Ever since I was a small boy I wanted to be a rock and roll star. I didn’t make it to the pinnacle, but I did become a session player in Music City and you can bet, the greatest rockin’ guitar masters, the best there’s ever been. All due respect to Charlie Daniels and ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ which he recorded in 1979 penned by Vasser Clements. Of course that features the dueling fiddles and we’re taking about guitars and and the strange way they changed into today’s electric guitar.

When you think of guitars, do you see a company logo on the guitar? I do it’s the Gibson guitar the orginal (wish I owned it) appeared in 1936 and was designated the ES-150. To this day, there are groups who will tell you,… ‘the sound never got any better.

Without a doubt; the guitar in its many shapes and forms, whether acoustic or the electric guitar has seen a lot of evolution through the ages, and its past is a difficult. History records (though not definitive) that tells us the Spanish guitar comes from the Romans and traces its lineage to about 400 AD. It would only resemble today’s guitar in a broad sense, called a Tanbur which is lute like instrument from the Middle East, most often possessing three strings; but it’s likely our present day electric guitar may have orginated with the Cithara. The cithara, having anywhere from three to twelve strings, was carefully designed with a wooden soundboard, boxy shaped body (resonator) and that my friends doesn’t sound too distant from the acoustic or electric guitar of today.

What probably happened is that some talented person of that era took the best from each, weaving his own thoughts into the musical instrumentwhat would become the guitar|. Without a doubt the world was different then and the way changes happened, travelled at a snail’s pace and probably would have taken decades to spread from one region to another. Today they would be called street musicians, in those days they hailed to the name of traveling troubadours.

The instrument, whatever its form continued to change and refine itself and in 1200 AD had evolved into a guitar with a rounded back and expansive fingerboard (probably Moorish) and a different version which is the distant relation of the modern day acoustic guitar (probably Spanish or Latin).

While the guitar never left the scene of a good celebration, however it played second fiddle (sorry, couldn’t resist) for many years by the vihuela and lute, which would become too complicated to play and tune, and those musical minds of long ago looked to the four and five string guitar, which claimed its rightful place in history. The fifth string giving the guitar its rock solid (excuse the reference) reputation, versatility and longevity.

Looking back into time, we can see the twists and turns, and certainly no one back then (hey electricity hadn’t even been invented) could envision the eclectic instrument it has become. Yet those music lovers of long ago constructed something of beauty, integrity and a bit of magic, since the design of the modern guitar very much resembles those made one hundred and fifty years ago.

- Ron Rogers