Adolph Rickenbacher

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Adolph Rickenbacher , also Adolph Rickenbacker (born April 1, 1887 in Basel , † March 1976 in Los Angeles ) was a Swiss -US inventor and entrepreneur. As a designer in the USA in the early 1930s, Rickenbacher played a key role in the invention and production of the first mass-produced electrically amplified guitar . The American musical instrument manufacturer Rickenbacker has been named after him since the 1950s .

life and work

After the untimely death of his parents from Zeglingen in the Basel area , Adolph Rickenbacher emigrated to the United States and settled in the Californian city of Los Angeles in 1918. There he founded the Rickenbacher Manufacturing Company with business partners in 1925 . The company manufactured metal and bakelite components and supplied them to the musical instrument manufacturer National for the construction of resonator guitars .

In 1931, together with the guitarist and inventor George Beauchamp (1899–1941), Rickenbacher developed an electromagnetic pickup and the first electric guitar, the Rickenbacker Frying Pan lapsteel guitar . In 1931 Rickenbacher and Beauchamp founded the company Ro-Pat-In, later renamed the Electro String Instrument Corporation . Adolph Rickenbacher changed his last name in the 1930s to the more American-looking Rickenbacker . It is believed that Rickenbacher wanted to build on the popularity of his cousin Eddie Rickenbacker , who was a famous racing driver and flying ace of the First World War in the USA . In private circles, Adolph continued to use the surname Rickenbacher. In 1953, at the age of 66, Rickenbacher sold the Electro String Company and the rights to the Rickenbacker brand name to businessman Francis Hall and retired. The company was renamed Rickenbacker International Corporation and continues to manufacture electric guitars and basses under this brand to this day. Rickenbacher remained connected to the musical instrument making industry even in retirement and died in Los Angeles in 1976 at the age of 88.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Jogi Sweers: Rickenbacker History, in: Bass Professor, Fachzeitschrift für Bassisten, Issue No. 51, 2/2009, p. 108. ISSN  1431-7648
  2. ↑ Thomas Kosche: Wire up the sound so that they can hear you playing! - Article in: Stromgitarren, p. 43. Special issue of the magazine Guitar & Bass on the history of the electric guitar, p. 122 ff. MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004. ISSN  0934-7674
  3. ↑ Manfred Nabinger: Frying pan & Hawaii shirt - Rickenbacker Frying Pan & Gibson EH-150, in: Stromgitarren , special issue of the guitar & bass magazine on the history of the electric guitar, p. 122 ff. MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004. ISSN  0934-7674
  4. ↑ a b The Earliest Days of the Electric Guitar on rickenbacker.com (accessed February 13, 2012)
  5. ^ Tony Bacon, Paul Day: The Ultimate Guitar Book. Edited by Nigel Osborne, Dorling Kindersley, London / New York / Stuttgart 1991; Reprint 1993, ISBN 0-86318-640-8 , p. 54 f.
personal data
SURNAME Rickenbacher, Adolph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rickenbacker, Adolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-American inventor
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH March 1976
Place of death los Angeles