That's not the way I heard it. Snoddy might have introduced the Fuzz-Tone in the 60s, but the distorted guitar sound began with Link Wray poking holes in his amplifier's speaker on "Rumble", in 1958.
Not to minimize the Fuzz-Tone's impact, by any means. Just setting the record straight. ;)
James Cotton - Cotton Crop Blues, on Sun Records. Recorded 1954, with a guitar solo harder/heavier than most records up until the late 60s (with a few exceptions like Dick Dale). And it features distorted power chords. Pretty much the first really heavy track out there, I figure. It's my go-to point to show people the origins of heavy, distorted guitar music.
I also like to show them some Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, as he had a lot of electrified instruments (electric guitar, electric mandolin, pedal steel) and was a big influence on Chuck Berry and Elvis. Plus I love Bob Wills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_rock_and_roll does a pretty good job of covering the important records that led up to the explosion of rock music in the 60s. Not sure about how it is beyond that.
Pretty glad a musical topic came up here on HN, though. I'm more passionate about music history than I am about computer science (though there are no career prospects there, so CS it is).
One of them is mine, and I only went there because of your comment to be honest.
Edit: you said "19:25" and "nine hours ago" was 2013-08-07 09:03:45 UTC, so you're at EDT? (incidently, everytimezone.com is pretty cool)
I'd love to take more classes in music history! I already took one (called "Roots of Rock & Roll", covered the mid-1800s minstrel show through the 1960s) that I absolutely adored, but unfortunately there aren't any other jazz, world or American music history courses offered (I wouldn't be that interested in classical history, I'm not quite ready for it yet, but we'll see where my growing musicianship leads me over the rest of my years).
If you have recommendations for good books that deal with music history, especially American musical history from the past 200 years or so, I'd be interested. I also would be interested in discussing this stuff in general; it seems like a lot of people, especially within the tech community, don't delve that deeply into the history and context of music (or really of art in general), so it's great to meet individuals that do.
Link to Rocket 88 (1951): http://grooveshark.com/s/Rocket+88/24PPYE?src=5
Rock a While (1949), featuring the trademark rockabilly riff: http://grooveshark.com/s/Rock+A+While/3pQhHy?src=5
I'll go next! You were on the right track with blues from Texas, but it goes way before 1949. Try to find the Chuck Berry riffs...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odwaE1hlwgc
T-Bone Walker - I Got A Break Baby (1942) (B-side of Mean Old World, Capitol 10033) (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_Old_World)
Here's an article about him that I grabbed off Wikipedia's sources: http://www.there1.com/browse_articles.php?action=view_record...
> "[This single was] the first important blues [recording] on the electric guitar"
Some other cool stuff in the article too, like how he worked with Blind Lemon Jefferson (Robert Johnson also worked with him) and with Charlie Christian, who brought the electric guitar to jazz.
I'll go again just because it's fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbWmAgp2R30 - Ernest Tubb - Walking The Floor Over You (1941) (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_the_Floor_Over_You)
A country single that sold over a million copies, and it used that nice prominent electric guitar, beating Walker by a year.
Reading further on Wikipedia to try and find earlier recordings, I'm pointed to an artist I've been exploring only this past week: Milton Brown & His Musical Brownies, one of the "big 3" Western Swing artists (along with Spade Cooley and Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys).
Ugh, this stuff's hard to find on Youtube... Found something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnjE5aB-cWQ - Milton Brown & His Musical Brownies - Right Or Wrong (1936, date source: http://www.secondhandsongs.com/performance/200653)
Note the electrified pedal steel solo midway through. That's some innovative stuff, though I like Merle Haggard's version better (on his Bob Wills tribute album, "A Tribute To The Best Damn Fiddle Player In The World" from 1970. Wills' version is also pretty good, but not all that much better than Brown's. As you can see, I think Western Swing is great stuff (my last.fm is utterly full of it), and my secret theory is that there were only 3 big Western Swing bands because there were only 3 pedal steel players talented enough in the 30s and 40s to do the style justice. Before it came along, there wasn't all that much popular music that really used the electric guitar.
Anyway, I digressed pretty hard, but I think I've made my point somewhere in there...
Along with Robert Johnson (and Bix Biederbeck, a jazz trumpet player form the 20s/30s) this gentleman helped make the blue guitar single note repertoire what it is.
Wish I could remember his name... :)
Johnson and Beiderbecke are both good name from their respective periods (30s country blues and 20s jazz), but I'd argue that there were significantly more influential musicians on the development of the blues style throughout the 40s and 50s. More on that in a minute... Robert Johnson's an interesting guy.
Johnson's influence is a weird case: he was almost totally unknown until the early 1960s, when that classic compilation (King of the Delta Blues Singers, on Columbia, 1961) came out with many of his recordings. As a result, his influence really begins to widen in the 1960s, as many white blues-rock bands were starting to form and gain popularity (such as The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds (featuring Eric Clapton), and Mike Bloomfield + Bob Dylan). This blues-rock was the stuff that really made an impact on American society at large, and as a result, we tend to consider Robert Johnson to be one of the seminal blues artists. Odd how that turns out.
Anyway, back to seminal blues artists. Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3yd-c91ww8) were the two who I'd argue contributed most to the "classic" style. Johnson was exceptionally prolific and exceptionally good, and Blind Lemon mentored many young artists, including Robert Johnson and T-Bone Walker. On the white side of things, Eddie Lang (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Loc8WiDvNaE) was arguably the first jazz guitarist (and had a heavy influence on many blues musicians), and Jimmie Rodgers (yay, awesome video footage! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIlURYJI-xs) was arguably the first guitar-playing "modern" country musician (he fused country and blues). He too had a wide influence on blues artists, going so far as to collaborate with Louis Armstrong (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BFbY9Vw8DM), and to be the reason why Howlin' Wolf started "howling."
Thanks for playing :)
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/columns/the_history_of/accide...