

Andres Segovia. The story goes that Segovia complained

at a party in the 1940’s about the difficulty of obtaining

his favorite gut strings in the U.S. A short time later, he

was presented with nylon strings made by DuPont. He

liked them OK. Then he was introduced to luthier Albert

Augustine. They worked together for three years and in

1949, Augustine came up with a design for nylon strings

that met with the maestro’s approval.

Segovia was a particular individual—he liked what he

liked and he didn’t hesitate to say what he didn’t like.

He was born in Linares, Spain, in 1893. He studied piano

and cello as a child but, it seems, fell in love with the

guitar—to the dismay of his parents. For, at the turn of

the 20th century, the guitar was not held in high regard

as a concert instrument—something with which Segovia

himself seemed to concur later in life when he claimed

to have rescued the guitar from flamenco (a fate from

which some people might say that the instrument did not

need to be rescued). Nevertheless, with the strength of

his convictions, Segovia was single-handedly responsible

for bringing the guitar back to the concert stage—and for

encouraging composers to write for it. Federico Moreno

Torroba, Joaquin Turina, and Joaquin Rodrigo all wrote

for him. Though, if he didn’t like what you wrote, he

wouldn’t play it. Another story goes that when Swiss-

born composer Frank Martin presented his “Quatre Pieces

Breves” to Segovia, the guitarist rejected them, leaving

Martin despondent. The work went on to be taken up by

Julian Bream.

The English guitarist covered the waterfront—performing

Renaissance music on the lute (helping to revive interest

in that instrument) and championing challenging modern

music: notably one of the great works written for the

guitar, “Nocturnal” by Benjamin Britten (a non-guitarist,

buy the way). Bream was born 40 years after Segovia.

His father was an amateur jazz guitarist who introduced

young Julian to the music of Django Reinhardt—Bream

named one of his dogs Jango. Bream made his recital

debut at the age of 13. After service in the British Army,

Bream became a session guitarist for films and the BBC.

This varied experience led to an ecumenical approach to

music. In addition to performing and recording the work of

such contemporary composers as Malcolm Arnold and Toru

Takemitsu, had an affinity for Spanish and Latin American

music. Bream officially retired from performing in 2002.

He had a lot of music from Latin America to inspire him,

written by guitarists and non-guitarists alike. Among the

most notable in the former category are the 5 Preludes

and 12 Etudes composed by Heitor Villa Lobos (who also

played cello, piano, and clarinet). The Brazilian composer

was born a year before his country abolished slavery. Until

then, European music held sway. By the time he started

composing, Villa Lobos was not alone in incorporating his

country’s folk music into his work, alongside inspiration

from the likes of Bach. His earliest compositions reportedly

grew out of guitar improvisations. Villa Lobos mined the

music of Brazil’s indigenous peoples as well as the African

influences brought by slaves. His country’s folk and popular

music can be heard in his “Suite Populaire Bresilienne.”

Villa Lobos was not alone in these explorations. In

Paraguay his contemporary, guitarist and composer Agustin

Barrios, also drew on his country’s folklore. Barrios was part

Guarani—a group of indigenous peoples from Paraguay,

Uruguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil. Barrios was a

fascinating character. In addition to composing, he wrote

poetry all his life. He could read five languages and remains

one of the youngest people ever admitted to university

in Paraguay. He would also perform in the clothes of

indigenous peoples, adding “Mangore” to the end of

his name—a word for the leader of a particular tribe. His

12

performances also became legendary for their virtuosity.

Barrios is considered one of the greatest Latin American

guitarists of the 20th century and his compositions reflect

his talent. Even Segovia liked “La Catedral!”

A 1932 Barrios concert in Caracas, Venezuela, so impressed

a young music student named Antonio Lauro that he

gave up piano and violin for the guitar. Like Villa Lobos

and Barrios, Lauro was interested in creating a national

music for his country. His compositions incorporate both

folk dances and parlor waltzes into swinging, syncopated

gems. In the early 1950’s, he was imprisoned by the

ruling junta for his belief in democracy. He composed his

“Suite Venezolana” while in prison. Lauro’s work has been

championed by his countryman, the great guitarist Alirio

Diaz and by Australian virtuoso John Williams.

Mexican Manuel Maria Ponce was not a guitarist, yet

he composed one of the most widely played works for

classical guitar of the 20th century: “Variations and Fugue

on ‘La Folia’” (1929). Ponce was born in 1882 and was

a prodigy on the piano, yet his works for the guitar are

substantial: “Sonatina meridional” and Concierto del

sur,” dedicated to Segovia. Ponce was also known as “the

creator of the modern Mexican song” for such works

as “Estrellita.” After meeting Ponce, Villa Lobos wrote,

“It gave me great joy to learn that in that distant part of

my continent there was another artist who was arming

himself with the resources of the folklore of his people in

the struggle for the future musical independence of his

country.”

Three contemporary guitarist-composers merit mention:

Brazilian-born brothers Sergio and Odair Assad are

stunning performers who are writing music that is being

taken up by other guitarists; and Quique Sinesi, from

Argentina, who plays a variety of stringed instruments and

straddles the worlds of jazz and classical music.

In popular music and jazz, Latin America is one of the

guitar’s most fertile fields. From the widely-played music of

Antonio Carlos Jobim; to the all-around greatness of Baden

Powell and Egberto Gismonti (both of them awe-inspiring

guitarists and composers); to the playing of Bola Sete

and Laurindo Almeida (whose 1950’s collaborations with

saxophonist Bud Shank are credited by some with inspiring

bossa nova when their recordings got back to Brazil). And

we should not forget Virginia-born Charlie Byrd, who went

to South America and brought its music back to us.

The Guitar Today—ConclusionGuitar is everywhere. In Mali, acoustic guitarists like D’Gary

rival the best in the world. In the Democratic Republic

of the Congo, Mwenda Jean Bosco is a legend. The

instrument that was taken to the continent by Portuguese

sailors in the early 19th century has evolved along with its

counterparts elsewhere: from the Ghanaian Highlife of

the 1950’s to the electric playing of Congolese groups like

Tabu Ley Rochereau and his Orchestre African Fiesta and

Zimbabwe’s Thomas Mapfumo. The Indonesian kronkong

is a five-stringed instrument, also likely of Portuguese

descent as is Hawaii’s ukulele.

Plucked string instruments date back long before the guitar

was invented. The appeal of that feeling of strings under

fingers and the sounds they make is universal. It seems to

be part of our DNA. Yet what is it about the guitar that’s

allowed it to supersede all of these other instruments. Is it

just musical-genetic evolution?

Or is it… a mystery?

13

Guitar FestivalAsteria,soprano&luteduo

Thursday, September 23, 2010, 7:30PM

Listen & Learn! FREE post-concert discussion with the

artists moderated by Robert Aubry Davis.

NOWEnsemble

Monday, September 27, 2010, 7:30PM

PaulGalbraith,classicalguitar

Thursday, October 7, 2010, 7:30PM

Lecture/Concert:HistoryofAmericanClassical&

PopularGuitarwithPhilMathieu

Monday, October 11, 2010, 11AM

JasonVieaux,classicalguitar

Thursday, October 14, 2010, 7:30PM

Listen & Learn! FREE post-concert discussion with the artist.

GuitarMasters:EricJohnson,AndyMcKee&Peppino

D’Agostino

Friday, October 15, 2010, 8PM

ChuckBerryfeaturingDarylDavisBand

Friday, October 22, 2010, 8PM

BangonaCanAll-StarsPlaysSteveReich

Thursday, November 11, 2010, 8PM

Listen & Learn! FREE post-concert discussion with the

artists.

ThePunchBrothersfeaturingChrisThile

Friday, November 12, 2010, 8PM

AnEveningwithKrisKristofferson

Saturday, November 13, 2010, 8PM

AnaVidovic,guitar&AnastasiaPetanova,flute

Thursday, November 18, 2010, 7:30PM

JoeSatriani

TheWormholeTour

Wednesday, December 15, 2010, 8PM

JoeLovano&JohnScofield

Friday, January 28, 2011, 8PM

JefLeeJohnsonBand

Thursday, February 10, 2011, 7:30PM

Listen & Learn! FREE pre-concert lecture at 6:30PM by Seth

Kibel on the history of blues guitar including some of its

greatest performers.

TaipeiChineseOrchestra&WuMan,pipa

Tuesday, February 15, 2011, 7:30PM

StrathmorepresentsBluesattheCrossroads

featuring Big Head Todd & The Monsters,

David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Hubert Sumlin,

and Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm

Thursday, February 17, 2011, 8PM

DiscoverStrathmoreGuitarFestival

Monday, February 21, 2011, 11AM–4PM

AnEveningofJazz&JobimwithRonKearns&Paul

Wingo

Thursday, March 3, 2011, 8PM

TheDelMcCouryBand

Sunday, March 20, 2011, 7PM

TheLosAngelesElectric8

Thursday, April 29, 2011, 7:30PM

AaronGrad’sThe Father Book

Thursday, May 19, 2011, 7:30PM

FORTICKETSANDINFORMATION, VISIT WWW.STRATHMORE.ORGORCALL (301) 581-5100