Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Did anyone happen to catch this on the Smithsonian channel last night? I'm not sure when it was made, but It was an hour long show about the birth of the electric guitar and bass, a real feast if your into vintage Gibson and Fender, with plenty of photo's and clips. The only problem I had, was that in the 55 minutes I saw, (missed the first 5), there was not one mention or reference to Rickenbacker anywhere ! It was almost as if they were trying not to mention Rickenbacker, I mean, if you're giving a timeline of the development of the electric guitar and bass,, how can you even try to omit Rickenbacker???. They gave credit to Slingerland for making the first solid body electric.

I don't know, a decent show, worth the hour if you get the chance, a little biased and inaccurate I think.

History is written by the victors!

They play that show quite frequently, I've probably seen it five or six times and as a general overview it's OK. The frying pan is mentioned several times in the first segment (the one you missed). G. E. Smith even plays a few tasty licks on an aluminum one. But as far as the modern era goes, yeah, all Fender and Gibson.

The first time I played bass to an audience was with Tom Wheeler who is one of the commentators in that program. He's written several books on guitars (most notably "The Stratocaster Chronicles: Celebrating 50 Years of the Fender Strat," http://www.amazon.com/Tom-Wheeler/e/B00 ... sr=1-2-ent), and was editor of Guitar Player magazine for some time. I sat in for a few months as a volunteer (unpaid) player at the Pizza Palace in Westwood, near the UCLA campus. We were backing up a young (back in 1969) talent named James Lee Reeves. Tom is now a professor at Oregon and still writes. Don't know what became of James.

But, yes, Rickenbacker is mentioned and the frying pan is featured.