Electric dreams: the Swiss origins of the electric guitar
In the early 20th century, Karl Schneider and Adolph Rickenbacker turned a conventional string instrument into an electric super device for hard sounds and the big stage.
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The pop music wave in the 1960s would have been inconceivable were it not for the distinctive tones of the electric guitar. How would Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones have sounded without the sonority of the turned-up Marshall amplifiers? Even American folk singer Bob Dylan succumbed to the fascination of the electric guitar. At Newport Folk Festival in 1965, he placed his acoustic guitar in the corner and plugged in a Fender Stratocaster to the horror of the folk purists. He was booed off stage and had to stop the concert. Nonetheless, from then on the singer songwriter increasingly embraced rock and pop music.
Bob Dylan goes electric. Not everyone was happy:
The origins of pop music emerged about 100 years ago in the US. Technological advances, such as sound film, the record player and radio enabled the rapid dissemination of new types of popular music during the Roaring TwentiesExternal link. “Black” jazz and “white” pop music evolved in America into swing played by big bands, which gained worldwide popularity. It also spawned other genres, such as country and western and Hawaiian music. Moreover, technological progress not only facilitated the dissemination of music, but also transformed live performances.
Texan guitarist George Beauchamp is known as the inventor of the electric guitar. He happened across a high volume guitar suited to a big band. Using a pick-up, he converted the vibrations of the steel strings into alternating voltage, so the sound could be turned up using an amplifier. That sowed the seed, which developed into the electric guitar.
In the US, engineer Adolph Rickenbacker is known as the father of the electric guitar. He was originally Swiss. In 1887, Adolf Adam Riggenbacher, as he was named in the baptismal register, was born at Gemsberg 7 in Basel’s Old Town, the son of a poor carpenter. In 1891, the family and their three children emigrated to the US. The young Adolph Rickenbacker, as he was known in the States, founded a company in Los Angeles. In mid-1931, Rickenbacker brought out the first electric guitar, known as the frying pan because of its shape. The patent application was filed in 1932 and the US patent finally granted in 1937. It was not long before the company was delivering “Rickenbacker” guitars to music shops across the country. It is still operating in Santa Ana, California. It was only in 1936 that competition emerged to Rickenbacker in the form of the Gibson Guitar Corporation, which industrialised production with serially numbered electric guitars.
The first American big jazz bands appeared in the concert halls and clubs of Europe’s metropolises before the Second World War. In Basel Old Town, close to where Rickenbacker was born, Karl Schneider, a young violin maker in Musikhaus Meinel, had his first encounter with the American electric guitar. Fascinated by the technology and rich sound of the instrument, he conducted his own experiments with pick-ups. From then on, he was hooked.
Starting out as a violin maker
Karl Schneider was born in Heilbronn in 1905. His father worked as a master brewer and the family moved many times. From Heilbronn to Mulhouse, then to Porrentruy in the Swiss Jura and then back to Oggersheim in Germany. All these changes of location and language harmed the education of the three children. When the father died following an accident at work in 1918, the family moved to Lörrach-Stetten close to the Swiss border. The young Karl was interested in all things technological and wanted to be an engineer. However, he was unable to continue his studies due to his school grades and his family’s financial situation. One of Karl’s uncles, a concert cellist in Bern, recognised the boy’s aptitude for craftsmanship and arranged an apprenticeship for him as a violin maker with renowned master violin maker Paul Meinel in Basel.
Schneider successfully completed his apprenticeship in 1923 and continued working for Meinel until the violin maker died in 1928. Meinel’s son-in-law, music retailer Hugo Schmitz, took over the business at Steinenvorstadt and expanded the violin maker’s workshop into a shop for musical instruments Musikhaus Meinel. Schneider remained as the sole instrument maker in the business.
During the crisis years following 1930, demand for string instruments collapsed. As he looked for a new field, Karl Schneider began to make guitars. He designed models for concert, jazz and Hawaiian guitars, which he produced in Musikhaus Meinel and brought to market under his boss’s label “Grando”.
Towards the end of the 1930s, an American guitarist in Basel was looking for help repairing his defective electric guitar. He found it in Musikhaus Meinel. When working on the guitar, Karl Schneider was able to examine the instrument from the US, probably a Gibson ES-155. Shortly afterwards, the first Grando electric guitars, which bore certain similarities to the American Gibson models on close inspection, appeared in the music store’s display window. These Grando models from Basel were the first commercial electric guitars in Europe.
Schneider kept experimenting and after a while decided to branch out on his own. In 1945, he founded his own business in Riehen Firma K. Schneider Instrumentenbau. The young entrepreneur enthusiastically launched a broad range of acoustic and electric guitar models, which he brought to market under the new brand “Rio”. He couldn’t keep using Grando, as it belonged to his former boss.
Karl Schneider kept refining his models, made technical improvements and aimed for high quality in his products. His jazz guitars all came with a steel rod in the neck to counter the tension of the steel strings and prevent any bending of the neck.
The new company quickly became successful. The instruments were delivered to retailers throughout Switzerland and in neighbouring countries. Although there was a luxury tax on the sale of musical instruments after the war, demand for the Riehen guitars boomed. To ensure there was enough space for his business and young family, Schneider built a residential and commercial property at the edge of Riehen village. The first employee was hired in 1947.
The spread of popular music in Europe during the post-war years contributed to the flourishing electric guitar business. A wave of new musical influences from the US, such as Hawaiian music and country and western songs reached Europe. In Basel, a number of jazz and Hawaiian bands emerged and found success performing in clubs and at public events with their sonorous electric guitar sounds. One example was the Hula-Hawaiians, a successful band that also performed with guitars and ukuleles from Riehen. Famous jazz musicians, such as Django Reinhardt also played Rio electric guitars on occasion.
The premises had to be extended several times in the early years to keep pace with the growth of the business. In the 1960s, production increased to 1,000 instruments per year. As musical styles changed, so did the Rio guitars. Karl Schneider changed the shape and colours in line with contemporary trends and was always receptive to special requests. For example, by the Minstrels who played their hit “Grüezi wohl, Frau Stirnimaa” with instruments from Riehen.
Even the Minstrels swore by Karl Schneider’s instruments:
After the 1973 oil crisis, the economics of instrument manufacture in Switzerland became more of an issue. On the one hand, there was growing competition with cheap products from Asia. In addition, the cost of the indispensable tropical woods went up. Although Schneider worked hard to streamline commercial production with machinery, the product margins dwindled. Riehen continued to produce guitars until 1982.
After Karl Schneider transferred ownership of the business to his daughter and son-in-law, he returned to violin-making until his death in 1998. This time, however, on a smaller scale in a workshop in his house.
Andrej Abplanalp is a historian and communications chief of the Swiss National Museum.
The original articleExternal link first appeared on the blog of the Swiss National Museum and was published on December 26, 2023.
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