djwarden - Posted - 11/09/2024:  02:55:59

I co-founded the; R. Q. Jones Company in 1975 with Rudy Jones in Wanette Oklahoma. I still have the 5th dobro built by us. While we were building a guitar for Josh Graves, he borrowed my guitar to use it on an album titled “Same Old Blues”. Does anyone remember this time?

docslyd - Posted - 11/09/2024:  07:38:18

Yup. I have that record. Is that your guitar on the cover...with the gold plated hardware?  It must be. It says "Doug" on the fretboard!!

Edited by - docslyd on 11/09/2024 07:39:43

mudman612 - Posted - 11/09/2024:  08:39:44

I have an RQ Jones from 2005 that I like a lot. However, I would love to know what your earliest design ideas were and what you learned as the business progressed.

MarkinSonoma - Posted - 11/09/2024:  08:57:43

"Does anyone remember this time?" Yes - but not as well as I used to - I was 23 at the time.

I have the album on vinyl as well. I bought it when it was released, I had just started on dobro the year prior, in 1976. And that record has recently been re-released digitally by CMH Records. 

Doug, click on the thread from the archives below  - you are mentioned in one of the posts. It is from 2015, just after Rudy passed away.  In one of the posts I shared comments about Rudy from Jerry Douglas that he had written on his no longer forum that was ion his website for many years.

And I'm curious - what was your role as co-founder of the company in 1975?

resohangout.com/archive/42795

MarkinSonoma - Posted - 11/09/2024:  10:11:34

Here's what Jerry Douglas so eloquently wrote on his website forum after Rudy passed away in 2015:



"Yesterday we lost one of the building blocks of our family in this dobro world we live in. Rudy Jones passed away from complications from Parkinson's disease. He has been battling this for some time and I think many of you know that. It's a tough thing to know about and not be able to stop such a terrible situation. But folks, that's not in our hands.

Rudy and I met sometime around 1975. With the knowledge he had gleaned from the Dopyeras in California he started building reso guitars in the little town of Wanette, Oklahoma. He took over a corner building there and set up his jigs and saws and started making walnut guitars. They had thin bodies but were loud as hell. He called them "Banjo Busters". he really wanted me to play one, but I was still hung up on my old model 37. It's hard to give up an old friend, but as we talked about woods and body cosmetics, we came to an agreement about mahogany and the depth of the upper and lower bouts of a guitar I would try to play. I was working with the Whites at the time and my style was changing too because of the voices I was working with and our migration toward more (at that time) mainstream Country music.



The guitar Rudy built me was really kind of a fluke. Broken several times during it's assembly and always expertly put back together by Rudy, even microwaved in an industrial oven he had acquired for short intervals over a couple of weeks. I paid Rudy for the guitar and slowly started finding it was my new voice.I had no idea what an impact that guitar was going to have on my career. It is on most of the recordings I did for others in my most serious session-playing period. That would be from 1985 to 2000. About fifteen sessions per week and countless artists and songs. That guitar just recorded so well. It had the clean highs and defined lows that made the dobro stand out on the radio during that period. Mostly because of it's unique construction, which was the first of it's kind. Rudy used sound posts and baffles much like the inside of a speaker cabinet and was one of the first reso luthiers to realize that sound in these guitars moved much the same as light or water might. Reflecting off hard surfaces and guided by the obstacles in its path.

I played that guitar until Tim Scheerhorn placed one of his magnificent works in my hands. The Jones is now in the Country Music Hall of Fame. 



We all owe Rudy a huge debt of gratitude for the direction Resonator guitars have gone in these "modern" times. I know I do especially. Rest in peace Rudy. You were a good one."

 

djwarden - Posted - 11/10/2024:  11:55:49

quote:

---

Originally posted by MarkinSonoma

"Does anyone remember this time?" Yes - but not as well as I used to - I was 23 at the time.

I have the album on vinyl as well. I bought it when it was released, I had just started on dobro the year prior, in 1976. And that record has recently been re-released digitally by CMH Records. 

Doug, click on the thread from the archives below  - you are mentioned in one of the posts. It is from 2015, just after Rudy passed away.  In one of the posts I shared comments about Rudy from Jerry Douglas that he had written on his no longer forum that was ion his website for many years.

And I'm curious - what was your role as co-founder of the company in 1975?

resohangout.com/archive/42795

 

---

Rudy's brother in law was my close friend, so I met him just a few months after he moved back from California. He had rented a building in Wanette and had his jigs and tools there. I had just  gotten out of the Army and was managing a music store. Rudy wanted me to join him in the business so I started out by filing the paperwork to make us a LLC, did the shipping, billing and did the advertising.  I also made the ebony fretboards and did the inlay on the neck and frets. After about a year of almost starving to death, I went to AT&T and started another career.

 

joebee - Posted - 11/10/2024:  12:06:07

djwarden Thanks for sharing your story. And MarkinSonoma thanks for reposting Jerry Douglas' comments about Rudy. Good stuff.

djwarden - Posted - 11/10/2024:  12:45:47

quote:

---

Originally posted by MarkinSonoma

"Does anyone remember this time?" Yes - but not as well as I used to - I was 23 at the time.

I have the album on vinyl as well. I bought it when it was released, I had just started on dobro the year prior, in 1976. And that record has recently been re-released digitally by CMH Records. 

Doug, click on the thread from the archives below  - you are mentioned in one of the posts. It is from 2015, just after Rudy passed away.  In one of the posts I shared comments about Rudy from Jerry Douglas that he had written on his no longer forum that was ion his website for many years.

And I'm curious - what was your role as co-founder of the company in 1975?

resohangout.com/archive/42795

 

---