Sunday, February 19, 2006

The dobro


According to the sleeve notes of Light Up the Fire, Keith Rycroft possessed one of just two steel dobros in Britain at the time.

A dobro is a Hawaian steel guitar which uses a chamber in the neck to create its distinctive sound. They sell for something approaching £2,000 in Britain today.

Here is a picture of one from the London Resonator Centre which claims to be Britain's only outlet for these instruments.

* Postscript 2012: I'm not convinced there's a chamber in the neck. Maybe there is in Hawaii. I think the resonator is the steel chamber in the body of the guitar. See wikipedia account here.  PF

2 comments:

Unknown said...

We we're in a friends house in Coventry, when he exclaimed that he had found a tin guitar in his attic that he wanted us to have.
On seeing this 1932 Dobro we explained that it was in fact quite rare and worth at least £500 (it was 1973), he still insisted we took it.
When we disbanded in 1079, we agreed that we should also pass this grreat guitar on, so we gave it to Mo Witham, who appeared on many of our recordings and affiliated albums.

john

Unknown said...

I meant 1979 of course

john