mayfly
Epic Member
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So for my birthday I got a copy of "The Story of Paul Bigsby". I've been reading through it. Here's some thoughts and observations.
1 - Paul Bigsby was a very interesting guy, and the book is a very interesting look at the early years of electric guitar development. If you're a guitar history buff, you need this book.
2 - Paul invented the pedal steel guitar - He built the first one in the world for Speedy West. This appears to be undisputed.
3 - The first Spanish (i.e. not slide) solid body electric guitar was built by Paul in 1947. He built at least two prototypes in 1947, including one for Les Paul. There are photos of these guitars in the book. But the one that put him on the map was one he built for Merle Travis in 1948. Bigsby built the guitar, but Merle designed it. It featured through neck construction, string through body design, a single pickup near the bridge with a tone selection switch, a single cutaway, and a six on a side headstock. Paul came up with an ingenious idea of cutting the tabs on the kluson deluxe tuners to get them closer together. Merle made this guitar famous and suddenly Bigsby had a 2 year waiting list for guitars.
3.5 - Merle's guitar is made to the highest standard using high quality materials (the body and neck are birdseye maple for example) - but it's butt ugly
4 - This is where it gets interesting. According to Merle Travis, Leo Fender borrowed the solid body Bigsby for a week some time in 1949. Soon after that Leo had a broadcaster prototype that he was showing folks that featured many of the ideas on the Bigsby guitar. Leo went to his grave without ever admitting that he had borrowed the Bigsby - which bugged the hell out of Merle: "I don't want a penny from him (Leo), I just want him to say where he got the idea for the guitar. That's all!" and "I let him borrow it (the Bigsby) and it bugged me for years that he wouldn't admit it." Bigsby was also pretty annoyed. His daughter Mary remembered: "When Fender copied the head (stock), we sure heard about it!"
5 - Bigsby had patented the idea of the 6 inline headstock (apparently with Merle's permission) and tried to get Leo on a patent infringement. It didn't work - Fender's lawyers found some "prior art" (some existing instruments with the 6 inline headstock). This is pretty funny considering Fender's recent attempt to patent the headstocks of the Tele and Strat. :icon_biggrin:
6 - Paul was more careful when he came out with his vibrato tailpiece - he had a rock solid patent on that. In the late 50's and early 60's he was making so many that he stopped building guitars. He was supplying all the big names from a little shop behind his house. He only had 4 or 5 employees, including his daughter Mary.
7 - Paul sold his company to then Gibson president Ted McCarty in the mid 60's. Ted kept making the vibratos the same way using the same patterns and molds up until he sold the company to Fred Gretsch in 1999. The vibratos are still made the same way today. Interestingly Ted was running Bigsby for much longer than he was running Gibson.
8 - oh yea - Bigsby was heavily into motorcycles :headbang1:
1 - Paul Bigsby was a very interesting guy, and the book is a very interesting look at the early years of electric guitar development. If you're a guitar history buff, you need this book.
2 - Paul invented the pedal steel guitar - He built the first one in the world for Speedy West. This appears to be undisputed.
3 - The first Spanish (i.e. not slide) solid body electric guitar was built by Paul in 1947. He built at least two prototypes in 1947, including one for Les Paul. There are photos of these guitars in the book. But the one that put him on the map was one he built for Merle Travis in 1948. Bigsby built the guitar, but Merle designed it. It featured through neck construction, string through body design, a single pickup near the bridge with a tone selection switch, a single cutaway, and a six on a side headstock. Paul came up with an ingenious idea of cutting the tabs on the kluson deluxe tuners to get them closer together. Merle made this guitar famous and suddenly Bigsby had a 2 year waiting list for guitars.
3.5 - Merle's guitar is made to the highest standard using high quality materials (the body and neck are birdseye maple for example) - but it's butt ugly
4 - This is where it gets interesting. According to Merle Travis, Leo Fender borrowed the solid body Bigsby for a week some time in 1949. Soon after that Leo had a broadcaster prototype that he was showing folks that featured many of the ideas on the Bigsby guitar. Leo went to his grave without ever admitting that he had borrowed the Bigsby - which bugged the hell out of Merle: "I don't want a penny from him (Leo), I just want him to say where he got the idea for the guitar. That's all!" and "I let him borrow it (the Bigsby) and it bugged me for years that he wouldn't admit it." Bigsby was also pretty annoyed. His daughter Mary remembered: "When Fender copied the head (stock), we sure heard about it!"
5 - Bigsby had patented the idea of the 6 inline headstock (apparently with Merle's permission) and tried to get Leo on a patent infringement. It didn't work - Fender's lawyers found some "prior art" (some existing instruments with the 6 inline headstock). This is pretty funny considering Fender's recent attempt to patent the headstocks of the Tele and Strat. :icon_biggrin:
6 - Paul was more careful when he came out with his vibrato tailpiece - he had a rock solid patent on that. In the late 50's and early 60's he was making so many that he stopped building guitars. He was supplying all the big names from a little shop behind his house. He only had 4 or 5 employees, including his daughter Mary.
7 - Paul sold his company to then Gibson president Ted McCarty in the mid 60's. Ted kept making the vibratos the same way using the same patterns and molds up until he sold the company to Fred Gretsch in 1999. The vibratos are still made the same way today. Interestingly Ted was running Bigsby for much longer than he was running Gibson.
8 - oh yea - Bigsby was heavily into motorcycles :headbang1: