All he’d do with his suddenly-clear schedule was develop the first electric guitar pickup.Īfter months of winding prototype pickups using a repurposed washing machine motor and a sewing machine, Beauchamp finally arrived at a final design with two horseshoe magnets and six polepieces–one for each string. He’d make National regret firing him, however. Dopyera left to found Dobro, and Beauchamp was in the unemployment line. Unfortunately, by 1929, the company had splintered due to personal differences. The trio enlisted the help of a local production engineer named Adolph Rickenbacker set to work making guitars. Kleinmeyer loved the sound of Dopyera’s resonator, and he wrote a check for startup capital that night. Dopyera had a brilliant brainwave: why not put small resonator cones in the body of a metal guitar? They gave the prototype to the Sol Hoopii Trio (one of the most popular Hawaiian music groups of the time) and arranged for them to be the entertainment at a swanky party thrown by Beauchamp’s wealthy cousin-in-law, Ted Kleinmeyer.
One enterprising player named John Beauchamp contacted a violin repairman named John Dopyera about building him a louder instrument. But, there’s much more to the story of Rickenbacker than chime and jangle in fact, their penchant for innovation goes all the way back to the 1920s when they built the first electric guitar.īack in the 1920s, lap steel guitar players were on a never-ending quest for more volume. The low-end growl of their basses, the sparkle and bite of their six-strings, and the sweet chime of their twelve-strings have inspired everyone from Lemmy Kilmister to Tom Petty to Paul McCartney to Johnny Marr, and their unmistakable sound has formed the backbone of countless classic recordings. Rickenbackers are a part of America’s musical DNA.
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