Stars and Their Guitars: A History of the Electric Guitar is a documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 by filmmaker Kent Hagen. It spotlights the development and history of the classic electric guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

 as well as the players that made them famous. Spanning a multitude of genres including rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, rockabilly

Rockabilly

Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...

, country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

, punk and more, this 2008 documentary provides an in-depth look at the six-string's immeasurable impact on society and culture. Les Paul

Les Paul

Lester William Polsfuss —known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations...

, B.B. King, Duane Eddy

Duane Eddy

Duane Eddy is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he had a string of hit records, produced by Lee Hazlewood, which were noted for their characteristically "twangy" sound, including "Rebel Rouser", "Peter Gunn", and "Because They're Young"...

, Scotty Moore

Scotty Moore

Winfield Scott "Scotty" Moore III is an American guitarist. He is best known for his backing of Elvis Presley in the first part of his career, between 1954 and the beginning of Elvis' Hollywood years...

, Billy Gibbons

Billy Gibbons

William Frederick "Billy" Gibbons is an American musician, actor and car customizer, best known as the guitarist of the Texas blues-rock band ZZ Top. He is also the lead singer and composer for many of the band's songs. Gibbons is known for playing his Gretsch Billy Bo guitar and his famous 1959...

, Slash

Slash (musician)

Saul Hudson , known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During his later years with Guns N'...

, George Thorogood

George Thorogood

George Thorogood is an American blues rock vocalist/guitarist from Wilmington, Delaware, United States, known for his hit song "Bad to the Bone" as well as for covers of blues standards such as Hank Williams' "Move It On Over" and John Lee Hooker's "House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One...

, Joe Satriani

Joe Satriani

Joseph "Joe" Satriani is an American instrumental rock guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, with multiple Grammy Award nominations...

, and Elliot Easton

Elliot Easton

Elliot Easton plays lead guitar and sings backing vocals for The Cars. His guitar solos are integral part of the band's hit singles. He studied music at the Berklee College of Music...

 are just a few of the guitar legends interviewed. Winner for best documentary at the 2008 Route 66 Film Festival.

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