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the first electric guitar was an electric STEEL guitar; I think they said it was a Rickenbacker.

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Yeah, I read that too. Of course, Pappy McCormick did not invent the steel guitar. But he did invent (maybe with a collaborator?)in 1946 a rotating four-neck electric steel very similar to the Thunderlog, recently discussed here. Pappy called it the "Contraption." He played it on gigs. According to "The man Behind the Scenes," Pappy's biography published by his daughter, Juanealya McCormick Sutton, one of the two he had made is on exhibit in the Roy Acuff Museum, at Opryland. The book is full of photos of Pappy and his Contraption posing with Acuff, Tex Ritter, et al.

I met Pappy in the early-1990s, heard him play steel (a Gibson Grand Console?) at a gig--he was in his 80s--but I never saw the Contraption. His brother was about 90 and still playing the fiddle, albeit not very well.

I wish I had met them sooner. Pappy was apparently quite a guy in his heyday, playing in or fronting several dance bands in the FL panhandle and LA (lower Alabama) area.

Gotta go...

[This message was edited by Bob Stone on 09 April 2004 at 02:31 PM.]