Dobro
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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, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar. Originally coined by the Dopyera brothers when they formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company. In time it came, in common language, to mean any resonator guitar, or specifically one with a particular design of resonator. The Dobro brand also appeared, quite legitimately, on other instruments, notably electric lap steel guitars and solid body electric guitars and on other resonator instruments such as Safari mandolins.
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 Dopyera brothers formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company. "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 facing up. The Dobro company described this as a bowl shaped resonator.
The Dobro was louder than 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 had applied for a patent on the single cone (US patent #1,808,756), 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 license to manufacture resonator instruments and by 1937 they were the only manufacturer and the license 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.
Emil Dopyera (also known as Ed Dopera) manufactured Dobros from 1959 under the brand name "Dopera's Original", 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 Emil 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 is often used in a clichéd manner in movies or television shows to indicate that the scene has shifted to a Southern American locale or landscape, whether wilderness or a run-down town (usually in the summer). When this happens, it's playing a note that lazily slides upward a perfect fourth, generally followed by a few plucked chords descending to the original note.
Wider usage of the name
The name dobro is generically associated with the single-inverted-cone resonator design, as opposed to the tricone and biscuit designs which are both similarly associated with the National brand.
Gibson now restricts the use of the name Dobro to their own product line, but care should be taken in interpreting documents written before 1993 or from outside the US. In these cases, the terms "dobro" and "dobroist" may not necessarily refer to a Gibson Dobro. For example, consider the references to the use of a dobro guitar on "The Ballad Of Curtis Lowe" by Lynyrd Skynyrd on the Second Helping album or "When Papa Played the Dobro" by Johnny Cash on the Ride This Train album.
When Gibson informed other dobro guitar makers of their intention to reserve exclusive rights to the Dobro name, some players began to refer to their instruments as TIFKAD guitars, meaning "The Instrument Formerly Known As Dobro."
Modern instruments
As of 2006, many different makers including Gibson were manufacturing resonator guitars to the original inverted-cone design. Gibson also manufactures biscuit-style resonator guitars, but reserve the "Dobro" name for their inverted-cone models.
As well as recreating the traditional sounds and look, resonator guitars have also become the foundation for even further developments in the world of guitars. Many "Dobro" style guitars are now hybrid electric guitars and some manufacturers such as Ellis Guitars are adding strings to create 7 and 8 string resonator style guitars.
External links
- A Brief History of the Resonator Guitar by Phil Leadbetter.
- Dobro page at the Gibson website.
- Fender resonator guitar homepage parallel to the Gibson homepage
above.