My first electric guitar was a Fender that I bought back in 1955 or 56. At that time, I was far more interested in playing Duane Eddy or Carl Perkins than Perry Como or Julius La Rosa. (Or Burl Ives, for that matter.) Money being as scarce as it was, I always ended up trading in one guitar for another, and the Fender went for a Gibson which went for a small mahogany Martin, and down the line. As I heard more folk music, I switched to acoustic as my only guitar and perhaps never would have bought another electric guitar except for one reason. Sustain. To me, that's the single difference that caused me to buy an electric guitar again. Volume is important too, because when I started playing guitar on black gospel I couldn't hear it as soon as people started singing. I'd played Carter Family and southern white gospel all my life on acoustic guitar and banjo with no problem, but black gospel is so exuberant that I couldn't hear an acoustic guitar. I could have added a pick-up and still been "pure" because I'd just be playing an acoustic guitar electrically amplified, singing through a microphone that is electrically amplified. All acoustic, of course..

The real difference is in sustain.. an electric guitar can hold notes a lot longer, which you really need for a lot of black gospel... and jazz (which I love, but can't play.) Sustain makes a world of difference in blues, too. It's not necessary for country blues (which is the only blues I play,) but you'd never hear B.B.King on a Martin. If you did, you probably wouldn't want to hear him twice.

String weight is very different too, and I find it a challenge to switch back and forth between electric and acoustic guitars. The action is higher on an acoustic (just like the action is usually set higher on a banjo for a claw hammer player than a bluegrass picker.) Those two qualities have a lot to do with the style of playing, because you can bend strings, sustain notes and get a fuller sound on an electric.

I still love the sound of an acoustic guitar and play one almost exclusively on folk music. But, blues (even country blues) and black gospel sound far better on electric. Being a traditionalist, that's why I play electric guitar on blues and black gospel. Playing black gospel on a Martin would be blasphemous. And not honoring the tradition.

We wouldn't want to do that, would we?

Jerry