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Ever since I was a small boy I knew I'd be a musician. I didn't make it rock star status, instead I became a local legend in Nashville and you can bet, the greatest rockin' guitar pickers, the best there's ever been. Sounds like I'm quoting from the Charlie Daniel's song 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia' that made it mark in 1979 penned by Vasser Clements. That features the devil and his fiddle and we're taking about guitars and and the strange way they evolved into today's electric guitar.

When you have an image of a guitar in your head, do you have a brand name in mind? I do it's the Gibson guitar the orginal (wish I owned it) was built in 1936 and was named the ES-150. Still you hear about it and, there are music historians who will tell you,... 'that was pure heaven.

Of this I am certain; the guitar in its many shapes and forms, either acoustic or the electric guitar has seen a lot of evolution through the ages, and its ancestry is a twisted journey to follow. There is evidence (though not iron clad) that purports that the Spanish guitar comes from the Romans and dates to 400 AD. It would only resemble today's guitar in a broad sense, being called a Tanbur which is lute like stringed instrument from the Middle East, usually possessing three strings; or it's likely our modern electric guitar may have sprung from the Cithara. The cithara, which has from three to twelve strings, was lovingly hand made with a wooden soundboard, boxy shaped body (resonator) and that my friends doesn't sound too removed from the electric guitar of today.

What may have transpired is some talented craftsman of the distant past took the best from each, combining his own ideas into the musical instrumentwhat would become the guitar|. Obviously the world was different then and the way ideas, concepts and crafts were communicated, moved slowly and probably would have taken generations to cross from one area of the world to another. And while today they might be called street musicians, in history they hailed to the name troubadours.

The instrument, however it may have looked continued to adapt to the times and refine itself and in 1200 AD gradually became the instrument with a rounded back and broad fingerboard (probably Moorish) and a different version which is the distant cousin of current day acoustic guitar (probably Spanish or Latin).

The guitar never left the scene of a good celebration, however it played second fiddle (sorry, couldn't resist) for for countless years by the vihuela and lute, which eventually became too complicated for everyday performing, and those musical minds of yesteryear looked to the four and five string guitar, which again garnered its rightful place in the history books. The fifth string giving the guitar its rock solid (excuse the joke) reputation, versatility and long life.

Looking back into history, we can realize the twists and turns, and certainly no one back then (hey electricity hadn't even been invented) could see the modern day instrument it has become. Yet those men of old designed something of beauty, integrity and a bit of magic, since the design of today's guitar very much resembles those made one hundred and fifty years ago.