In our last article we covered the rise of manufacturing and industrialization during 1850–1900. There were a few commercially successful capos in the late nineteenth century. The capo made by Elton was patented in 1889 became the most prominent of these. It was was a commercial success up until 1960's. In this article we will cover the period from 1900–1950. In this period the guitar became popular for the first time. This development was due to new musical styles in America, specifically Blues, Country, Jazz and Folk. As the guitar gained popularity there was a greater market for capos. In this era one capo was invented that would go on to surpass the Elton as the most successful capo: the Bill Russell. This capo used a simply elastic design, and would become very popular.
The Rise of the Guitar
Today guitar is one of the most popular instruments in the world, if not the most popular one. This was not always the case. If we were to go back in time to American in the year 1900 we could travel all over the country and find people playing folk music. These folk musicians would primarily be playing with mandolins, fiddles and banjos. In the church, people played organs and pianos. The guitar existed and was played, but it was just one instrument among many others, and not that popular. The guitar began to gain popularity around the year 1920. One reason for this rise in popularity is that guitars were being made more cheaply. Companies like Martin, Washburn and Gibson has developed larger shops to make guitars cheaper. Another reason is that in the 1930's the electric guitar was invented, which opened up new possibilities for playing guitar, including matching the volume of other louder instruments, like trumpets and drums. However, the most important reason is the development of new styles of music which gave greater prominence to the guitar. These styles of music all developed in America out of various local folk styles, and each would go on to great popularity in the century. These four styles are: Blue, Country, Jazz and Modern Folk. We will summarize the history of these developments to get. sense of the growing popularity of the guitar.
Blues Guitar
The music style known as the Blues is distinctive for its rhythm, chord structure (typically 12 bar), scale choice and lyrical content. The Blues is rooted in the African American spirituals and folk music of the Deep South and developed as early 1860's. However, in the 1920's that the Blues becomes a more defined and celebrated musical form with players like Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake and Blind Willie Johnson (yes! Three blind guys). We have recordings of some of these early Blues players and you should go check 'em out. After WW2 the Blues began to gain wider popularity with musicians like T Bone Walker, Muddy Waters and then later the "three kings": Albert King, B B King and Freddie King.
Early on guitar was the main choice of Blues players. Unlike Country, Blues began as an individual performance. There would be one person, playing a guitar and singing. The singing exposed the soul of the player. He would sing about his own experiences, emotions and feelings. The guitar would serve both to accompany the music, as well as display soloing licks. Many of these early guitar players have awesome chops. As Blues is one of the styles of music that pairs singing with guitar, so we find Blues players using capos. Robert Johnson is one of the earliest guitarists every recorded, and he typifies the Blues. In one of the famous photos of him he has a capo on his guitar!
Country
Like Blues, Country music emerged as a distinctive style in the 1920's. It developed out of the Appalachian folk music, as well as Mexican forms of folk music. Wikipedia mentions there are various "waves." The first wave, in the 1920's, was where the traditional Southern style of folk music began to be played on the guitar by people like The Skillet Lickers, the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. The second wave of country started in the 1930's and had several separate subgenres like Honky Tonk, Blue Grass, Hill Billy Boogie and what was known as the singing cowboys. After WW2 country music began to gain wider popularity and commercial success with figures such as Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Hank Willians
While traditional Country music is more of a group thing than Blues, guitar became very prominent with country players. Below is a photo of the Carter Family, who were indeed one family that played music. Maybelle Carter, the mother, was quite a guitar player and a style called "Carter Scratch" was named after her. In the photo below the two guitars on the bottom left both have capos. At least one of them is certainly an Elton.
Jazz
Jazz music is a complex form that also developed in the 1920's. The Big Bands of that era played in the dance hall of American cities, like New York and Chicago. These bands were loud and "swinging," and style of dancing known as "Swing" developed as a partner to the music. The names associated with this era are Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and later Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald and others.
While Guitar is very prominent in Country and Blues, it was not initially prominent in jazz bands, mostly because it is not loud enough. Jazz bands are made up of brass instruments, drums with some piano and bass as rhythm. Some Jazz bands included an acoustic guitarist who would try his darnedest to play that guitar loud, but it was a pretty futile exercise. In the 1930's the electric guitar gave the the guitar a fighting chance to be heard. Guitar began to have a role as part of the rhythm section. Eventually some guitars began to take solo parts too.
This story of jazz guitar developed into a sub-stream of jazz, which is jazz guitar. A number of artists started to use the guitar as the centre piece of jazz music, Django Reinhardt and Wes Montgomery being the two most famous. The capo is not very prominent in jazz guitar. One reason is that Jazz guitars are very competent at key changes and feel comfortable playing chords with different forms all over the neck. The other reason is that Jazz Guitarists tend to do many solos, which doesn't work as well with a capo on, especially bending.
Folk Revival
The final guitar style we need to discuss is Folk Revival. A form of folk music developed that centred on the guitar. The early and central figure here is Woodie Guthrie. He wrote protest songs and his guitar was a symbol of his political stance. Another early figure wroth noting is Elizabeth Cotton. This style of folk music would flourish later in the 60's with Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell. Folk music will be one of the musical forms that uses the capo in a big way.
What about the capo?
So, The 1920's was a period of creative cultural explosion in America, which included the births of Blues, Country, Jazz and Folk Revival. The guitar played an integral part in developing these new styles of music. This popularity exploded even further after WW2. Thus, there was a growing interest in capos in this period too., especially from Country and Blues musicians. At the beginning of this period the Elton capo, which we covered in the last article, was still the ascendant one, being the most popular and most wide spread. A number of other capos were invented in this period. But there was one which would supplant the Elton as the capo of choice for most guitarists, The Bill Russell. In terms of popularity, this is the most important capo from this era. It would remain synonymous with the idea of the capo for many years.
Who was Bill Russell?
Bill Russell was born Willard H Russel in 1889 in America. In 1931 he patented this simple device which would become a widely popular commercial success. This capo is notable for its simplicity. Many capos were trying out more and more sophisticated designs, some with large springs, some with large frames. Bill Russell instead came up with a sleek design that was easy to use, very small and worked extremely well. Probably it was cheap to make, which added to its appeal.
The capo is made with stretchable elastic, and may have been the first ever to use this material. Below is the picture of the original patent application from 1931. The capo has a rubber bar (item 2) which presses down on the strings with a hard metal bar (item 3) over the top to keep the rubber straight and firm. The elastic strip (item 5) has holes with metal eyelets in it (items 9). There is a little metal lug (item 4), like a protruding screw, on the capo. So, the idea is you get the capo onto the guitar by pulling the elastic strip and sticking one of the eyelets onto the lug. The tension of the strip holds the capo on, and this tension is adjustable because of the different eyelets.
One feature of this capo is that you can change the key without taking the capo off. Because the strap is elastic you can just pull the bar up with your hand, while the capo is still on and the elastic just stretches. Again, we want to emphasize that the simplicity ensure that it was both cheap and easy to use. The capo is small and easy to store. The value-add that Bill Russell brought was adding the elastic strap. There were some capos that were based on an elastic concept that used metal springs. Some of them predate the Bill Russell. You can see some of them at Stern's capo museum. But the elastic was a better concept.
It is worth thinking about why a capo is successful. What are the factors that lead the Elton to dominate the early 20th Century? What are the features that lead the Bill Russell to become even more popular? For that matter, what are the features of the Kyser and the Shubb or even the Hamilton that replace the Bill Russell as most dominant? Surely the most important aspect of a capos success is that it is easy to use. When someone wants to play a song they don't want to spend a lot of time fussing with a capo. If you are singing before an audience it can be quite awkward to sit there fiddling with your insturment. Another similar feature is reliability. If a capo fits awkwardly or loosely, then it will create problems. The Bill Russell's elastic design is notable for being both reliable and user friendly.
The Bill Russell Capo Company
There have been many capos invented and patented, but not all have been commercial successes. By the 1950's we can see many artists with Bill Russell. We have put together a gallery of the Bill Russell capos here. Bill Russell actually incorporated a company, called "The Bill Russell Capo Company" in 1969. This fact indicates that the Bill Russell was so successful that it merit its own company to handle logistics and operations. Bill Russell died in 1973, but his company was owned and operated by his family. This company was eventually dissolved in 1989. The cool thing is that another company still makes the Bill Russell, Dunlop. We presume that Bill Russell's family sold the right to their successful product.
The Bill Russell was a popular capo. Many guitars players, both famous and not, choose this. It was widely available. It popularity probably really got going after 1950, as most of the photos we can find of this capo begin in the 50's. Nonetheless, it would be a well known and well loved little device.
We believe that this capo may have even contributed to the spread of capo use in general. Before the 1920's, guitar was a fairly obscure instrument and capos were a very niche tool for this obscure instrument. Not every guitar player would have known about capos. For example, we cannot find any evidence that Elvis used a capo in the 1950's, though it would surely would have aided his singing. It wasn't a thing that all people know about. But with the growing fame of the Bill Russell in particular, capos became a more known tool for guitar and banjo players.
A few honourable mentions: The First Fret Capo
It is important to say that while the Bill Russell emerged as the most popular capo by the end of the 1950's, it was certainly not the only capo invented in this period. There were quite a few other capos invented, and some of them were even popular. We will mention three more capos here.
This is a pretty serious piece of hardware that only works on one fret. This brass contraption would be screwed onto the headstock of the guitar permanently. There is a metal bar that receives a downward force. This metal bar can be moved backward and forward. It lives behind the nut on the headstock and has two metal hinges to pull it forwards to place it behind the first fret.
This capo was patented in 1927 by 1927 by Norman M Johnston. We have found a few pictures of jazz players with one of these on.
Coil Spring Capos
Between 1900 and 1950 there were a number of capos made with a coil spring. These capos are the precursor to the Bill Russell. The one picture above is by A D Keech, who retained a patent for this capo in 1927. There is a rubber tube that clamps down onto the guitar. There is a little hinge on the left side where the spring can come on or off. The next capo is a similar one by Moment.
Sterner has a discussion about these capos on his site. He says that the springs were not really strong so they would only be able to hold down four strings - that is they were used for banjos and not for guitars. The last one pictured is by Elton, who made the very popular springy capo.
The Spiral Frame Capo
This last capo was a German company called, Schuster & Co. Sterner calls this a, "a beautiful and clever design." The frame is a sort of adjustable spiral. You put the capo on from the side and then you can pull on the little handle at the bottom of the frame to tighten the capo. The little silver bar is what grips the bottom of the neck, but it is controlled by the spiral frame. This is sort of the precursor to the Kyser: a spring based capo that attached from the side. This capo was available from the Schuster & Co. catalog until 1920.
Conclusion
The 1920's was a period of rising popularity of the guitar. By the year 1950 the guitar was a household instrument that commanded a central position in the musical cultures of Blues, Country and Folk. The increase of these guitar based styles led to an increase in the demand for capos. In this era the Bill Russell was invented and rose to prominence as a well used and well known devise.
In our next article we will cover the period between 1950–1970, which includes the rise of Rock and Roll.
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