Tonight I've got something special for you, the history of "Fuzz Guitar" written up by my good pal, musician, scholar, and all around good guy Rich Horton, aka Rich Arithmetic.
Take it away Rich!
Do you remember when you
first noticed the sound of fuzz guitars? We tend to think of
fuzz-and-distortion-effected guitars as characterizing the emerging
sounds of psychedelia that arose in the mid-to-late Sixties. Although
most recording studios had access to primitive distortion-creating
equipment as far back as the '50s, they had hardly been used by artists
in the creation of their records. Sure, Dave Davies had slit the
speakers on his amp in 1964 to make his guitar sound more gritty on "You
Really Got Me" and other early Kinks hits; and in his effort to make
his guitar sound like a saxophone from an Otis Redding record, Keith
Richards had played his guitar through a primitive version of a fuzz-box
when playing the classic riff for The Stones' "(I Can't Get No)
Satisfaction" in mid-1965. But the song that initially made me take
notice of Fuzz was from Christmas time of 1965 when George Harrison
song's "Think for Yourself" from Rubber Soul credited Paul McCartney's
"Fuzz Bass" which was the song's big hook, and made everyone sit up and
notice: What a cool sound!
Of course,
once The Beatles popularized the fuzzy sound effect, guitarists started
buying distortion pedals and fuzz boxes, and music stores couldn't keep
them in stock, and by early 1966, lots of bands were featuring fuzzy
guitars as part of their musical ID, not least the fuzz bass that was
essentially the lead instrument on the classic garage-rock anthem "Talk
Talk" by The Music Machine.
And
then in late Spring of '66, The Animals presaged what acid rock and
heavy blues were going to sound like when a fuzzy lead guitar was
featured throughout their Top 10 hit "Don't Bring Me Down." And from
that time to the present, distorted guitars are a mainstay of rock
records. Long live Fuzz!
Thanks Rich!!
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