The history of rock & roll guitar is writ large and loud in its signature licks, riffs, and solos: the barnyard bounce and pink-Cadillac shine of Scotty Moore's epochal break in Elvis Presley's "That's All Right"; Keith Richards' distorted three-note stomp in the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"; Kurt Cobain's fireball power chords in Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

But rock & roll's infinite capacity for renewel and surprise is packed into the lightning-bolt impact of those Great Guitar Moments - the way a simple hook, a feedback squeal, even a cocksure pose can send a kik over the moon and then reaching for his or her own instrument. The following pages are a celebration of those flashes of discovery, related by more than thirty-five master players in rock, blues, folk, punk and hip-hop - an extraordinary testament to the enduring power and magic of the electric guitar.

The instrument is a lot older than rock & roll itself. Les Paul, a pioneer in guitar design and multitrack recording, was playing a primitive electric guitar as early as 1928, using his parents' radio as an amplifier. In 1937, Eldon Shamblin of Bob Wills' Texas Playboys was the first country musician to play a solid-body model, a bantam-size Rickenbacker Electro Spanish - until his boss told him to stop, claiming that the damn thing didn't look like a proper guitar.

But in rock & roll, the whole point of the guitar is to be anything but proper. Everything you need to know about the implicit sexuality of the guitar, and its potential for exuberant violence, can be seen in 1950s stage photos and footage of presley - his guitar hanging over his waist like a tommy gun, banging into hes pelvis with rhythmic authority. Amplification liberated the instrument from the rich, warm but literal sound of wire resonating against wood. It could sound like a wounded animal, a runaway train or, in Hendrix's Woodstock recasting of the national anthem, America going up in flames. Citing the Who's Pete Townshend as an influence, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney notes the way Townshend used his guitar, and its ferociously abused sound, as an extension of his body - and, in turn, of his personality, his fears, his dreams.

the guitar is not the only rock & roll instrument capable of expressing uninhibited joy and explosive honesty; the piano and the saxophone are part of the bedrock architecture. But the guitar remains a barometer of purity and commitment for the same reasons it was rock's primary agent of change: affordability, accessibility and the fact that all you need to play it are desire and imagination. Technical competence is still optional. these interviews, featuring our finest guitarists talking about their own heroes and gods, show how the guitar transformed American popular culture - by putting immortality within arm's reach. - David Fricke