: George Beauchamp (1899-1941).

A Texas guitarist who got tired of being drowned out by his band, Beauchamp (pronounced bee-chum) created the first device that worked by "picking up" vibrations directly from metal strings. Working with Adolph Rickenbacher in 1931, he fitted the "pickup" on a Hawaiian guitar, creating what was arguably the first solid body electric guitar.

Beauchamp filed a patent in 1932 and then again in 1934 for his pickup, shown here. His partner started producing the "frying pan," a name that described the shape of the guitar. The company evolved into Rickenbacker (the h becoming a k) and every guitarist since has never had to worry about being loud enough.
  • Joni Marshall LaRoux, Donnie Pendleton, Javier Luna Antúnez and 43 others like this.
    • Tom Mulhern The contributions by Beauchamp, Lloyd Loar, Doc Kauffman, and the other early pioneers tend to be lost to the modern world. Without them, though, we might still be banging on acoustics. On second thought, we are. But we get to choose...either or both.
      December 14, 2009 at 11:54pm · 1
    • Cheryl Boyer And oh, what a choice!
      December 15, 2009 at 6:13am
    • David Eveland I was 16, 1977,when I picked up one of these in a garge sale. It was in it's origanal case,and even had the origanal slide.The "PAN" was in awesome shape,and I payed $25.00 for it.As with all "used to have" stories,this one really hurts.
      December 15, 2009 at 10:12am · 1
    • Garret E. Seymour me too..it was $25.00.
      December 15, 2009 at 11:47am
    • Joni Marshall LaRoux ‎~*:>}~**
      October 9, 2011 at 7:38pm · 1
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