George Van Eps

Biography

George Van Eps was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, into a family of musicians. His three brothers were musicians. His mother was a classical pianist and his father, Fred Van Eps, was a ragtime banjoist. George Van Eps began playing banjo when he was eleven years old. After hearing Eddie Lang on the radio, he put down the banjo and devoted himself to guitar. By the age of thirteen, in 1926, he was performing on the radio. Through the middle of the 1930s, he played with Harry Reser, Smith Ballew, Freddy Martin, Benny Goodman, and Ray Noble.

Van Eps moved to California and spent most of his remaining career as a studio musician, playing on many commercials and movie soundtracks.

In the 1930s, he invented a model of guitar with another bass string added to the common six-string guitar. The seven-string guitar allowed him to play bass next to his jazz chords, unlike the single-string style of Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. He called his technique "lap piano". It anticipated the fingerpicking style of country guitarists Chet Atkins and Merle Travis and inspired jazz guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli, and Howard Alden to pick up the seven-string.

Dixieland had a following in Los Angeles during the 1940s and 1950s, and he played in groups led by Bob Crosby, Pete Kelly, and Matty Matlock.

Van Eps played guitar into his 80s, having built a career that lasted over sixty years. He died of pneumonia in Newport Beach, California on November 29, 1998 at the age of 85.

As leader or co-leader

As sideman