Was watching a documentary on the history of the electric guitar on Netflix recently. Guitar virtuosity is going to be a very rare thing in the future.
I was also struck by the huge investment by today’s musicians in guitars made in the 50’s. I was vaguely aware of this, but I thought it was merely an urge to collect. Apparently these old instruments have very rich tonal qualities not reproduced since.
The A&R guy from Decca who turned down the Beatles in 1960 did so by telling their manager, Brian Epstein, that “guitar bands are over.” Just sayin’. :-)
Technology drives everything. We went from Charlie Christian to Eddie Van Halen in about 40 years.