The electronic amplification of vocals and musical instruments transformed the blues after World War II, especially through the rise of the electric guitar, and Peavey Electronics, founded in 1965 by Meridian native Hartley Peavey, helped shape the sound of modern electric blues, rock, country, and jazz through its amplifiers, sound systems, and electric guitars and basses while gaining worldwide renown for technological innovation. Blues musicians had long depended on acoustic instruments and their voices, but change began in the 1930s with the electric guitar and electronic microphones; early blues recordings with electric guitar were made in 1938, when George Barnes played on a Big Bill Broonzy session and Casey Bill Weldon used an amplified steel guitar, and early blues artists to amplify their guitars included T-Bone Walker, Memphis Minnie, Broonzy, Tampa Red, Robert Nighthawk, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Elmore James, Joe Willie Wilkins, and Houston Stackhouse. Amplification became standard after World War II as electricity spread to rural areas such as the Mississippi Delta and mass-produced electronic instruments became available, and after the electric bass was introduced in 1951, one of its first users in Mississippi was Herman Fowlkes. Amplifiers and sound systems were essential to this electrification, and Hartley Peavey, born in 1941, converted his acoustic guitar into an electric instrument and built his first amplifier in 1957 after being inspired at a concert by Bo Diddley; he created his first amplifier under the Peavey brand in 1961, received his first patent in 1964, began hand-producing guitar and bass amplifiers in 1965, moved into public address systems in 1968, and in 1977 began producing the T-60 guitar and T-40 bass. By the following year the company was one of the largest guitar producers in the country, its computer-guided mass production techniques were adopted across the industry, and it continued innovating in microphones, keyboards, audio processing, drums, and sound consoles, while its sound systems gained prominence at leading venues and its guitar amplifiers became a preferred choice for many performing musicians.
