Paul Bigsby was a machinist, motorcycle builder, and craftsman whose ingenuity led to the creation of one of the world's first modern solid-body electric guitars. The instrument that made his name in the guitar world wasn't a product of a factory, but the result of a friendship with a country music legend and a few well-placed challenges.

 

In the 1940s, Bigsby worked as a foreman at the Crocker Motorcycle Company in Los Angeles. He was known for being able to build almost anything by hand, a skill he'd honed from a decade as a motorcycle racer. His love of motorcycles was matched only by his passion for Western swing and country music. At the local motorcycle racetrack, Bigsby met Merle Travis, a rising country and western star who was also a racing enthusiast.  Merle would soon present Bigsby with an issue facing his stock vibrato tailpiece—it wouldn't stay in tune. He asked Bigsby if he could fix it.  Instead of repairing the old unit, Bigsby would create a new, far superior mechanism. This device, later patented as the Bigsby True Vibrato, would go on to be showcased on thousands of guitars.

 

One day in 1948, Travis presented Bigsby with a challenge over lunch. He showed him a sketch drawn on a piece of radio stationery—an idea for an electric guitar with a solid body and a neck that played like an acoustic. Travis wanted an instrument that could produce the sustaining tone of a steel guitar without feedback. Bigsby's response was simple and familiar: "I can make anything".

 

Bigsby hand-carved the guitar from curly maple. He even wound his own blade-style pickups and incorporated a through-body stringing design. The most influential feature, however, was the headstock with all six tuning pegs placed in a single row. This design would soon be adopted by other guitar makers and become an iconic part of rock and roll history.

 

The finished guitar was a revelation for Travis, who went on to play it on recordings and in public appearances, turning heads everywhere he went. Its revolutionary single-cutaway body also influenced Gibson's Les Paul design, while the six-in-line headstock became a hallmark of Fender guitars. The legacy of the Travis guitar is preserved in the Nashville-based Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

 

Bigsby continued to build custom instruments, creating guitars and pedal steels for a who's who of country music stars, including Grady Martin and Billy Byrd. He famously kept a no-nonsense policy with his customers, telling one famous musician who tried to jump the line, "I don't care if you are Jesus Christ, you will wait your turn like everybody else". In the end, it was the overwhelming demand for his signature vibratos that would halt his instrument-making, as he simply couldn't keep up. In 1966, an aging Bigsby sold his company to his friend Ted McCarty.

 

Paul Bigsby may not be as famous as the guitar makers he influenced, but his craftsmanship and inventive spirit were vital in shaping the sound and design of modern electric guitars.