The National New Yorker lived at the forefront of the emerging electric guitar industry, and in Memphis Minnie’s hands, it came alive.
(Are you not totally intrigued by the story of this incredible woman? Why did she run away from home? Why did she fall in love with the guitar? We haven’t even touched on how remarkable her songwriting is. This is a singular pioneer of guitar history, and we beseech you to read Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie’s Blues by Beth and Paul Garon.)
Following the end of World War I, Hawaiian music enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity. On their travels around the U.S., musicians like Sol Ho’opi’i became fans of Louis Armstrong and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, leading to a great cross-pollination of Hawaiian music with jazz and blues. This potent combination proved popular and drew ever-larger audiences, which created a significant problem: How on earth would an audience of thousands hear the sound from a wimpy little acoustic guitar?
This art deco pickguard offers just a bit of pizzazz to an otherwise demure instrument.
In the late 1920s, George Beauchamp, John and Rudy Dopyera, Adolph Rickenbacker, and John Dopyera’s nephew Paul Barth endeavored to answer that question with a mechanically amplified guitar. Working together under Beauchamp and John Dopyera’s National String Instrument Corporation, they designed the first resonator guitar, which, like a Victrola, used a cone-shaped resonator built into the guitar to amplify the sound. It was definitely louder, but not quite loud enough—especially for the Hawaiian slide musicians. With the guitars laid on their laps, much of the sound projected straight up at the ceiling instead of toward the audience.
Barth and Beauchamp tackled this problem in the 1930s by designing a magnetic pickup, and Rickenbacker installed it in the first commercially successful electric instrument: a lap-steel guitar known affectionately as the “Frying Pan” due to its distinctive shape. Suddenly, any stringed instrument could be as loud as your amplifier allowed, setting off a flurry of innovation. Electric guitars were born!
“At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.”
By this time, Memphis Minnie was a bona fide star. She recorded for Columbia, Vocalion, and Decca Records. Her song “Bumble Bee,” featuring her driving guitar technique, became hugely popular and earned her a new nickname: the Queen of Country Blues. She was officially royalty, and her subjects needed to hear her game-changing playing. This is where she crossed paths with our old pals over at National.
National and other companies began adding pickups to so-called Spanish guitars, which they naturally called “Electric Spanish.” (This term was famously abbreviated ES by the Gibson Guitar Corporation and used as a prefix on a wide variety of models.) In 1935, National made its first Electric Spanish guitar, renamed the New Yorker three years later. By today’s standards, it’s modestly appointed. At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.
There’s buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but that just goes to show how well-loved this guitar has been.
Memphis Minnie had finally found an axe fit for a Queen. She was among the first blues guitarists to go electric, and the New Yorker fueled her already-upward trajectory. She recorded over 200 songs in her 25-year career, cementing her and the National New Yorker’s place in musical history.
Our National New Yorker was made in 1939 and shows perfect play wear as far as we’re concerned. Sure, there’s buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but structurally, this guitar is in great shape. It’s easy to imagine this guitar was lovingly wiped down each time it was put back in the case.
There’s magic in this guitar, y’all. Every time we pick it up, we can feel Memphis Minnie’s spirit enter the room. This guitar sounds fearless. It’s a survivor. This is a guitar that could inspire you to run away and join the circus, transcend genre and gender, and leave your own mark on music history. As a guitar store, watching guitars pass from musician to musician gives us a beautiful physical reminder of how history moves through generations. We can’t wait to see who joins this guitar’s remarkable legacy.
SOURCES: blackpast.org, nps.gov, worldmusic.net, historylink.org, Memphis Music Hall of Fame, “Memphis Minnie’s ‘Scientific Sound’: Afro-Sonic Modernity and the Jukebox Era of the Blues” from American Quarterly, “The History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments” by Stephen Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL.
![The Jesus Lizard Rig Rundown [2025]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=56479987&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
When the Jesus Lizard released their seventh studio record, Rack, last September, it ended a 26-year hiatus between recordings, and lovers of raucous, steely rock music around the world rejoiced. As guitarist Duane Denison told PG’s Nick Millevoi in our feature story, the key to the album’s vitality—and reviving the band’s brutal sound—was simple: “Practice loud.”
Ahead of a hotly anticipated U.K. tour celebrating the record, the band gathered at SIR’s rehearsal space in Nashville to do exactly that. PG’s Chris Kies stopped by to see what Denison and bassist David Wm. Sims were stuffing into their suitcases for the trip across the pond.
Brought to you by D’Addario.Higher Powers
The last time Denison invited us to his Nashville home for a Rig Rundown, he was using Electrical Guitar Company models. This time around, he’s smitten with this Powers Electric Type A. Most of the guitar’s features are proprietary, including the bridge, pickups, and the vibrato system. The trussed hollowbody is made from urban ash with a solid maple top, and comes with a compound radius Honduran rosewood fretboard.
Denison digs the definition and articulation in the attack of the discrete FF42 single-coil pickups, which bridge the gap between a humbucker’s hot output and a traditional single-coil’s brightness. He goes through four different tunings in the current Lizard set: E standard, drop D (for “Hide & Seek”), drop G (on “Thumbscrews”), and a strange tuning with flat E and D strings for “Thumper.” Coated Stringjoy Orbiters (.105–0.50) handle the changes, as well as the Stringjoy Jumbo Jazz picks Denison uses.
Sweet Victory
Denison has switched from Blackstar amps to this 2-channel Victory VS100 Super Sheriff. He’s always preferred British amps: “American guitars and English amps make the world go round,” he says. Denison also uses a Marshall JCM900, which he appreciates for its simplicity compared to the JVM series, and its versatility compared to the JCM800.
Helix Help
Denison sets up this Line 6 Helix as a pedalboard, with tweaked versions of his favorite analog delay pedals programmed in. Among his go-to effects are reverb, slapback delay, tremolo, chorus, wah, longer delay, and what he calls a “wildcare effect,” which comes into play for “What If?”
The Best $250 Ever Spent
Sims bought this Memphis brand Jazz-style bass in 1981 for $250, and it’s still his No. 1. He strings it with Rotosound RS66LDs, which he needs to change every three or four shows; once he senses the attack softening, he slaps new ones on.
Boomtown Brightness
Sims blasts his bass through this Gallien-Krueger 800RB, set for a classic midrange scoop with plenty of bite and bottom end. He prefers Ampeg 8x10 cabinets, or 2x15 speaker cabs.
Triple Combo
No fancy floor unit for Sims. He’s got a Boss ODB-3, an MXR Bass Chorus Deluxe, and an MXR Phase 90, all of which are used sparingly throughout the set.
The Jesus Lizard's Rig
