His father was a talented musician and a luthier of fine violins in their native Slovakia. But my research, which includes many conversations with elders who were there in the instrument’s early decades, and popular consensus says it begins with John Dopyera. And So It BeganĪs with seemingly everything in the world of guitars, the history of the resonator is hotly debated. John Dopyera came up with an idea based on the Edison phonograph’s method of creating volume via a small disk attached to a horn. I was also fortunate enough to spend time around the Dopyeras, the first family of the resonator guitar, and their direct torchbearers, and to hear so many wonderful stories about my favorite instrument’s history. I went on to not only play that instrument to this day, but I’ve had the pleasure of building Sho-Bro resonator guitars for Sho-Bud, as well as resonators for the Original Musical Instrument Company (aka Dobro), Crafters of Tennessee (builders of Tut Taylor resonators), and more recently, to having my own Owens line of resonator guitars for a time.
I’d never heard anything like it, and I immediately knew I’d found my instrument! It was called a Dobro. It had a large, round metal plate on top that looked like a shiny hubcap, and a fat, square neck. His left hand gripped a metal bar, which he pressed against the strings. It was suspended horizontally by its strap, and he played with his hands hovering over the top of the guitar. I noticed he wasn’t holding his guitar in the usual way. The band was gathered around a single microphone when suddenly one of the players by the name of Uncle Josh Graves came up from the back. We were checking out his favorite bluegrass band, led by guitarist Lester Flatt and banjo picker Earl Scruggs, who had the Flatt and Scruggs Grand Ole Opry Show, sponsored by Martha White flour. One Saturday afternoon, I was watching television with my dad. I longed to find one that would be mine alone. As a kid I wanted to play too, but someone else was already playing guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle, and that made it very difficult to choose my own instrument.
Everyone in my family plays a musical instrument.
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