Information AboutDobro |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT DOBRO | |
| acoustic guitars | |
| companies established in 1928 | |
| guitar manufacturing companies | |
|
Dobro® is a Trade Name now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of Resonator Guitar . The name has a long and involved history, intimately interwoven with that of the resonator guitar. Originally coined by the Dopyera brothers when they formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company, for a time it came in common language to mean any resonator guitar, or specifically one with particular design of resonator. The ''Dobro'' brand also appeared, quite legitimately, on other instruments, notably Solid Body Electric Guitar s. When Gibson acquired the name in 1993, they announced that they would defend their right to its exclusive use. HISTORY The name originated in 1928 when the the Dopyera brothers formed the ''Dobro Manufacturing Company'' to manufacture a new resonator guitar design they called the ''Dobro''. ''Dobro'' is both a contraction of ''Dopyera brothers'' and a word meaning ''good'' in their native Slovak Language . An early company motto was ''Dobro means good in any language''. The ''Dobro'' was the third resonator guitar design by John Dopyera , the inventor of the resonator guitar, but the second to enter production. Unlike his earlier Tricone design, the Dobro had a single resonator cone, and it was inverted, with its concave surface up. The Dobro company described this as a ''bowl'' shaped resonator. The Dobro was louder than Dopyers'a original design, the Tricone , and cheaper to produce. Cost of manufacture had in Dopyera's opinion priced the resonator guitar beyond the reach of many players, and his failure to convince his fellow directors at the National String Instrument Corporation to produce a single cone version was part of his motivation for leaving. Since National held the patent on the single cone, Dopyera had to develop an alternative design, which he did by inverting the cone so that rather than having the strings rest on the apex of the cone as per the National method, they rested on a cast Aluminum "spider" which had 8 legs sitting on the perimeter of the upside down cone (US patent #1,896,484). In the following years both Dobro and National built a wide variety of metal- and wood-bodied single-cone guitars, while National also continued with the tricone for a time. Both companies sourced many components from National director Adolph Rickenbacher , and John Dopyera continued to be a major shareholder in National. By 1934 the Dopyera brothers had gained control of both National and Dobro, and they merged the companies to form the ''National Dobro Corporation''. From the outset, wooden bodies had been sourced from existing guitar manufacturers, particularly the Plywood student guitar bodies made by the Regal Musical Instrument Company . Dobro had granted Regal a licence to manufacture resonator instruments, and by 1937 they were the only manufacturer, and the licence was officially made exclusive. Regal-manufactured resonator instruments continued to be sold under many names, including ''Regal'', ''Dobro'', '' Old Kraftsman '', and '' Ward ''. However all production of resonator guitars ceased following the US entry into the Second World War in 1941. Emile Dopyera (also known as Ed Dopera) manufactured Dobros from 1959, before selling the company and name to Semie Moseley , who merged it with his Mosrite guitar company and manufactured Dobros for a time. Meantime, in 1967, Rudy and Emile Dopyera formed the Original Musical Instrument Company (OMI) to manufacture resonator guitars, which were at first branded ''Hound Dog''. However in 1970 they again acquired the ''Dobro'' name, Mosrite having gone into temporary liquidation. OMI together with the ''Dobro'' name was acquired by the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1993. They renamed the company ''Original Acoustic Instruments'', and moved production to Nashville . Gibson now uses the name ''Dobro'' only for models with the inverted-cone design used originally by the ''Dobro Manufacturing Company''. Gibson also manufactures ''biscuit'' style single resonator guitars, but sells them under names such as ''Hound Dog'' and '' Epiphone . THE DOBRO IN BLUEGRASS MUSIC The Dobro was introduced to Bluegrass Music by Josh Graves , who played with Flatt And Scruggs , in the mid- 1950s . Graves utilized the hard-driving, syncopated three-finger picking style developed by Earl Scruggs for the five-string banjo. Modern dobroists continue to play the instrument this way, with one notable exception being Tut Taylor who plays with a flat pick. Tuning for the dobro within the bluegrass genre is most often an open G with the strings pitched to G B D G B D , from the lowest to highest. Occasionally variant tunings are used, such as an open D; D A D F# A D. Other notable bluegrass players include Mike Auldridge , Jerry Douglas , and Rob Ickes . The Dobro was also used in older Country Music , notably by "Brother Oswald" of Roy Acuff 's band, but has been largely supplanted by the Pedal Steel Guitar . THE DOBRO IN BLUES MUSIC holding a single cone National]] The dobro is also significant to the world of blues music, particularly the Southern style of Country Blues that grew out of the Mississippi Delta and Louisiana . Unlike country and bluegrass dobro players, blues players play the dobro in the standard guitar position, with the strings facing away from the player. Many use slides or bottlenecks. Many players in the 1920s and 1930s , including the great Son House , used the instruments because they were louder than standard acoustic guitars, which enabled them to play for a larger crowd in areas that did not yet have electricity for amplifiers. The instrument is still used by some blues players, notably Taj Mahal and Alvin Hart . TRIVIA
EXTERNAL LINKS |
|
|