The April 1922 Crescendo and Cadenza magazines both announced the Twenty-first American Guild of Banjos, Mandolin and Guitar Convention was to be held in New York City at the end of the month. For a player of fretted instruments, this was THE event of the season, and the most celebrated players, teachers and instrument builders would be on hand. As evidenced by the article above, Lloyd Loar had been a headliner and featured soloist at the convention in Los Angeles in 1921, as he had been the year before in Atlanta. During those events, he also contributed compositions for other players, including his mando-cello suite “Nocturne,” which had been awarded first prize by the National Federation of Music (Music Courier, January, 1921). He had also endorsed and showcased Gibson mandolins and banjos at these events

Cadenza, July, 1920: Atlanta Convention. Lloyd Loar, standing third from right; W. B. Griffith, middle row on right; Francis Havens, sitting, front right.

Mandolinists Guiseppe Petinne and Zarh Myron Bickford, guitarist Vahdah Olcott-Bickford, and banjoists George L. Lansing, Frederick J. Bacon and Frank C. Bradbury figured prominently in the Crescendo article, but there was no mention of Lloyd Loar performing at the 1922 Convention, and no mention of a Gibson exhibit.

The article in the April Crescendo noted that a“well-known firm whose name cannot definitely be announced” would be attending. Did this refer to Gibson? The article also referred to a “big surprise that C.F. Martin would announce.” In Kalamazoo, plans were being made to send a Gibson delegation to the convention which would include General Manager Lewis A. Williams; Clifford Vincent Buttelman (sales manager); Delmont C.Mafit (salesman and production manager); James H. Johnstone (musician, foreman of the stringing department) and Lloyd Loar (”Superintendent and Acoustic Engineer”). What did they have in mind?

In retrospect, the period from 1919 until 1922 was a time of both upheaval and accolades for Lloyd Loar. We have located very little documentation concerning his performances for the Allied troops in France from October of 1918 until May of 1919, but we know he travelled with the 10-string Gibson mandolin-viola with the oval sound-hole and most likely featured his show-stopping solo renditions of “William Tell Overture” and the “Quartet from ‘Rigoletto.’”

In 1919, the Fisher Shipp Company (without Loar) continued to figure prominently at the circuit Chautauqua and the Lyceum Bureau.

When Loar returned to the United States, landing in New York on May 15, 1919, would he have visited Giuseppe Virzi and his brothers in their violin shop on 503 Fifth Avenue? At this writing, we have found no evidence that Loar was associated with the Virzi company in a remunerative way. By the end of 1922, however, he wold give his endorsement and enthusiastic recommendation of their “tone producer.” At the time, or this return, New York City was a bustling mecca of music and musical instrument innovation, but, at this point, we have no evidence of how long Loar stayed and what adventures may have met him there. The important question remains, when did he leave New York City and where did he go after? Would he have wanted to report to family and friends at his hometown in Lewiston, Illinois? Would he have been keen to rejoin his wife and join the Fisher Shipp Company on the usual summer tour? Or, as we have often been told by many writers on the subject, did he join the team at the Gibson factory at 225 Parsons Street? Surprisingly, the answer is: none of the above. He moved to Chicago. At the end of the summer tour, Fisher Shipp—Mrs. Loar— joined him in the rooms he had rented in a Boarding House on 53rd Street, Ward 6, Chicago, Illinois, and both established themselves as teachers of violin and piano by the autumn of 1919 (Chicago City Directory confirms man and wife in the boarding house; the US Census of 1920 lists Loar as Chicago resident, while placing Shipp in the household of her parents in Brookfield, Missouri).

In early months of 1920, Lloyd Loar rejoined the Fisher Shipp Company only to head straight into disaster. During their performance on March 29, 1920, a cyclone struck the Chautauqua venue in Omaha. The Circus tent was demolished and Fisher Shipp was badly injured. An article heralding the 1920 Guild concert in Atlanta, which Loar attended as soloist, recounted the harrowing event.

The Fisher Shipp Company (with Lloyd Loar, Miss Roma Swarthout and Miss Rachel Major) is first listed as performing again in July of 1920, and was once again welcomed with enthusiastic reviews. Publications continued to use the promotional poster from 1916, although Fisher Shipp has been cropped out of the photo. Did Fisher Shipp actually return to the stage in the summer of 1920, or is it possible thatat least some of the shows went on without her?

Mineral Point Tribune, Mineral Point, Wisconsin, November 4, 1920

During the time Sallie Fisher Shipp Loar convalesced at her mother’s home in Brookfield, Linn County, Missouri, Lloyd Loar rented rooms on 216 Park Street in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and was for the first time listed in the Kalamazoo City Directory as Acoustic Engineer at Gibson Mandolin and Guitar Company. In May, 1920, he signed the patent application for the adjustable bridge as witness, and we have evidence that he may have coordinated with patent attorneys in Chicago on behalf of Gibson. At the same time his reputation as a performer and scholar drew music students from around the continent, like the gifted Miss Grace Newman of Saskatchewan, Canada, who moved to Kalamazoo to study with him (The Leader-Post, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Monday December 27, 1920). He had also taken the Gibson Melody Maids under his tutelage and performed with them locally in the spring of 1922. Mandolin and banjo playing “Gibson Girls’’ Lucille Campbell, Nell VerCies and Dorothy Crane were recruited by Loar to perform with him in the 1924 edition of The Gibsonians.

“The Gibson Melody Maids,” Music Trade Review, November 18, 1922

Battle Creek Enquirer, Battle Creek, Michigan) April 3, 1922,

Next week: Specifications for a new mandolin, then off to New York City!