similar way to the skin on a banjo, amplifying the soundwaves generated by the strings. The resonator guitars were somewhat louder than their wooden siblings. The Arrival of the Dobro In the 1920s, a refinement to the resonator guitar was designed in the United States by the Slovak instrument maker John Dopyera and his brothers. They used three spun ...
, Ronnie Milsap, Mickey Gilley and Gary Stewart are among the popular recording artists of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s who accompanied themselves on piano rather than guitar. Dobro The dobro has often served as a bluesy supplement or substitute to the pedal steel guitar in country music. The dobro was invented in 1926 by the Dopyera brothers, ...
to produce its sound. It has its origins in the Hawaiian music of the late-nineteenth century and is similar in sound and playing technique to resonator guitars such as the Dobro or National. Playing Technique The steel guitar has two main variants – the lap steel guitar and the pedal steel guitar. Each instrument is played horizontally – in the case ...
, hybrid instruments developed that combined qualities of both and the guitar began to take a more prominent place in jazz and pop music. Introduction | Stringed Instruments Instruments | Dobro | Stringed ...
Edward Elgar and Shostakovich. By contrast, Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos uses eight cellos and no other instruments to support a soprano voice in his ‘Cantilena’ from Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5. Dobro The dobro has often served as a bluesy supplement or substitute to the pedal steel guitar in country music. The dobro was invented in 1926 by the Dopyera brothers, ...
.-country label Compass Records and to carve out a solid solo career. Stafford would go on to co-found the terrific bluegrass band Blue Highway with fellow singer-songwriter-guitarist Shawn Lane and dobro virtuoso Rob Ickes. Steffey went on to co-found the bluegrass band Mountain Heart. By 1999, Union Station included Bales, Ron Block, Dan Tyminski (vocals, mandolin, ...
(1904–83) was attracted as a boy to blues and Hawaiian music. His fusion of the two would make him one of the most distinctive musicians of his time. Playing the dobro resonator guitar with a slide, he transmuted the blue yodels of Jimmie Rodgers, becoming a popular performer on radio and records. In the 1930s he worked on WBT ...
Sounds In Country Music By 1956, Flatt & Scruggs had clearly differentiated themselves from their ex-employer. Through emphasizing Scruggs’ banjo, deemphasizing the mandolin and adding Josh Graves on dobro, they created a different instrumental sound. By having Flatt sing lower and warmer than before, they created a different vocal sound. By writing and borrowing new tunes, ...
TV show himself while establishing Nelson as a pop presence with distinctive guitar riffs on hits like ‘Hello Mary Lou’, ‘Lonesome Town’ and ‘Teenage Idol’. Burton’s ‘chicken pickin’’ mastery on Dobro and guitar landed him studio gigs with artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell, The Monkees and Merle Haggard, as part of the legendary LA studio band known as ...
(Dobro, b. 1925) The dobro was pretty much a novelty instrument before Josh Graves established it as one of the most crucial voices in bluegrass. Graves had played with Mac Wiseman and Wilma Lee And Stoney Cooper before joining Flatt & Scruggs in 1955, but it was with that duo that he made his biggest impact. He was prominently ...
emotion and it hardly mattered that he wasn’t much of a player, because he had such a fine band, stocked with men like fiddler Howdy Forrester (1922–87) and Dobro player Pete Kirby (1911–2002), professionally known as Bashful Brother Oswald, both of whom would stay with him for decades. In the tradition of earlier aggregations like J. E. Mainer’s ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1989–present) Texas-based band The Dixie Chicks initially included sisters Martie (vocals, violin, b. 1969) and Emily Erwin (vocals, dobro, banjo, b. 1972), Laura Lynch (bass) and Robin Lynn Macy (vocals, guitar). Their debut album, Thank Heavens For Dale Evans (1990), a mixture of folk music and traditional country, was released ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1971–present) Three former members of The Country Gentlemen – John Duffey, Tom Gray and Mike Auldridge (dobro, b. 1938) – co-founded The Seldom Scene in 1971 with John Starling (vocals, guitar, b. 1940) and Ben Eldridge (banjo, b. 1938). Several of them had white-collar careers so they could play infrequently (thus the name) ...
(Vocal/instrumental duo, 1940s–77) This West Virginia-born husband and wife team was a popular duo from the late 1940s until Stoney’s death. Favouring the acoustic backing of dobro, fiddle and mandolin, Stoney (1918–77) and Wilma Lee (b. 1921) were stalwart champions of old-time country music who performed on The Wheeling Jamboree and the Grand Ole Opry. Their biggest hits ...
while adding a second guitar and speeding the rhythm up even more, with an emphasis on Scruggs’s intricate breakneck speed banjo playing. In 1955 Flatt & Scruggs added the dobro (resonator guitar) of Josh Graves to The Foggy Mountain Boys. It was Graves’ expertise that has since established the dobro’s mournful presence as a central ingredient in bluegrass. Until they ...
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