White Falcon. Chet Atkins Hollow Body 6120. These are two of the most famous electric guitars made by the celebrated Gretsch Guitar Company, founded in 1883. There have been many new reissues and similar models. Any Gretsch, though, is marked by a tendency to feedback and have baffling controls. These guitars have been described as coolly beautiful, stylishly glamorous, and tonally weird.
Founder Friedrich Gretsch started crafting drums, banjos, and tambourines. He died at the young age of 39, and his widow Rosa determined that their 15-year-old son should quit school at Wright's Business College for immediate exposure to the real world. Teenager Fred Gretsch directed his youthful enthusiasm into growing the Fred Gretsch Manufacturing Company, which would become the maker of its storied instruments.
This early growth took place in a large ten-story building at 60 Broadway in Brooklyn, alongside the path to the Willamsburg Bridge crossing the East River. Back in the 1910s, the most popular stringed instrument was not the guitar but the banjo. The guitar began to eclipse the banjo in the early 1920s and early 1930s because it was more versatile and appealing. Gretsch started to use its own name as a brand for its guitars in 1933, a line of archtop acoustics. These guitars, including the Gretsch American Orchestra Series and Broadkaster model, were not particularly unique. When the Synchromatic line replaced them in 1939, however, the pros began to take Gretsch guitars seriously. These instruments were larger, louder, and had cat's eye or triangular soundholes.
In 1940, Dick Sanford and Clarke Van Ness wrote a song called, "When I Play on my Gretsch Guitar", performed by singing cowboy Red River Dave. The lyrics went, "When the shadows grow/And the lights are low/Then I play on my Gretsch guitar/As I touch the strings/Like a voice it sings/It's the voice of my love afar".
A key addition to the guitar team was "Duke" Kramer. The company had a meeting in New York in 1946 to decide whether they wanted to pursue a jobber-distributor type operation, or whether to go for the big time and sell its products under the Gretsch logo. It was a crucial turning point. They went for their own brand reputation. On drums and guitars, Gretsch stopped selling to catalog houses and those who were only into low-price merchandise.
Fred Gretsch, Jr. wrote in the brochure Your Gretsch Guitar Guide, "A Gretsch guitar truly glorifies the talents of the artist who commands it". Hyperbole aside, this brochure heralded the new emphasis on guitars for pros. Gretsch issued a three-year guarantee for all of its guitars, covering any defects caused by faulty parts or workmanship. The market leader in electric guitars back then was Gibson. Gretsch entered the competition with its Electromatic II and Electro II cutaway body in 1951.
The early history of this guitar brand would not be complete without Jimmie Webster. A piano player and tuner, he became Gretsch's main ideas generator, combining his talents as a musician, inventor, salesperson, and global ambassador for Gretsch. He introduced the "Touch System". If you remember the "tapping" technique that Eddie Van Halen and others made famous in the 1980s, then you get a picture of Webster's way of producing chordal rhythms. His left hand would make a rapid hamming-on motion, and he would play the melody at the same time, using a pick by tapping the strings against the upper fingerboard with his right-hand fist. He would add a baseline with his thumb. This was like patting your head and rubbing your stomach simultaneously. One Gretsch guitar sounded like two.
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