.: History of Distortion The first amplifiers built for electric guitar were relatively low-fidelity, and would often produce distortion when their volume (gain) was increased beyond their design limit or if they sustained minor damage. One of the earliest recorded examples of distortion in rock music is the 1951 Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm song Rocket 88, on which guitarist Willie Kizart used an amplifier that had been slightly damaged in transport. This was predated by Goree Carters Rock Awhile (1949), which featured an over-driven electric guitar style similar to that of Chuck Berry several years later, as well as Joe Hill Louis Boogie in the Park (1950). By the mid-1950s, rock guitarists began intentionally doctoring amplifiers and speakers in order to create even harsher distortion. Pat Hare produced heavily distorted power chords on his electric guitar for records such as James Cottons Cotton Crop Blues (1954) as well as his own Im Gonna Murder My Baby (1954), creating a grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric guitar sound, accomplished by turning the volume knob on his amplifier all the way to the right until the speaker was screaming. In 1956, guitarist Paul Burlison of the Johnny Burnette Trio deliberately dislodged a vacuum tube in his amplifier to record The Train Kept A-Rollin” after a reviewer raved about the sound Burlisons damaged amplifier produced during a live performance. Guitarist Link Wray began intentionally manipulating his amplifiers vacuum tubes to create a noisy and dirty” sound for his solos after a similarly accidental discovery. Wray also poked holes in his speaker cones with pencils to further distort his tone. The resultant sound can be heard on his highly influential 1958 instrumental, Rumble. In the late 1960s and early 1970s hard rock bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath forged what would eventually become the heavy metal sound through a combined use of high volumes and heavy distortion. YouTube: James Cotton ~ Cotton Crop Blues youtube/watch?v=YAqTrbuxCRI
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 13:14:20 +0000
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