This book is a surprisingly engaging cultural, musical and technical history of the electric guitar. It includes stories of the individuals who designed and built the iconic guitar models, the companies they created, the trend-setting musicians who used and altered the guitars, and what it all meant.
It is interesting that there is or was an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and then at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the similar name “Play It Loud: The Instruments of Rock and Roll” which by sheer cosmic luck I was able to attend on the opening day (at the Met) in 2019. It is full of the actual instruments played by many great rock stars, many of them much the worse for wear.
I don’t know if the exhibition still exists, or whether this book was in any way connected to it (other than by the fact that it covers much of the same history), but you can still find references and some videos online related to this marvelous museum collection of instruments.
A fun read for any electric guitar player or recent American music and social history fan. Recommended.
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