Bigsby revolutionizes the layout of pedal-steel pedals
with an instrument built for “Speedy” West and builds
the first modern solidbody guitar for Merle Travis.
1899
December 12,
1899, born Paul
Adelburt Bigsby
in Elgin, Illinois
1953
Patent granted
for the Bigsby
True Vibrato.
1919
Wins first
motorcycle
race.
1937
Adolf Rickenbacker’s
Electro String Instrument
Corporation introduces
one of the first solidbody
electric guitars.
1950
Puts a Bigsby
neck on Hank
Thompson’s
Gibson SJ- 200
acoustic.
1965
Sells Bigsby Vibrato
Company to former
Gibson president,
Ted McCarty.
1934
Begins promoting
motorcycle races.
1910
Moves to Los Angeles and
becomes a patternmaker.
1944
Doc Kauffman and Leo
Fender patent a round-neck
lap steel style electric. Paul
Bigsby builds a double-neck
lap steel for Western swing
legend Joaquin Murphey.
1951
Les Paul records “How
High the Moon,” using
a Bigsby pickup in his
hollowbody guitar.
1949
Leo Fender’s second solidbody prototype bears
more than a passing resemblance to Bigsby
guitars. Bigsby builds an instrument for Jimmy
Bryant that ends up with Billy Byrd.
1968
June 7, Paul
Bigsby dies
from cancer at
the age of 68.
1956
Builds the last Bigsby guitar for
Luke Charpentier and designs a
guitar for Magnatone.
Father of the Modern Electric Solidbody
Guitar, author Andy Babiuk references a
letter written in 1950 by Fender employee Don Randall. In his letter, Randall,
in charge of Fender’s distribution at the
time, describes meeting with Merle Travis
and observing his Bigsby guitar. Randall
writes: “He is playing the granddaddy of
our Spanish guitar, built by Paul Bigsby—
the one Leo copied.” Fender has claimed
that he never borrowed the guitar, but the
similarities seem to substantiate Travis’
story. Though the first Fender had a
three-on-a-side headstock, it copied the
Bigsby in its single cutaway, inch-and-a-half thick body, and its through-the-body
stringing system. The second Fender
solidbody increased the resemblance
further with a six-in-line tuning system
using the same cutoff Klusons as on the
Bigsby Standards.
It is widely acknowledged among guitar
aficionados that Bigsby’s designs directly
inspired Fender’s. “The Bigsby peghead
shape is very distinctive and so close to the
design later introduced by Fender that it
would stretch the imagination to think this
was a random coincidence,” notes one of
the foremost authorities on the history of
vintage guitars, George Gruhn of Nashville-based Gruhn Guitars.
Already competitive with Fender when it
came to lap steels, the similarities of the new
Fender production models angered Bigsby
considerably. If the Telecaster headstock
irked him, the even more similar Stratocaster
version would make him see red.
Guitars for the Stars
Undaunted by Fender’s new business,
Bigsby continued to make instruments for a
“who’s who” of country guitar legends. The
instrument he built for session great Grady
Martin had a neck-through design, a bird’s-eye maple veneer on its spruce top and
back, and a scroll on the top of the body
offsetting the one on the neck. Another
BIGSBY VIBRATOS
Paul Bigsby traveled the country with a display case in order to market his vibratos,
including the ones pictured here. Photos provided by Mary Bigsby/FGE Archive
Bigsby B6
Bigsby B3
Bigsby B5
