I’m not sure who was the first electric guitar player. There is some debate about it. One guy I have heard about, less known than a lot of the names that get thrown around, is Junior Barnard who played at various times with Bob Wills.
This, found at TexasPlayboys.net, is from a 1983 GP Mag article by Buddy McPeters.
Barnard was a loud guitarist who had an overdriven tube sound decades before it became widely popular with rock guitarists. His main guitar, a blond Epiphone Emperor arch-top (occasionally Junior used a Gibson ES-150), was dubbed “*my young radio station,” because it had so many wires and controls added on. Although Barnard first electrified his instrument with a DeArmond pickup, he later added another unit from a steel guitar. The two pickups were wired out of phase, and each was amplified through a separate channel. (Junior used both a Fender Pro with a 15″ speaker and an Epiphone amplifier.) In addition, Barnard employed a volume pedal, for which he probably got the idea from steel guitarists such as McAuliffe and Boggs. “In those days in the Wills band,” Shamblin remembers, “you never knew when you’d get a solo. Bob would just point his fiddle bow at you and say, ‘Take it away.’ Junior didn’t have time to turn the volume up, so you can see that the pedal was a time-saving device.”
heh heh..”Barnard was a loud guitarist who had an overdriven tube sound”. If Junior wasn’t the first electric player, he was certainly one of the first and it sounds like he got the hang of it pretty quick.
Here are the Texas Playboys doing “Goodbye Liza Jane” and featuring a neat solo by Junior.
As always, swing over to the side bar and press pause on the music player before playing the YouTube.
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Tags: bob wills, Guitar, Junior Barnard, Music
J wrote,
That didn’t sound like an Emperor. It’s supposed to sound more like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlfW-6Fdfys
Jack, you need a hat like that!
Link | October 7th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Pat Darnell and Friends wrote,
If we are all one people, then are those all one hat?
I was poking around looking for the largest known piranha, and came across the “flight of the bumble bee.”
I know you covered this before, but well never hurts to recap some stuff: no?
World Record Guitar Speed 2008 YouTube
After some introductions the guy plays the same song at progressively faster rates, bpm. Maybe skip to the 320 bpm near the end of this 9 minute utube, and save time since this is supposed to be a short take, at least that is what I thought.
Now, I ask you, once you are the fastest, does that not suck?
Link | October 8th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Pat Darnell and Friends wrote,
“I’m not sure who was the first electric guitar player… and …That didn’t sound like an Emperor”
Here is a rare image rescued from a recently discovered Ancient Chinese scroll. This proves Guan Gong was Guitar God! Click here… GUAN GONG
So there you have it!! Case closed.
Link | October 8th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Sans Direction wrote,
That is some good stuff. I have no weird comments or anything, just that.
Link | October 9th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Pribek wrote,
Good for you, Sans; we can use a voice of reason from time to time.
J-I’m going to hit all the yard sales this weekend in search of that hat, an Emperer and Junior’s amp….or a toaster.
PD-see, those kind of lyrics I could interpret, nice work…I’m on it
Link | October 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am