April 11, 1995
In all of the other bluegrass instruments, the bridge rests directly on the top of the instrument, and it is this face that is the sound-producing medium. The fiddle, mandolin, bass, and guitar have relatively thin wooden tops that may or may not be graduated in thickness, depending on the instrument. In the case of the banjo, it's a tightly stretched plastic head.
The dobro is different. The sound-producing device is a very thin cone-shaped piece of aluminum, termed the resonator, similar in shape and size to the polypropylene bass speaker in a home stereo system. The resonator is about 10-1/2" in diameter, but is only 0.012" thick and weighs only 1.5 oz. In most dobros, the resonator rests on and is suspended from a a solid wooden ring (usually made of maple) termed the soundwell which is attached both to the back and top of the instrument. Some dobros lack soundwells, in which case the resonator is suspended from a shallow lip in the top of the instrument. In cases like this, some other kind of bracing such as baffles or soundposts are also used to provide support for the top (see King 1991:70-71). Resting on the resonator is an eight-legged piece of cast aluminum, termed the spider, at the center of which is a slot holding two wooden bridge inserts (one for the three bass strings and one for the three treble strings). A slender bolt in the center joins the resonator and spider and draws them together with a minimum of pressure. Most resonators are produced by spinning on a metal lathe, but some are stamped from a thin sheet of aluminum. Most of the stamped resonators have a series of eight narrow ledges, termed lugs, inset around the edge, on which the spider rests, and as a result spiders designed for use with a stamped resonator have slightly shorter legs. These inner parts are protected by a heavy chrome-plated brass coverplate (the "hubcap" visible on the top of the instrument).
Since the top of the dobro has nothing to do with producing sound and merely provides structural support for the parts that do produce sound, there is no reason to provide a thin top as on a conventional guitar, and in fact the dobro top is usually made of heavy plywood (although some custom makers use solid tops).
It is important to note that while the body of the instrument is made of heavy plywood and the neck is a thick piece of wood nearly as big as a two-by-four, the resonator itself is eggshell-thin and eggshell-delicate. Since the strings connect with the resonator through the spider, it is very important to avoid any sharp blows to the strings, to prevent the spider legs from punching a hole or a dent in the rim of the resonator. A dent of this kind will ruin the resonator (and a new resonator costs about $40 and is difficult to install). The Waldo Otto "bar drop" works just fine for lap steels, but I don't recommend trying it on your dobro. Even excessively vigorous rhythm chucking is probably unwise.
Pre-war instruments have an undeniable mystique for the hardcore bluegrass picker. We all drool lustfully over those Lloyd Loar F-5's, Martin herringbone D28's, and Gibson RB-3 Flathead Straight Eights (or whatever those things are) that we want but don't own. Some of the fiddles I've seen are so old that "pre-war" brings up the question "which war?"
In the case of old wood-bodied instruments, there may be some justification for this reputation. I've played some killer pre-war D-28's. Some folks think it's because the wood has been aged so long. Others say it's because good quality wood has gotten increasingly scarce and modern instruments are being built with inferior materials. Some just say the craftsmanship was better back then.
Dobros are different. The important working parts are all metal, and the tone of metal doesn't improve with age (on the contrary, metal fatigue is the only likely consequence of aging). The wood parts don't affect the tone much (most of the body is plywood). Because of the close tolerances of the metal parts, an aging dobro is more likely to develop buzzes, rattles, and diminished volume than improved tone. In short, there is no inherent reason why an old dobro should sound any better than a new one. Differences in tone depend chiefly on body volume, whether the resonator is spun or stamped, and how well the parts fit together. The dobros that have been produced by OMI and by Bob Reed in the last five to eight years are, in my opinion, as good or better than any that have ever been built. I would advise anyone who wants a good-sounding dobro to find a dealer with several new instruments in stock and simply pick the best-sounding one. There is certainly no justification for some of the prices that are beginning to be asked for dobros. The October 1990 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited has one ad for a 1936 dobro "with case and bar" for $1500, and another ad for a one-of-a-kind 1938 model for $2000. An ad in the Austin American-Statesman a few months ago listed a dobro (no description) for $1000. Except in the case of new custom in- struments, I see no explanation for prices like these, unless the prices are being driven up by the same Japanese collectors who have already priced most other prewar bluegrass instruments out of reach of the average picker.
Several people have shown me dobros with the comment "Look how low that serial number is!...must be pretty old, huh?" Invariably these turn out to be OMI models made during the last 20 years. According to King (1991:37), some pre-war Dobros and Regals had serial numbers. Most, or perhaps even all of the pre-war dobros I have seen had no serial number at all. My pre-war square-necked Model 27 has no serial number. In any case, apparently no records were kept back then, so even if the instrument is pre-war and has a serial number, it can't be dated from the number. Instruments built by the Dopyeras in California beginning in 1968, including all the OMI dobros, have a serial number on the end of the headstock. Beginning in February, 1974, wood-bodied models are prefixed with the letter D (see King 1991:42 for serial number list). The 1975 vintage Model 60 OMI dobro that I play has the serial number D 592 5 on the headstock, and a couple of years ago when I replaced the resonator, I found the date May 12, 1975 written in pencil on the back inside the soundwell.
It should be clear by now that if you've got a dobro built before 1968, it's going to be hard to find out anything very specific about its age and origin. Let's use my pre-war Model 27 as an example. It is a square-necked model with a sunburst finish, 12 flat frets clear of the body, with single mother-of-pearl position dots at frets 5, 7, 9, 12, and 17, double dots at frets 15 and 19, and a bone nut. The fretboard is either ebony or some other stained wood, and is very slightly arched. This instrument lacks the three small holes positioned between the screens. The top is plywood, with ivoroid binding around the top only. The headstock has a redand-gold "Dobro" decal. The tuning machines are exposed, with plastic pegs up. The headstock slots are rounded on the ends and the end of the headstock is slightly arched; there is no serial number. The coverplate has four sets of rectangular holes, arranged in a radial fan pattern, eight "rays" per pattern. Stamped below the handrest is the notation "1,896,484 OTHER PATS. PEND." The tailpiece is the usual fan-shaped kind like those on OMI dobros. The resonator is the stamped, lug type with a short spider. I have never had this instrument apart, but Dan Huckabee says he replaced the resonator for the previous owner and he noted that it does not have a soundwell. This instrument has the following dimensions:
body depth 3-1/2"
width across bight 8-11/16"
width across lower bout 14-3/16"
width across upper bout 10-1/2"
body length 19-7/16"
scale length 25"
total length of instrument 38-3/16"
neck width at body 2-1/8"
neck width at nut 1-13/16"
maximum width of headstock 2-1/2"
headstock slot width 7/16"
Working with this description, what can we say about who built this dobro and when? The rounded headstock slots suggest that this instrument was built by Regal, despite the Dobro decal. As we saw above, Regal was licensed to use the Dobro emblem in the summer of 1932, although Wheeler (1990:324) says that Regal didn't announce its first resonator guitar until January, 1933. The patent number given on the coverplate is the one issued on February 7, 1933. Therefore, it appears this dobro was Regal-built, sometime between about 1933 and the start of World War II; and that's about as specific as we can be. The instrument resembles one shown in Wheeler (1991:327) except that the one pictured has a solid headstock. According to King (1991:67), stamped lug resonators were made by the Dobro Company from 1932-1935 for Regal, which may suggest that the instrument dates from that period.
Complicating the problem of instrument identification is the fact that several years ago brand-new reproductions of old Regal dobros came on the market and are being sold now. These are essentially accurate reproductions (RD-100S, square neck; RD-65, round neck) complete with the Regal decal. Although I knew about these, I had never actually seen one of these until a year or so ago, and although I hate to admit it, I was at first completely baffled to find myself holding an apparently brand-new pre-war Regal dobro, until I realized what it was. As these Regal reissues get banged up and aged by use, they may fool other folks besides me. I don't know much about them and don't know what sort of serial numbers they might have.
Although Pete Kirby (Brother Oswald) and similar stylists generally play in an open A tuning, the dobro in bluegrass format is nearly always tuned in open G; that is, from the bass to the treble side, the strings are GBDGBD, with the treble set tuned an octave higher. This, of course, is the same tuning used for the banjo, and the highest four strings on the dobro are exactly the same as the four main strings on the banjo (it is also worth mentioning that when playing the banjo or guitar with a G chord formation, the capo positions are identical for all three instruments; that is, A is the second fret, B, the fourth, etc.). As a result, the picking patterns are much the same on the two instruments; but it is in the right-hand work that the similarities are even more pronounced. Because chording is done with the bar, it is impossible to play a full minor chord on a dobro that is in a major tuning. The best that can be done is to play three notes out of the minor formation, or to play several notes in sequence by moving the bar rapidly. I find it difficult to do much with songs that feature the minor mode, although many other dobro pickers seem to be less limited.
Due largely to the influence of Josh Graves, the bluegrass dobro is often picked with a three-finger forward roll. Josh was inspired to adopt this style by listening to the banjo picking of Earl Scruggs (see Wolfe 1990), and in fact many of the classic Uncle Josh dobro licks are adaptations of banjo licks. Josh says, "I spent a lot of time in their dressing room learning that roll." Listen to the classic recordings of the Foggy Mountain Boys from the 1950's and early 1960'sand you will hear a marked parallelism between the banjo and dobro parts. I don't know whether Josh was copying Earl, or the other way around, but more likely there was a certain amount of cross-fertilization. At any rate, I think that much of the standard right-hand repertoire of the average bluegrass dobro picker can ultimately be traced to Earl Scruggs.
Because the sound-producing parts of a dobro are made of aluminum, which is unaffected by changes in humidity and minimally affected by changes in temperature, and because the wooden body and neck are of massive construction, the dobro holds its tuning better than any of the other bluegrass instruments. Dobros tend to stay in tune for days or weeks at a time. Logic would dictate that in jam sessions the other instruments ought to take their tuning from the dobro. As we all know, however, logic plays no part in bluegrass. The banjo, with its slender, flexible neck and impossible-to-tune fifth string, kicking and stomping like a highstrung racehorse, usually dominates the jam session and keys the tuning, which is invariably too sharp if it's outdoors. Anyone ought to be able to compare a banjo neck with a dobro neck and predict which instrument would hold its tuning best. Fortunately, the advent of electronic tuners has given us all a standard that we can adopt without argument, and as a result today's jam sessions are much more likely to be in standard pitch.
The dobro and the fiddle are the only bluegrass instruments that are held horizontally (which accounts for why dobro pickers are always the first to come in out of the rain). In the case of the dobro, the sound goes up, not out. Proper miking means that the microphone must be suspended over the instrument, by a boom stand, pointing downward. You'd be surprised how many sound technicians don't understand this basic fact. I've been given microphones with pole stands many times onstage, as if there was anything a dobro picker could do with one of them. This downward-pointing microphone can easily feed back from stage monitors, however. Because the dobro, along with the guitar, is one of the quietest of the bluegrass instruments, it needs much more boosting by the sound system than louder instruments like the banjo. Sound technicians don't understand that, either.
Where any of the other bluegrass instruments are concerned, it's difficult to achieve any kind of consensus among pickers as to who's the best. Who's the best bluegrass fiddler? Kenny Baker? Blaine Sprouse? Stuart Duncan? Alison Krauss? Hard to say. It sounds like a good way to start a jam session fistfight, if you ask me. But if you're talking about the dobro, as far as I'm concerned, Jerry Douglas is The Man. In my book, the "D" in dobro stands for Douglas (see Wolfe 1991 for a recent interview). Jerry has done a lot more than just endorse the GHS dobro string set that bears his name. It's hard to explain about Jerry to folks who don't play the dobro. It isn't that there are a bunch of good dobro pickers and he's just a little better than the rest. No, it isn't like that at all. Jerry is entirely in his own orbit. Nobody else can do what he does, or even come close. He has a unique and incredibly tasteful style, one that I doubt anyone else will ever be able to copy. Words can't describe it. You must hear it to understand. I can remember a number of times when I've been sitting in a restaurant somewhere with a Top 40 country station on the house PA system, and a brand-new song by Randy Travis or someone would come on the air, a new song that I'd never heard before anywhere, and by the time the first three notes of the dobro lead-in rang out, I knew without a doubt who was working the dobro. That's how distinctive Jerry's touch is. What does Josh Graves think of Jerry? "Jerry's gone on to fancier stuff but I'll tell you he's a genius. He can do everything. He can play it straight or whatever he wants to" (Wolfe 1990). What Jerry has done is to show us all where the dobro can go and what it can really do -that is, if you're Jerry Douglas.
Reprinted by permission.
This page created by Bob Cherry.
Copyright © 1995, 1996 Bob Cherry. World rights reserved.