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The tenor guitar or four-string guitar is a slightly smaller, four-string relative of the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar. The instrument was initially developed in its acoustic form by Gibson and C.F. Martin so that players of the four-string tenor banjo could double on guitar.
Almost all the major guitar makers, including Epiphone, Kay, Gretsch, Guild and National Reso-Phonic, have manufactured tenor (and plectrum) guitars as production instruments at various times. Budget tenor guitars by makers such as Harmony Company, Regal and Stella, were produced in large numbers in the 1950s and 1960s. National, formed by the Dopyera Brothers, also made significant numbers of resonator tenor and plectrum guitars between the 1920s and 1940s. Dobro, another company associated with the Dopyera Brothers, as well as National, also built various resonator tenor guitar models.
In 1934, Gibson introduced an acoustic archtop tenor guitar, the TG-50, based on the acoustic archtop six-string model, the L-50, with its production run lasting until 1958. In 1936 Gibson introduced the world's first commercially successful electric Spanish-style guitar, the ES-150. In early 1937 Gibson also began shipping two other versions of the ES-150: a tenor guitar (the EST-150, with four strings and a 23" scale, renamed the ETG-150 in 1940) and a plectrum version (the EPG-150, with a 27" scale). The ETG-150, was in continuous production until 1972.
In the mid-1950s electric Solid body tenor guitar models began to appear from companies such as Gibson, Gretsch, Guild, and Epiphone. These were mostly produced as one-off custom instruments but, for a short time in 1955, Gretsch manufactured an electric solid-bodied tenor guitar, the Gretsch 6127 DuoJet. Renewed interest in the tenor guitar led to the introduction of new solid-body electric models in the early 21st century, with companies such as Fender beginning production of a tenor version of their Telecaster model.
The Delmore Brothers were a very influential pioneering country music duo from the early 1930s to the late 1940s that featured the tenor guitar. The Delmore Brothers were one of the original country vocal harmonizing sibling acts that established the mold for later similar acts, such as the Louvin Brothers, and even later, The Everly Brothers. The younger of the Delmore brothers, Rabon Delmore, played the tenor guitar as an accompaniment to his older brother, Alton Delmore's, six-string guitar. Rabon favored the Martin 0-18T tenor guitar and the Louvin Brothers later recorded a tribute album to the Delmores that featured Rabon's Martin 0-18T tenor played by mandolinist Ira Louvin, but tuned as the four treble guitar strings. Another 1930s band that featured the tenor guitar was the Hoosier Hotshots, commonly considered the creators of mid-western rural jazz. Their leader, Ken Trietsch, played the tenor guitar, as well as doubling on the tuba.
In the early 1930s Selmer Guitars in Paris manufactured four-string guitars based on guitar designs by the Italian luthier Mario Maccaferri that they marketed to banjo players for use as a second instrument. The two main four-string Selmer models were a regular tenor guitar with a smaller body and a 23 inch scale length for standard CGDA tuning, and the Eddie Freeman Special, with a larger body and a longer 25.5-inch scale length, using a Reentrant tuning tuning for the A string which was designed by English tenor banjoist Eddie Freeman to have a better six-string guitar sonority for rhythm guitar work than the normal tenor guitar with its high A string while till using the same cord shaped familiar to tenor banjoists. Selmer heavily promoted the guitar through Melody Maker and Eddie Freeman even wrote a special tune for it called "In All Sincerity". However, the guitar was not commercially successful in the 1930s, and many were subsequently converted to much more valuable six-string models. Originals of the Eddie Freeman Special are now very rare and are consequently highly valuable.
As the six-string guitar eventually became more popular in bands in the 1930s and 1940s, tenor guitars became less frequently played, although some tenor guitar models had been made in very large numbers throughout this period and are now still common.
Tenor guitars came to prominence again in the 1950s and 1960s amid the Dixieland jazz revival and the folk music boom. At this time, they were made by makers such as Epiphone, Gibson, Guild, and Gretsch as archtop acoustics and electrics, as well as a range of flat top models by Martin. A Martin 0-18T flattop acoustic tenor guitar was played in the late 1950s by Nick Reynolds of The Kingston Trio. During this period electric tenor guitars were advertised as "lead guitars", although the rationale for this is not now clear.
A major player of the electric tenor as a lead guitarist in the bebop and rhythm and blues styles from the 1940s to the 1970s was the jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes, who recorded with Cats and the Fiddle, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and others. Grimes used DGBE "Chicago" tuning on his tenor guitars, rather than traditional CGDA tuning.
Contemporary players of the tenor guitar include Neko Case, Josh Rouse, Joel Plaskett, Adam Gnade,Live and on recordings Gnade plays a four-string guitar he rebuilt and modified to play in the tuning of F− A− D− F. Ani DiFranco, Carrie Rodriguez, Joe Craven, and Dhani Harrison. Jason Molina played a tenor guitar for much of his early work as . The instrument is often used by musicians looking to replace or augment sounds produced by more conventional instruments. Elvis Costello features a tenor guitar on the title track of his 2004 release Delivery Man.
Wes Borland, the guitarist for nu metal band Limp Bizkit plays a low-tuned ( F− F− B− E) four-string guitar on the songs "Nookie", "The One", "Full Nelson", and "Stalemate" using a 4-string "Cremona" tenor guitar made by Master guitars. In April 2022, he commissioned PRS Guitars to make a custom four-string guitar.
Prominent U.K. users of the tenor guitar include the Lakeman brothers, Seth Lakeman and Sean Lakeman, and John McCusker and Ian Carr, who both play with the Kate Rusby Band. Irish folk artist Yawning Chasm primarily uses the tenor guitar.
Since 2010, Astoria, Oregon, has hosted an annual Tenor Guitar Gathering, on the basis of which some call it the "unofficial Tenor Guitar Capital of the World."
Warren Ellis plays a tenor guitar on the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album Push the Sky Away, and has custom tenor guitars built by Eastwood Guitars, with a shape modeled after a Fender Mustang but with a wider than usual neck to accommodate his fingerstyle playing. Eastwood currently offers several models of electric tenor guitar including the aforementioned Warren Ellis signature model, the semi-hollow Classic 4 Tenor, and the Tenorcaster.
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