A Famous WWI Flying Ace Was The Inspiration Behind The First Electric Guitar's Name

Adolph Rickenbacker had been born in Switzerland, but by the 1920s he ran a metal shop in Los Angeles, per Rickenbacker. He eventually met a lap-steel guitar player named George Beauchamp who was on a quest to build louder guitars. Beauchamp had teamed with a violin repairman named John Dopyera, but they needed someone to produce the metal bodies they had designed.

A few years later, Beauchamp and Dopyera had a falling out. Beauchamp was fired from the company they had started together, but he was still on the hunt for a louder guitar. He brought Rickenbacker onboard to help him develop the first electric guitar. According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, they called it the Frying Pan, because it looked like one, and while it was somewhat rudimentary, it implemented technology that's still used on guitars to this day. Perhaps most important among their innovations was the use of magnetic pickups placed under the strings, which convert the strings' vibrations to electrical energy.

They decided to start a company and sell electric guitars. First, they called it Ro-Pat-In Corporation, but quickly changed it to Electro String. However, the guitars themselves were called Rickenbackers, and not just because Adolph Rickenbacker was the man behind their development and the president of the company that produced them. At the time, that name carried some clout, thanks to Rickenbacker's cousin, famed World War I pilot Eddie Rickenbacker.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunCEk29ucXBflnqnrcyorKxlp6y2brLLsqCnn12WsKZ51pqqZqyYmnqqutKpoKuZpJ68r3nBnp%2BippRiwamxjJ%2Bgq6ukYrKtscKtqaKbXZzCqsDAq6pmppGisnA%3D