Electric Frying Pan

Okay, it sounds like something you’d make pancakes on, but in this case, it refers to a distinctive Hawaiian lap steel designed in the early 1930s that truly does look like a round frying pan, but with a big handle, which was the neck of the instrument. It was designed by (depending on who you talk to) Paul Barth, George Beauchamp, or Adolph Rickenbacker (yes, of Rickenbacker guitar fame) – perhaps all three had a hand in its creation. It had a huge “horseshoe” magnetic pickup that was almost as big as the “frying pan” it sat on. That design would eventually become a Rickenbacker staple, particularly on the company’s bass guitars,