Help with names please

[sallyduk]

Thanks John & Ray for the information.

As you both seem to know your guitars are you able to date the following 2 photos?  I have added the backs to them to see if you can read the date on Scan 2 and also whether 'Jerome' could mean the studio where the photo was taken?

Any info you can help with is much appreciated.

Thanks

Sally

[Ray T]

Hi Sally
Unfortunately, I'm over 250 miles from home at the moment so I don't have access to the info. I need to be able to advise.

What i can say, though, is that several of them appear to be playing resonator guitars  - probably made by Dobro in the US. Resonator guitars play in exactly the same way as traditional instruments and it is the way they produce sound that differs. Whereas, on a traditional guitar, the strings make the top move, on a resonator, the strings rest on what can best be described as a spun aluminium cone (think loudspeaker) which imparts a much louder metalic tone to the sound. From memory, I think they pre-dated the invention of the electric guitar.

What I can't remember is when the Dopyera brothers migrated to the US and started producing that model. The bigger problem is that you can go out and buy one exactly like that today.

I'll hopefully get back to you next week.

[John915]

Good evening,

The first of those photo's is the same 3 people as your original. The chap seated is now playing resonator guitar and the chap standing left a ?? (Senior moment). The card is stamped 29 Nov 193? on the back.

The other card is I think a little later in date, as RayT says, two are playing resonators.

Resonators come in two styles, square necked which are played in the same way as a lap steel guitar. Round necked which are played in the conventional way. There is though no reason why you shouldn't play them on the lap as well.

No doubt RayT will be able to give you more when he gets home.

John915

[Ray T]

Round necks also came with a "U" shaped metal device which fitted over the nut to raise the action so they could be played "Hawaian" style. I'm not sure when square necks were introduced but suspect that it was sometime after people realised that fitting the device and heavier strings bent the necks preventing them from being played as a normal guitar.

I'm sure George Gruhn's guide will answer some of these questions.

[sallyduk]

Thanks again for the info.

I did think the stamp date was 29 Nov 193?  and now believe this could be after 1936 as the middle chap (my F.I.L) was living in Scotland until 1936/7 and by 1938 he's moved to Sheffield along with his brother.

I've found a newspaper advert dated 1939 from the Sheffield Evening Telegraph with him advertising Hawaiian Guitar Lessons using the 'Drew' method (Drew was Joseph's middle name). 

Also, on the 1939 Register Joseph is living in Sheffield with his brother & sister in law and another male musician (he could be one of the other chaps in the band).  Joseph is now running his own business as a Dental Technician in Sheffield so presume the band was based in Sheffield - I know they once played in the City Hall!

I also wonder whether the name Jerome on the back of the photo could be 'Jerome Photographic Studio' I believe was based in Haymarket, Sheffield?

Thanks again for all your help.

Sally

[Ray T]

OK, I'm back home! We have three photographs of men with musical instruments.

Scan 1 - the man on the left is holding a guitar with what looks like a very high action which means it has been set up to play with a steel - i.e. Hawaiian style. The one in the middle is playing an electric lap steel, as I've previously said, and the one on the right an ordinary electrified acoustic guitar. It looks like a Gibson ES 150 - said to be "one of the world's first significant commercially produces electric guitars" but, unfortunately it isn't - the head is the wrong shape. The ES150 was first produced in 1936 so I would speculate that the guitar in the photo must be from the late 1930s at the earliest.

Scan 2 - The same man on the left is now playing a Ukulele (Hawaiian for "jumping flea"!). These come in various sizes and I can't tell whether it's a Concert or a Tenor. As I've said previously, the man in the middle is playing a Dobro (an amalgam of Dopyera Brothers). These were produced in that particular style from around 1929 but, unfortunately, you could just as easily go out and buy one today which looks identical. There were differences by which they can be dated but you'd have to have the thing in your hands in order to tell. The one puzzling thing is that it has a "trapeze" tailpiece which I thought might have given a clue as to its date - they don't have them like that nowadays - but I can find no reference to them ever having had one like that. It's possible that someone changed it at some stage. The man on the right is playing a different electrified acoustic guitar - look at the end of the fretboard - it's a different shape.

Scan 3 - We now have 4 men. The two at the back are playing nondescript, un-identifiable guitars. Both men at the front are playing Dobros. Quite what the cone is, on the floor at the front I've no idea. Their clothing seems to come from the 1940's

One further thing that is puzzling me is how did two chaps from Sheffield end up owning 2 Dobros? They weren't exactly common-place back in the 1940s. I remember Tommy Steele once saying that his ambition, when he started out, was to own a Martin guitar (similar quality to a Dobro) and they didn't start importing those itnto the UK on a regular basis 'til the 1970s when I first bought one.

If anything else strikes me I'll get back to you.

R

[sallyduk]

Wow, this is getting interesting, thanks so much for the indepth report on the guitars they are playing :-)

From what I've been told in the past, the man on the left in scan 1 & 2 was a nice jewish gentleman possibly from Poland.
 
The man on the left in scan 3 was called Freddie.

Joseph (the man in the middle in scan 1 & 2) was born in Scotland in 1910 & died in Sheffield in 1958, so all photos were definitely taken before then.  If you look at this latest scan of Joseph taken in 1953 he is quite a bit older.

Going back to the 1939 register of Joseph - with him there is also a man called Wilfred Cohen (a musician) born Oct 1914.  After a bit of research there is a Wilfred Cohen who came from Scotland and married in Sheffield in 1940.  This Wilfred's father was Polish & there were many musicians in the family.

Is it possible that in scan 3 the man on the left (believed to be called Freddie) could be of the right age for Wilfred Cohen (born 1914) (aka Fred)?  It's a coincidence he came from Scotland and ended up in Sheffield too!  Maybe the band started off in Scotland?

Thanks again for any help.

Sally