The Story of the Guitar

Beginning with the rise of the acoustic guitar, Alan Yentob traces the instrument's history from an ancient Middle Eastern ancestor of the lute, to the iconic guitars draped round the necks of Bill Hailey and Elvis Presley and beyond. Featuring interviews with Bert Weedon - the man who taught Britain to 'Play in a Day', Pete Townshend, Bill Bailey, flamenco player Paco Pena and classical guitarist John Williams.

As the guitar turns electric, music is changed for ever. The world’s first electric guitar had nothing to do with jazz or blues, but Hawaiian-style music and was known as the ‘frying pan’. Yentob continues his investigation from the blues of the Mississippi to the guitar wars of the 1950s, when the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul were battling for supremacy.

In the final programme of the series the guitarists talk about how they find their own sound, and how the guitar has changed their lives. Since its invention, the electric guitar has unleashed a seemingly inexhaustible sonic invention among guitarists. Featuring Muse’s Matt Bellamy, who turns out to be following in his father’s space age footsteps, Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath, who talks about the invention of heavy metal, David Gilmour from Pink Floyd, Pete Townshend (Perhaps equally famous for smashing guitars), Johnny Marr from the Smiths on ‘the mother of all riffs’, Slash and The Edge from U2 among many others.