A fascinating bit of Riverside history came to me completely out of the blue a while back, thanks to Doug Barrie of the We Grew Up in Riverside CA in the 50s and 60s Facebook page.
It seems that a prototype guitar — built in Riverside — was used by George Harrison of The Beatles on the 1968 “White Album.”
First, how did Riverside get a guitar factory?
This story actually starts in the 1920s with a man named Paul Barth. Barth was a quiet, unassuming person who was, in essence, the father of the electric guitar. Starting in the ’20s, he was creating and experimenting with many types of electric methods of amplifying the sound of a guitar, which at the time was being drowned out by other instruments in dance and jazz bands. Barth worked with George Beauchamp in the 1930s to further develop electric guitars and guitar pickups.
By the early 1950s, Barth was in Santa Ana, working with Leo Fender on many of his iconic guitars of that era. Soon, Barth decided to go off on his own and, for a while, owned and operated the Barth Guitar Company, which may or may not have panned out.
In 1964, Barth had moved to Riverside, where he entered into a partnership with local businessman Ted Peckels. Peckels owned a music and guitar shop called the House of Note on Magnolia Avenue, just north of the railroad crossing in the Magnolia Center neighborhood. Together, the two of them formed the Bartell Guitar Company of California, with Peckels handling the business end of things and Barth heading up the design end of things. The company’s name came from combining the last names of both men.
I was lucky enough to be able to sit down with Paul Brett, a British music historian who has done extensive research on this story. He indicated that Paul Barth was instrumental in developing the electric guitar as we know it today, although he is not well known. Others seem to have taken credit for many of his ideas, or used them to further develop their own.
In 1966 or 1967, Bartell employee Tom Mitchell suggested creating a fretless guitar. Barth OK’d the plan and a few prototypes were made.
Meanwhile, The Beatles were staying in Los Angeles, and attended a recording session in Hollywood. At that session was Michael Deasy, playing one of the new fretless guitars from Bartell. He and George Harrison got to talking about it, and Harrison was intrigued. So, Neil Aspinall, one of The Beatles’ aides, ordered one from the famous Hollywood music store of Al Casey, who in turn had gotten two of the prototypes through his connections with Bartell.
Harrison apparently loved the instrument, and it went back with him to England, where it was then used on The Beatles’ “White Album.”
There is much more to the story than I can relate here. Luckily, if you’d like to know more, Paul Brett has written and published a wonderful book on the entire episode, which he titled “Finding Fretless.” The book is available at www.findingfretless.com.
If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.