Dobro

For the instrument in bluegrass and blues music commonly called a dobro, seeResonator guitar.

For other uses, seeDobro (disambiguation).

Dobro Manufacturing Company

Company type	Private(1928–1937) Brand(1940–present)
Industry	Musical instruments
Founded	1928
Founder	John Dopyera
Fate	Merged withNationalto form "National Dobro Co." in 1935,brand then used byValcoand other manufacturers
Headquarters	United States
Products	Resonator guitars
Owner	Gibson(1993–present)

Dobrois an Americanbrandofresonator guitarsowned byGibsonand manufactured by its subsidiaryEpiphone.The term "dobro" is also used as ageneric termfor any wood-bodied, single-coneresonator guitar.

The Dobro was originally aguitar manufacturingcompany founded by theDopyerabrothers with the name "Dobro Manufacturing Company". Their guitar design, with a single outward-facing resonator cone, was introduced to compete with the patented inward-facing tricone and biscuit designs produced by theNational String Instrument Corporation.The Dobro name appeared on other instruments, notably electriclap steel guitarsandsolid bodyelectric guitarsand on other resonator instruments such as Safariresonator mandolins.

History

Dobro–styletenor guitar,1934

The roots of the Dobro story can be traced to the 1920s when Slovak immigrantJohn Dopyera,instrument repairman and inventor, and musicianGeorge Beauchampwere searching for more volume for Beauchamp's guitars. Dopyera built an ampliphonic (or "resonator" ) for Beauchamp, which was patented in December 1929.In mid-1929, Dopyera left theNational String Instrument Corporationto start the Dobro Manufacturing Company along with his brothers Rudy and Ed, and Vic Smith. National continued operating under Beauchamp, Barth et al.Dobrois both a contraction of 'Dopyera brothers' anda word meaning 'good'in their nativeSlovak,but also in manySlavic languages.An early company motto was "Dobro means good in any language." In 1930, the Dobro company name was changed to Dobro Corporation, Ltd., with additional capital provided by Louis and Robert Dopyera. Dobro was, during this period, a competitor of National.

The Dobro was the thirdresonator guitardesign by Dopyera, but the second to enter production. Unlike his earliertriconedesign, which had three ganged inward-facing resonator cones, the Dobro had a single outward-facing cone, with its concave surface facing up. The Dobro company described this as a bowl-shaped resonator.

The Dobro was louder than the tricone and cheaper to produce. In Dopyera's opinion, the cost of manufacture had priced the resonator guitar beyond the reach of many players. His failure to convince his fellow directors at National String Instrument Corporation to produce a single-cone version was a motivating factor for leaving.

Since National had applied for a patent on an inward-facing single cone (US patent 1808756),Dopyera developed a design that reversed its direction: the guitar's bridge rested on an eight-legged castaluminumspider sitting on the perimeter of the cone (US patent 1896484),rather than on the apex of the cone as it did in the National design.

"Spider" -shape resonator detail

In the following years, both Dobro and National built a wide variety of metal- and wood-bodied single-cone guitars, while National also continued with the tricone for a time. Both companies sourced many components from National directorAdolph Rickenbacher,and John Dopyera remained a major shareholder in National. By 1932, the Dopyera brothers had gained control of both National and Dobro, which they merged to form the National-Dobro Company. By the 1940s, National-Dobro had been purchased byValco.Valco ceased production of Dobro-branded guitars afterWorld War II;however, the Dopyera brothers continued to manufacture resonator guitars under various other brand names.

In 1964, the Dopyera brothers revived the Dobro brand name. They sold the name toSemie Moseleyin 1966. In 1970, the Dopyeras'Original Musical Instrument Company(OMI) yet again reacquired the Dobro name.In 1993, theGibsonGuitar Corporation acquired OMI along with the Dobro name.The company became Gibson's Original Acoustic Instruments division, and production was moved toNashvillein 2000.As of February 2012,Dobros were manufactured by Gibson subsidiaryEpiphone.As of January 2023,Dobros were not listed on Epiphone's website.

The Dobro was first introduced to country music byBashful Brother Oswald,who played dobro withRoy Acuffstarting in January 1939.

The first and second prototypes of the Dobro created by the brothers reside at the invention's birthplace of Taft, California, in a museum about the town's oil production history.

On June 19, 2019, a 1933 Dobro Resonator Guitar Model 27, owned byDavid Gilmourwas sold at auction for a record $112,500.

Epiphone Dobros

Existing and past models of resonator guitars manufactured by the Gibson Company are:

• Hound Dog
  • Round neck
  • Deluxe round neck
  • Deluxe square neck
  • M-14 metal body
• Gibson's Phil Leadbetter resonator series

External links

• History of the Pre-War DobroArchived2021-08-03 at theWayback Machineby Randy Getz