I watched a movie last night called Crazy. It was the story of Hank Garland. He was a 50's - 60's session guitarist in Nashville who backed the likes of Elvis, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison, Eddy Arnold and more. He was a gifted guitarist who ended up kind of losing it in the end. According to the movie he was responsible for Jingle Bell Rock, but I didn't see anything in his bio about that.
The thing that interested me, was that Gibson Guitars came to him and a fellow guitar play named Billy Byrd to help design a guitar. They came up with a guitar designed to help them play the single notes quicker and easier than other guitars, the guitar was named after them, the Gibson Byrdland. This is the guitar that was talked about so much a few months back when the Clapton lessons came out, and whether he played it at the concert for Bangladesh or not.
Just found it interesting how players could/can inspire or influence a guitar line. I am sure there are many many cases like this, but I thought I would share something about this guitar that was new to me.
By the way, it is B movie, but it was pretty good about someone who influenced alot of music from the time, without a lot of credit for it, at least someone I had never heard of.
Pete