Posted by resotom on Tuesday, March 3, 2015
I am starting a series of blog articles on all the resos I own. I have four as of now and will tell the story of I came to own each one. The first story is how I came to acquire my first Dobro. I had been playing guitar since 1949 and in 1951, I was attracted to the sliding sound of the Dobro on the radio. For Christmas I recieved a Roy Acuff album and started to perfect the sounds of Ozwald on a lap steel I bought in 1951. It was a Supro six string. Then in 1952, I purchases a Rickenbacker eight string like cousin Jody used on the Opry. But the sound of yhe Dobro always interested me so I called a few music stores to see if they had a Dobro for sale. No such luck but I called a pawn shop on Milwaukee and had the owner play one over the phone. That was the sound I was looking for so my dad and I went down to buy it sight unseen. For $20.00 including the case I came home with it and proceeded to dismantle it to get all the dust out if it. I put it back together and put new strings on it. It is a mid thirties Regal/Dobro and sounds fantastic. I used this guitar on all the Opry touring package shows during the late sixties and have also used it on many recordings, stage shows,radio and television. I still own this Dobro today in the studio and will be renovating the peghead with new tuners very soon. I use a custom string gauge set on it which goes like this : 014p-018p-022p-030w-036w-044w. The top three are nickel and the bottom three are phosphor bronze. The finish is beat up after all those years of playing and the cone is the original one from the factory.When I first got this guitar, the nut was too short so I installed a Nick Maniloff steel nut riser to bring the strings higher. At one time I also put a D'Armond 'monkey on a stick' 1962 pick up on it and used that till last year. I now use a Shure SM-81 mike on it i the studio. After all these years, it still sounds fantastic !
1 comment on “My first Dobro..”
resotom Says:
Wednesday, March 4, 2015 @4:28:12 PM
I may add... if you look at all the 'favorite' bands/musicians section on the left side of my screen you will notice a large number of very famous players. All of these have in some way influenced my playing over the years.
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