[manwe150]

There’s a story, possibly apocryphal, that the first electric guitar demo was a bunch of strings nailed to some basic lumber and it received a negative reception. The designer went home, tore apart his acoustic guitar and mounted the electronics inside. The sound was not changed by this. The critical reception however was much improved. And the rest is history.

The shape might not be purely functional—and that seems to be the basis for their attempted lawsuit.

[shermantanktop]

It’s a true story, and it’s about Les Paul and “the log.”

https://guitar.com/features/opinion-analysis/how-les-pauls-l...

[jen20]

The "log" (generally dated to 1941) is the railroad sleeper ("tie" for Americans?) with wings made in the Epiphone factory in Manhattan attached to the side, and is in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. This is the guitar that Gibson turned down until Fender and Bigsby (via Merle Travis) popularized the solid body guitar.

The predecessor was a single string on a piece of actual rail and two spikes, amplified by a telephone receiver in the mid-late 1920s.