First distortion recording?

[aron]

I never knew this was the first recorded overdrive solo (1:27)

http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2013/08/04/peter-cooper-on-music-how-a-happy-accident-revolutionized-guitar-sound/

[rousejeremy]

That sounded more like a bass than Grady Martins Telelcaster. He was a monster guitarist with amazing tone.

I've heard recordings of Django overdriving his little tube amp playing with a big band way back in the 30's or 40's.

[PRR]

Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys have some 1940s tracks where the guitar-amp is clearly deliberately over-driven. His steady guitarist was Eldon Shamblin, Junior Barnard was his wild-man. Steel guitarist Leon McAuliffe.

[LucifersTrip]

Grady cashed in on that Marty Robbins hit with a solo follow up:

[brett]

Hi
I agree that maybe this wasn't the first overdriven tone. And there are many stories of damaged amps (especially damaged speakers, some possibly damaged on purpose). And resonator guitars buzz and distort.

BUT...to me this isn't an overdriven amp sound. It's a mis-biased blatty stinkin' Fuzz coming out of a seriously sick amp.

To me, it's important because:

Snoddy built a guitar pedal, with a button guitarists could press with the tap of a foot to change tone from clean to filthy. Then he took that pedal to Chicago and arranged an audience with Gibson president Maurice Berlin.

Gibson patented that circuit, built that circuit, sold those boxes, ... and we know the rest.

Thanks Aron. It filled in a key part of music/stompbox history for me.

[Mike Burgundy]

The dedicated box takes it, I think.
Otherwise there might be more contenders, I'm not familliar with Wills,, I do know this man:

According to Link himself, it was done by intentionally damaging the speaker/amp.
To build a dedicated box is truly the next step, cool!

[LucifersTrip]

If you really want to dig up early distortion and fuzz, this is considered one of the earliest examples, from 1951

[Lurco]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=16831.0

[Electron Tornado]

Here's an interesting site:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/11/country-fuzz-sp.html

[duck_arse]

rocket 88, what a cracker!

[GFR]

I think theres are eralier examples posted above, but

http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com.br/2013/08/the-accident-that-changed-modern-guitar.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BobbyOwsinskisBlog+%28Bobby+Owsinski%27s+Blog%29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCbIAmy6X0M

Edit: Oops, I just realized it's the same song in the first post

[wavley]

The dedicated box takes it, I think.
Otherwise there might be more contenders, I'm not familliar with Wills,, I do know this man:

According to Link himself, it was done by intentionally damaging the speaker/amp.
To build a dedicated box is truly the next step, cool!

If I remember correctly, Link's story was that he wanted to recreate the sound he heard when they were playing a gig and someone didn't think his guitar was loud enough so they shoved a PA mic in front of his amp and it distorted the PA.  When you really think about it, cranked amp + probably a crystal mic, ribbon, or early dynamic + tube mic preamp/transformer that wasn't meant to handle the spl of a cranked amp + probably less than 60 watt tube PA like a Bogen or something = AWESOME!!!!  I know because I recently obtained a pretty early Bogen and tried it, it was glorious!  Of course take that with a grain of salt because I'm the guy that uses an AKG D1000e, into a space echo, into that bogen and thinks it sounds great.

[LucifersTrip]

I always forget to mention this one, that came out the same year as the Marty Robbins cut in the first post, but actually sounds way more like real fuzz...and there's way more of it!

[jim68000]

The Marty Robbins track is bass through a busted channel; I'm sure one of the links says the studio got lots of bookings as a result only for the acts to turn up and discover they'd fixed it.

The 61 date on the Ann Margret track is a bit puzzling. That's clearly a real fuzz circuit.  Maybe Chet Atkins had something up his sleeve? Did Red Rhodes have a prototype of the Maestro Fuzz Tone that early?

[garcho]

"It opens a whole new world of music for you... Completely transistorized... here's a surprise, we're playing guitar but the sound is trumpet... how about something sweet and sentimental?"

Can you believe they thought the 'sousaphone effect' should be first?! And what bizarre playing!  

That blew my mind, thanks Jim! And Lucifer, that track is killer, thanks for sharing that. Kinda sounds like an over driven channel strip. Great thread Aron, bravo!

[slacker]

Did Red Rhodes have a prototype of the Maestro Fuzz Tone that early?

There's a couple of sites that claims it was a Rhodes Fuzz, http://www.kitrae.net/music/Fuzz_Big_Muff_Timeline.html  http://hewittsgaragestudio.com/fuzz-timeline.php they don't quote any sources though, so who who knows if they're correct.

It's a great song though, whatever it is.

[garcho]

Bottle caps, shells, or other objects are often affixed to the soundboard to create a buzzing sound when the instrument is played. In a traditional setting, this sound is considered extremely important, as it is believed to attract the ancestral spirits.

My emphasis. 

That's from Wikipedia's thumb piano entry (listed as mbira).

As far as I'm concerned, Willie Johnson and Hubert Sumlin should've received royalties from every song ever recorded featuring distorted guitar. Those guys are titans. Considering they were recording at Sun, they probably influenced Ike and Chuck's decision to rock it.

According to Analog Mike, Gibson made 5000 FZ-1 units in 1962, 3 in 1963 and 0 in 1964. Little did they know what would happen in 1965 when some glue-sniffer in England was imitating R&B horns with his Maestro...

[garcho]

Lee Hazelwood's raw genius at work:

"I didn't do time for shooting dice." 

From Slacker's kitrae link, thanks for posting that, un-cited sources and all  .

[jim68000]

The sole reason I want to build fuzzes is to get the ultimate sousaphone tone, obviously.

I think it's worth posting this, too. Only a bit of fuzz on a psychedelic pedal steel track, but of particular interest to this forum is that the cover of the album is Red Rhodes' workshop. He built Velvet Hammer pickups as well, hence the title of the record.