Episode 11: The Griffith School of Music (Copy)

November 06, 2024

The Griffith School of Music, ca. 1925. Margie Keelin Griffith, on left with harp; her husband William Butt Griffith with F-5 72615, standing to her left. Unidentified musician standing in center with Gibson F-5 74311, the “house F5.” Photograph courtesy Charley Rappaport.

Lakewood Park in Atlanta, Georgia, was illuminated fabulously on the nights of June 2 and 3rd, 1922, for The Venetian Water Festival. “Expert swimmers” from the Atlanta Athletic Club rowed forty brightly lit gondolas across the lake. In the gondolas, the one hundred and two members of the Griffith Mandolin Orchestra, dressed in Venetian costumes custom ordered from New York City, played Italian love songs on mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos, banjos and, yes, even a mandobass. As they made their way across the lake, “O Solo Mio” and “Come Back To Sorrento” echoed resplendently. This astonishing mandolin escort led a magnificent float which carried The Queen of the Water and her maids, “the most beautiful young ladies of Atlanta,” all in sumptuous gowns. The procession approached “‘The Isle of Neptune,’ in the center of the lake, where Father Neptune awaited their arrival.” The Queen was escorted to her throne as the mandolin serenade continued from the water. Members of the Atlanta Harp Orchestra, led by Margie, L’Ella and Mary Griffith, put aside their mandolins and somehow made it from their watery perches onto the platform where harps awaited. A dozen harpists surrounded the Queen with heavenly harp music! Lighted boats hovered around the island! What a spectacle for the audience crowded around the lake! “Fancy diving from hidden spring-boards followed,” with the “Atlanta Girls’ Diving Team” flying into the lake, while fireworks erupted from the hillside. Mrs. Margie Keelin Griffith, who performed in a boat on her Gibson A4 mandolin and later led the harp ensemble on the island, may have even upstaged her sisters-in-law, as she “was beautifully gowned in jade green tulle, elaborately embroidered in sequins of the same shade.” (Atlanta Journal, articles from May 29 to June 15, 1922).

Top row, Misses Theodosia Beckham, Alice Eubanks, Ruth Noris, Margaret Buford, Mrs. Mary Griffith Dobbs, Miss Myrtle Craft. Middle row, Mrs. Isabel Hunter, Lorene Green, Lillian LaConte, Margaret Wade, and Mrs. M. B. Griffith. Sitting, Suzanne Springer and Walter Dodd Jr. Margie Griffith, sitting on left in gondola. Photo of rehearsal, published in The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1922

The Queens of the Venetian Water: Miss Marion Smith (on left, June 2) and Miss Ernestine Campbell (June 3). Photo from the rehearsal, published after the event in The Atlanta Journal, June 9, 1922

The Griffith Harp Club members. The Atlanta Journal, May 28, 1922

Margie Belle Keelin Griffith, wife of William Griffith, excelled as harpist, was a soloist at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and taught harp and piano. In all the years we have been tracking the Griffith family of Atlanta, the only photo in which she appears with a mandolin, she is in a gondola!

The Griffith School, ca. 1920, with Margie Griffith, on left, seated at the harp.

We have tracked down Margie Griffith because of her mandolin. For years, mandolin journals have only identified her as Mrs. Griffith, but we were determined to learn more about this woman for whom this unique mandolin was created. It was the most perfectly original instrument recovered from the Griffith School, probably because it rarely left her teaching studio during the time she owned it. Most of the other Griffith instruments showed wear or even repair and refinish. This one-of-a kind Gibson was custom ordered for her and was the only instrument signed by Lloyd Loar on September 20, 1923: Now one hundred years old, the legendary 1923 Gibson A-5 #74003 !

The Gibson A-5 74003, signed by Lloyd Loar on September 20, 1923, ordered by Gibson artist/agent William Griffith for his wife, Margie. Photo by Patrick Sauber, courtesy Darryl Wolfe and the Mandolin Archive.

Since Lloyd Loar and the Gibsonians had ended their summer tour on August 22, 1923, Loar would have been back at Gibson in Kalamazoo during the month before the signature date of this much discussed instrument. It was one of the only two Master Model mandolins that did not feature the scroll and points, the other being the 10-string MV-5 created for Loar himself a year earlier. This was not the first instrument ordered by William Griffith for his wife. A little over a year earlier, he wrote to Gibson giving gratitude for the timely delivery of Margie’s A4, which would most likely have been the mandolin she played at the Venetian Festival.

There is every evidence that William B. Griffith was acquainted with Lloyd Loar, if not a close friend. Even after Loar’s departure from Gibson, Griffith, as President of the American Guild, and one of the largest dealers of Gibson instruments in the world, was able to welcome Loar back to the Guild as a soloist and even have his photo included in Gibson’s “Mastertone” booklet of May, 1927.

Gibson’s “Mastertone” booklet, prepared for the Guild convention of 1927. Booklet courtesy Jeff Foxall.

Who were these Griffiths? To understand, we go back in time to the founder of the musical dynasty, Mary Burke Butt Griffith.

The Times, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 15, 1895.

Of all the mandolin communities, none was larger, more successful, more grandiose, or more matriarchal than the Griffith School of Music. It all started with Mary Burke Butt Griffith, who opened the school in 1898. An article in the Philadelphia Times Herald wrote “Victor Hugo said ‘the twentieth century is woman's century’ and as a proof that there is nothing that the brain of woman cannot grasp, or her skill manage. Mrs. M. B. Griffith of Atlanta is a living witness."

Mary Burke Butt, born in 1857, was a fireball of energy and showed musical acumen at an early age. She was already a concert pianist and music teacher by 1879 when she married Benjamin Howard Griffith, an employee of Chamberlin & Johnson department stores. Perhaps she was best known for organizing the building of the Atlanta bell tower and raising the money to order a custom bell from a foundry in Cincinnati. She set up a keyboard system, and played the bells herself. On Sundays and holidays, she rang old familiar songs across the city. She was quite a persuasive organizer. For example, she convinced the City of Atlanta to issue a “Colored Person’s Day.” Former slaves and children and grandchildren of slaves were given a festival, and in the city square the bells would ring songs Mrs. Griffith had learned from the African American Church. In addition to philanthropic work in Georgia, she was a member of the American Guild of Mandolin, Banjo and Guitar and the American Guild of Harpists. In 1898, she enlisted a staff of teachers and formed the Griffith School of Music at 455 Peachtree Street, and later expanded to 488.

Ad in the Atlanta Constitution, June 2, 1915.

Benjamin and Mary Griffith had four remarkable children: William Butt (born 1880), L’Ella Ruby (1883), Beverly Howard (1887) and Mary Butt (1890). The youngest boy, Beverly, was by far the most famous in his own time. Silent film star, race car driver and war hero, he is deserving of a full biography. But it is the oldest son, William Butt Griffith, that created such a mandolin legacy. By the 1920s, he was the head of the Griffith School of Music. Leading mandolinist, teacher, organizer, he held various official positions at the American Guild including Secretary-Treasurer and Field Secretary, 1923-1926, and President in 1927-28; he was also President of the Atlanta Federation of Musicians. He was one of the first to embrace Lloyd Loar-signed Master Model instruments, and his F-5, # 72615, signed March 27, 1923, has a legend of its own.

William Butt Griffith with F5 72615. This photograph appeared in many Gibson publications.

F5 72615 as it appears today. Photograph courtesy Steve Gilchrist.

When we acquired Gibson F5 72615 in October, 2015, it had been refinished; assessing the type of finish and the change in hardware, we estimated that the work was most likely performed by Gibson in the early 1930s. We contacted the greatest Loar-restoration expert in the world, luthier Steve Gilchrist in Australia. He was excited about the prospect of returning this amazing instrument to its original state. The results surpassed our greatest expectations in both sound and appearance. A complete report is available at Gilchrist Mandolins:

http://www.gilchristmandolins.com/loar-72615

L’Ella Griffith could play any instrument, and taught mandolin, banjo and guitar in the school. She was Director of the American Guild for many years and was instrumental in bringing the Guild convention to Atlanta in 1920. She married the mandocello player in the orchestra, Walter Bedard, who easily took his place as performer, teacher and business manager at the School.

Mary Butt Griffith Dobbs. The Atlanta Journal, December 13, 1925

The youngest child, Mary Butt Griffith excelled even among the talented performers and teachers in the family, earning respect on a variety of instruments. She married Dave Dobbs, a clerk at the Express Company. As Mrs. Dobbs, she continued with her teaching work, organizing a youth orchestra, and even outdid her talented sister-in-law in the Atlanta Harp Orchestra when she had the opportunity to perform as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in the late 1930s.

Hundreds of articles like these detailing Griffith concerts appear in Atlanta newspapers from the ‘teens all the way through the 1950s. There is interesting insight into repertoire. (Left: Atlanta Journal, February 26, 1926; Right, Atlanta Journal, January 23, 1927)

William Griffith married Margie Belle Keelin in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 22, 1915. Margie had been born near Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1891; moved with her family to Nashville and finally to Raleigh. She had taken to piano as a child, and fitted perfectly into the Griffith family when her husband took her to Atlanta. She appeared in concert as often, if not more often, than any of her in-laws.

The Atlanta Journal (Atlanta, Georgia) February, 19, 1926

Left: The Griffith faculty in the parlor of the house on Bonaventure Ave NE. L to R: William, L’Ella, Margie, Walter Bedard and Mary.
Right: Along with Mr. Griffith, members of the orchestra form a sextet with the “house instruments.”

The Griffith School featured an incredible collection of Gibson Family instruments which were available for students. Mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos, banjos and mandobasses were on hand for daily use. Gibson F5 75311, signed by Lloyd Loar on February 18, 1924, was a permanent resident and can often be seen in the hands of the more gifted students.

The Griffith Youth Orchestra. The young man seated second from right is holding Gibson F5 75311, the “house Loar.” The Atlanta Journal (Atlanta, Georgia) January 19, 1930. Mr. Griffith looks on, standing, top right.

The year 1923 was a landmark year for the Griffith family. Mr. Griffith got his F-5 in the early part of the year. While Margie’s A-5 was being signed in Kalamazoo, she and William and Margie were on tour in Europe! According to the passport and visa, they left on “July 14, 1923 and travelled in France, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Holland.”

Mr. and Mrs. Griffith in a Gibson promotional photo. In the summer of 1923, Europeans got their first chance to hear an F-5 mandolin, and Gibson took the opportunity to advertise the fact in the Music Trade Journal, December 1, 1923.

They returned to New York City harbor on the ship Orbita on September 29, 1923, and made it to Atlanta sometime after the 30th. We like to think she found her new A-5 mandolin awaiting her at the large house on 650 Bonaventure Avenue NE in Atlanta, where the family had just taken up residence!

Photographs of the Griffith House by Dr. Susan Muller.

The house of The Griffith School of Music, now on the National Register of Historic Places, is a large two-story beige-brick house with an additional attic apartment and a separate cottage behind the house. The house, porch and porte-cochere are supported by huge granite blocks. There are two large interior stone chimneys. The house was built in 1910 by Dr. George F. Payne. When Dr. Payne passed away in April of 1923, his widow sold the house to the Griffiths. In April of 1995, the house was acquired by its current owner who later received the city’s award for excellence in restoration. Before the restoration began, Rick Taylor of the Atlanta Mandolin Orchestra, his young son Jordan and Tony Williamson, who was in town as a soloist at their concert, had the extraordinary honor of touring the house with Manuel “Mike” Chaknis, who had been a student of William Griffith and performed with the Griffith ensembles. Mike Chaknis, at 75 years of age, still played the mandolin he had bought from Mr. Griffith, a 1933 F-5 #88831 (3681). As we toured the house, Rick Taylor recorded our conversation. We now invite our readers to take that tour along with us via the following transcription: The Griffith House with Mike Chaknis.

Rick: Mike, when you came here to take lessons, you said maybe early 30s, it was in the house out back?

Mike: Yes, Mr. Griffith had that for his studio. His teaching was all done in that little house in the back. His wife and his two sisters, they did their teaching in the house. Mrs. Griffith taught harp and piano and Mrs. Dobbs and Mrs. Bedard taught the stringed instruments. In those days, I would get off the street car and come up the driveway and go to the house out back. I would walk up the driveway and Mr. Griffith would be waiting for me and we would walk out back. So, I didn’t get to come into the house as often as some [students did].

Rick: Did you come once a week?

Mike: Yes, once a week… and I was very unhappy to pay a dollar and a half an hour. My former teacher only charged a buck! And I had a 50% increase and I had to ride clear across Atlanta…this was the end of nowhere back then…a long way from where I lived. I thought that was an outrageous fee. My Dad said, “boy, that man’s expensive…a buck and a half an hour!’

Owner: Is there any truth to the rumor that they only accepted cash?

Mike: That was the only way I ever paid.

Owner: Did you pay them every time?

Mike. Every time. Yes.

Owner: I have heard stories that every evening they would go to the room upstairs and have tea and split the take.

Mike: Yes, split the take! (laughter). Could well have been. But I know that was a lot of money. And that mandolin he played was $250 bucks!

Rick: Is that what you paid for yours?

Mike: I think it was. I bought that in the thirties. I bought it through Mr. Griffith. I pleaded with my Dad to buy it. It was a lot of money. But that was the going price for an F-5 back then. I think they are a little bit more now.

(laughter)

Tony: Did Mrs. Griffith have a special mandolin that was built like an F-5 with f-holes but didn’t have the scroll and points? Did you ever see that mandolin?

Mike: I don’t remember ever seeing that. I would have remembered a special mandolin. Something like that would have stood out in my mind.

Tony. This school was a rare situation here in the South. There were teachers all over the Northeast who were Gibson dealers, but a mandolin community of this scope in this part of the country was really quite remarkable.

Rick; I think Mr. Griffith was one of the leading Gibson dealers.

Mike: Mr. Griffith had a beautiful F-5 mandolin himself. Such tone. It had a wonderful tone.

We walk into the parlor.

Rick: This wood work in here is so beautiful. Oh look, here in the parlor. There’s a sign that says “Griffith School”

Mike: We did recitals here in the house. This is where the performers would perform, in this room. The musicians would set up in here in front of the fireplace and mantle.

Rick: You played in one of his groups?

Mike: Oh yeah. We played in one of his groups, used to play in here, and we had a radio program. At one of the radio stations. We had a theme song… [Hums a tune]

Tony: When you played in here, how many instruments…musicians were playing?

Mike: Oh you know, solos, duets, quartets, sometimes even more would play. As many as fifteen or twenty. As many as we could squeeze in. This was not the stage for the full orchestra, of course.

Tony: Do you remember where that would have been?

Mike: No. I have no idea.

Owner: I think there was also a school downtown.

Mike: There may have been a location on Peach Street, but this is the only location I was familiar with.

Owner: I found this photo and some music.

Mike: (points to the photo): That’s me.

Owner: That’s you?

Mike. Yes, I had hair then. I’m taking chemotherapy and lost my hair…I used to have hair… (pause)

Mike: …and there’s “My Old Kentucky Home.” We used to play that.

The group walks upstairs.

Mike: I only came up here rarely, but I know this is where Mrs. Dobbs taught. And this next room, Mr. Bedard taught mandocello and his wife L’Ella was over here. She could play everything.

Owner: Look how thick these walls are. And every room has a magnificent fireplace.

Mike: This was a fine old home in its day.

We walk over to the window and see the cottage out back.

Owner: I had been told that the Doctor that built this house lived there while the house was being built.

Mike: I always thought that those might have been the servants’ quarters in the old days.

Owner: Evidently not. That’s one part of the history I am vague on.

Rick: Mike, were you a teenager when you took from Mr. Griffith?

Mike. Yes, I was 16 or 17.

Owner: There is a pull down ladder to the attic and there is some sort of container in there. Something was up there for a long time. Yeah, we can go up there.

Mike: I don’t think I can go up there.

Tony climbs the ladder. “Maybe there’s another Lloyd Loar up here.” There is a large rectangular container made of a dense hardwood that may have been walnut. Inside were partitions that would have perfectly fitted cases for various size Gibson instruments. On the top right front edge was embossed “Gibson Co. / Kalamazoo, Michigan.” It was empty.

We go back downstairs and then to the outside. We are joined by another mandolin playing friend, Hal Jeanes.

Owner: There was a deck here. It’s pretty much gone now, we would like to rebuild it.

Mike: Do you have a key to Mr. Griffith’s studio? I’d like to take one look in there, to remember how it looked. I spent a lot more time in there than I did the house.

Rick: She found the key, she’s got it open!

We go inside.

Mike: This is where we sat for our lessons. There was another door over here.

Tony: Mr. Griffith’s studio. Amazing feeling here. Was there a room here where he kept his music, photos … Look, here’s some trunks.

(The trunks were empty)

Rick: No Loars in there. (laughter)

Tony: When Mr. Griffith gave you your lessons, did he use his F-5?

Mike: Oh yeah. We’d play, he’d play with me, show me. I saw it every week.

Tony: Did that make you want to have an F-5?

Mike: You bet! and I finally got one. And we would play them together.

Owner: If we were real quiet, I wonder if we could still hear it reverberating.

Mike: You’d have to be awful quiet. Awful quiet. I don’t think we can get that quiet.

Note: I am deeply indebted to Rick Taylor for his support of this project and for preserving this conversation; to Allen McCanless for help restoring photos; Steve Gilchrist for his support of the project and especially his amazing work on Mr. Griffith’s F-5; and Charlie Rappaport, who, as I recall, helped set up the tour but could not come due to his work schedule.

Episode 13: Class of '23, Part 2

December 19, 2023

Chicago Mandolin Orchestra, Claud Rowden, director. This photo was published in the Crescendo, November, 1925, and Gibson catalog P, page 35. (Restoration of the catalog photo courtesy Roger Siminoff). Lovetta Tabaka, front left.

The Chicago Mandolin Orchestra was one of the first to incorporate Gibson’s Master Model Instruments into their ensembles. In this, our last episode of “Breaking News: 1923,” we will continue to identify musicians, from touring professionals to hometown amateurs, who were among the “First Generation of Loar Owners.”

Lovetta Tabaka with Gibson F5. Photo from Gibson Catalog N (autumn of 1923).

Petite and lovely, 20-year-old Lovetta Anna Tabaka had taken Chicago by storm with her Gibson F-5 by the end of 1923. Within the next few years, awareness of her talent blossomed beyond the windy city as reviews of her performances expounded on her “powerful tone and silky tremolo.” In addition to the mandolin, she played and taught guitar, banjo, mandola and mandocello. In 1926 and ‘27, she charmed the audiences at the Conventions of The American Guild of Banjoists, Mandolinists and Guitarists with brilliant performances on a Gibson mandocello (as a member of the Chicago Mandolin Orchestra, she had access to both K4 and K5 models). Reviewers observed that the instrument seemed to dwarf her in size.

Notice for a radio program, Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, Illinois, May 24, 1927

Lovetta Tabaka, Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, Illinois, May 24, 1927.

Detail of the concert program from the American Guild Convention., April 1925. Crescendo, May, 1925.

Concert program excerpt, Chicago Mandolin Orchestra, Washington, D.C., April 11, 1926. Crescendo, June, 1926.

Lovetta Tabaka was born in Chicago on October 23, 1903 to Polish immigrants John Tabaka, born in Wiktoryn in 1869, and Katarzyna Pajak Banach, born in Gdansk in 1884. Much of what we know of the Tabaka family comes from Katarzyna, who lived in Chicago until the age of 96 and kept a scrapbook of photos. John and Katarzyna were married in Chicago in 1900 and had four daughters, Genevieve (born, 1902), Lovetta (1903), Wanda (1904) and Monika (1909). The traditional music of the parents’ homeland was a part of life for the girls, and Genevieve and Lovetta began playing mandolin at early ages.

Photo taken at a Tabaka family outing, circa 1914. Most likely, this is older sister Genevieve with guitar.

The Tabaka home, west-side Chicago, early ‘teens.

Other family members did not receive Katarzyna’s gift of longevity. Baby sister Monika died of illness in 1912, and John Tabaka, who worked in a lumber mill, was killed tragically on January 11, 1915, when a truckload of logs fell and crushed him. Twelve-year-old Lovetta was virtually inconsolable, and only her father’s mandolin seemed to give her any relief. She doesn’t appear with her sisters in any of the family photos after her father’s death, and lost all desire for those Sunday outings after her mother remarried on June 30, 1918.

The Tabaka sisters, Genevieve, Lovetta, and Wanda. While the family scrapbook is filled with later images of Genevieve and Wanda, this is the last photo we have found of the three sisters together.

Lovetta became a loner. However, with countless hours spent with the old bowl back mandolin, her skill progressed rapidly. In the summer of 1918, the diminutive 15-year old passed through the entrance of the towering Masonic Hall, which occupied the block at Randolph and State Streets in Chicago. After growing up in the Polish neighborhood on the west side, it must have felt like passing through to another dimension. There, in Suite 1022, she entered the studios of one of the most successful mandolin teachers and orchestra leaders in American, Claud Clay Rowden.

The Masonic Hall, 1918 City Directory, Chicago, Illinois,

We like to imagine Mr. Rowden arriving one morning to find Lovetta on the steps playing “Czardas” with astonishing speed. However it came to pass, he welcomed her into the program, undoubtedly on scholarship. Clearly, she had entered an astounding world of music, dedication and accomplishment. Within five years, she was on the faculty and took the first chair mandolin in the orchestra.

Chicago Mandolin Orchestra, Handel Hall in Chicago, Illinois, with Claud Rowden, director. Photo from 1918 Gibson catalog K. This is the Orchestra as it appeared when Tabaka first entered the Rowden program.

Claud Rowden was one of the first major orchestra leaders to embrace the Gibson Master Model instruments. In a letter to Gibson published in the Cadenza in October of 1923, he wrote “Just a few words in commendation of your good work on the new Gibson Master Mandolin. It has tone that beats anything I ever dreamed of. All other models and makes are backed clear off the boards.” In an interview for a profile in the November, 1925 issue of the Crescendo, he explained his philosophy as an orchestra leader and stressed the necessity to have good players and great quality instruments. Note that he had separate orchestras for banjo and mandolin, and never mixed repertoire.

Claud Rowden, circa 1912, with Gibson Harp Guitar.

Claud Clay Rowden was born on September 23, 1869 in Hartford City, Indiana. He was the same age as Lovetta’s father. Rowden, an accomplished musician, moved to Chicago in 1902 to accept a position on the faculty of the Balatka College of Music at Handel Hall. The College was founded by an Austrian immigrant, Hans Balatka, who had become a leading music teacher in the midwest in the late 19th Century. When Rowden came to town, Balatka’s son Christian had inherited the position at the head of the College, and daughter Anna was a teacher. Rowden, a handsome and charismatic man, married Anna Balakta on February 25, 1903, and the couple took up residence at 3600 Wabash Avenue. What was evidently a stormy marriage only lasted a little over a year, ending in a scandal which rocked the tight-knit music community. Divorce was granted on May 1, 1904.

The Inter Ocean (left) and Chicago Daily Tribune, both on 17 April 1904.

Rowden left Balatka College taking many of the students with him. By 1905, he had once again acquired the use of Handell Hall for his orchestra concerts, and had also established a studio in the Majestic Temple, room 415, 40 Randolph St., for classes and individual instruction. On September 2, 1905, he married one of his students, 26-year-old Nourmahal (Nourma) Excell Bensley, who became a teacher in his growing school. By 1910, he was President of the American Guild, and was performing at the conventions in Boston and Philadelphia as a soloist as well as showcasing gifted students in ensemble presentations. In 1912, he brought the convention to the Hotel Sherman in Chicago, the first time the Guild had left the East Coast. This particularly synchronistic event brought together the leaders of the Eastern plectral community such as Herbert Forrest Odell, Walter Jacobs and D. E. Hartnett with those of the mid-west. At the Gibson exhibit, Sales Manager Lewis A. Williams, Factory Superintendent George D. Lauren and Sales Clerk Charles N. White demonstrated instruments and took orders; even the top brass was there: President John W. Adams, General Manager Sylvo Reams and his assistant and brother, Andrew J. Reams. The young mandolinist from Oberlin College, Lloyd Loar, would certainly not have wanted to miss this event. As leader of the Oberlin Mandolin Club, wouldn’t he have wanted to organize a field trip to Chicago?

The June issue of the Cadenza gives a detailed account of the Chicago Convention.

By the 1920s, Rowden had organized a spectacular music empire in Chicago, as he continued to populate all his organizations with the finest Gibson instruments. Less successful at home, his marriage to Nourma ended in divorce. In 1928, the 59-year-old Rowden married another student, 23-year old Violet M. Carson from Missouri. After the stock market crash of 1929, Rowden and his wife left Chicago and moved to San Diego, California, where they lived together until his death in 1945 at the age of 75.

Lovetta Tabaka continued to wow audiences all though the 1920s, but opportunities for her diminished in the following decade. It is also possible that Claud and Nourma Rowden had filled the void for the girl estranged from her family, and the divorce was hard for her to accept. On October 1, 1929, she married Taba A. Darling, and the couple endured the Great Depression in Chicago. When her marriage ended in divorce in 1939, she moved to San Francisco where she passed away three years later at the age of 39.

Front overleaf of Gibson Catalog “N” compiled in the autumn in 1923.

Vincenzo Paladino joins William Place , Jr., as one of the first to record the Gibson F-5. We have yet to discover the details of what must have been an exciting career in Europe, but by 1918 he had landed in New York City. In the late 1920s, he recorded for OKEH and Brunswick Records (a discography is available [with selected sound-bytes} at UC Santa Barbara Library webpage). Paladino’s radio programs on NBC, broadcast from New York City, earned him national recognition for traditional Italian and Classical music. During the Great Depression, thanks to a WPA grant, he organized a children’s orchestra in New York City. Their well-played, authentic Italian sound defied the fact that the oldest member was only 8 years old.

Like Walter Kaye Bauer, Paladino endorsed Vega mandolins as well as Gibson in the late ‘20s. Daily News, Feb 5, 1928_

In Knoxville, Thomas Arville Miles (1880-1941), inspired by the Griffith School of Music in Atlanta, became a leader of the mandolin community of Eastern Tennessee. Miles Music Store at 407 Western Avenue taught and sold mandolins, banjos and guitars, and organized orchestras for the accomplished students. When he received his first F-5, he wrote to Gibson: “My Gibson Master Model Mandolin has arrived, and it sure has created a sensation among mandolin players here. I have thought that my old mandolin (an F-4) was perfection, and that it couldn’t be improved upon, but the F-5 has the most wonderful tone that I have ever heard in a string instrument.” (Crescendo, October, 1923)

T. A. Miles with a Gibson F-5. He ordered a number of Master Models from Gibson in the 1920s, including two that have become familiar to Bluegrass Audiences: The Charles Bailey/Bobby Osborne 1926 Fern and the Marty Stuart/Wyatt Ellis March 31, 1924 Loar. Photo from The Knoxville News Sentinel, October 21, 1928.

T. A. Miles shown in an older photo with his F-4. Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, Tennessee) November 3, 1929.

A glimpse into the repertoire of the Miles Mandolin Orchestra. The Knoxville News, May 8, 1924_

In addition to mandolin and banjo orchestras, Miles cashed in on the Hawaiian craze using Gibson guitars with elevated nuts and slides. Knoxville Sentinel, 1921.

By 1924, the popular group had added ukuleles and grass skirts to their show. Gibson Catalog P. p. 16.

In Memphis, Tennessee, Robert Sharpe had a clear idea of his role as teacher, Gibson dealer and orchestra leader. He wrote “We will not perform where music will not be heard… Music is to the soul what food is to the body.” His ensembles, the Memphis Plectral Orchestra and the Allegro Mandolin Septet had already become well known to audiences in Western Tennessee when he received his F-5. He wrote to Gibson “The tone is the finest I have ever heard from a fretted instrument. The neck of the instrument is my idea of perfection for the performer. Its finish and general appearance is beyond my expectations. The color I think superior and looks to anything you have yet put out.” In addition to this acquisition, by 1926 he had managed to acquire F-5s for his orchestra members H. C. McClelland, Dr. C. E. Warde, Ames Sharp and Ernest Scoutaris.

The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee, Jul 4, 1924

Edward Cox and Cox’s Serenaders from Pocatello, Idaho. Edward Cox was a Railroad brakeman who, in February, 1923, formed a mandolin ensemble (See below identification of the personnel). They performed exclusively on Gibson instruments. Mrs. Lucy Angel, Edward Cox and Lenna Christensen hold F-5s and E. F. Logan, an H5. Also shown, Harp guitar, style O guitar, H-4 mandolas, K-4 mandocello and TB-4 and CB-4 banjos. Crescendo, March, 1924.

In “Breaking News: 1923,” we have profiled many teacher/Gibson agent/orchestra leaders who not only acquired personal F-5s but sold those models to colleagues. However, not all of the first Master Model enthusiasts were entrepreneurs. By far, most were employed in other fields and played for relaxation and enjoyment. Some were employees for the railroads, for example, Edward Cox, from Pocatello, Idaho (shown above), was a brakeman who had moonlighted with the Dewey Band before forming his own orchestra; Paul Lieber, Bloomington, Illinois, was a machinist for the Chicago and Alton line; L. E. Hammond was a railroad engineer based in San Diego, California. Earl Kooken, from Lima, Ohio (and later Huntington, W. Va.) was a glass blower. D. A. Caldwell was secretary of the Chamber of Commerce in Wausau, Wisconsin. And some like A. J. Weidt, a composer, arranger, publisher and coach of the Newark, New Jersey Mandolin Orchestra, and William Charles Dean, a music store owner in Des Moines, Iowa, worked in fields related to music. Morris Van Auken was involved in the motion picture industry in Hollywood, California. And, Harry M. Wirsing was a decorated (and wounded) World War I veteran who enjoyed his mandolin in his retirement in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. After the July 9, 1923 batch, Lloyd Loar and Gibson received many letters of accolades for their achievement. A page with a selection of excerpts from those letters was printed in The Cresecendo in October, 1923 and the same material appeared in The Cadenza in November, 1923.

Crescendo, October 1923, page 19. The dating of this magazine supports the observation that all these F5s were either from the July 9, 1923 batch or earlier.

We now conclude “Breaking News: 1923.” As the Lloyd Loar F-5s reach 100 years of age, I created these episodes to celebrate that milestone. I hope you have enjoyed reading and perhaps have new insight into the creation of the Master Model Instruments, and a better understanding of the men and women who built and/or played them.

I wish to thank my faithful readers, and I am grateful for those who have replied with encouragement and/or information, and am especially grateful to those who sent photos and/or stories about their mandolins. I want to thank and acknowledge Roger Siminoff, who has just published his landmark book, “The Life and Work of Lloyd Allarye Loar.” Mr. Siminoff has been deeply involved with this topic for over half a decade, and continues to search for clearer understanding. I wish to thank our foreign correspondent, Mr. Stephen Gilchrist of Lake Gnotuck, Australia, for his keen insight into the most important primary source of all, the instruments themselves; Jeff Foxall, former Walter Kaye Bauer student, for documents and stories about his mentor; Randy Wood, who has, on countless occasions, allowed me to watch as he performed surgery on some of these instruments; and a big thanks to Scott Tichenor for his support and for sharing my episodes with his readers on Mandolin Cafe. Finally, I wish to thank the noted author and editor, Dr. Andrea Deyrup, MD., PhD., for casting an eye on my text and offering suggestions and corrections. To be clear, any mistakes that remain are mine and mine alone. I will now say goodbye until early next year when I plan to return with “Breaking News: 1924.” —Tony Williamson, December 20, 2023.

Episode 12: Money Over Melody

October 25, 2023

Factory Order Number 11940 found under the label on F-5 75690. Photo by John Monteleone, courtesy Mike Marshall.

Did the woodworkers who stamped 11940 and 11965 on the inside of sugar maple mandolin backs in late October of 1923 feel a tingle of excitement? Was there a glimpse of the tone colors that would ripen throughout the next century? Did they dream that these mandolins would one day be some of the most listened to, most lauded group of F-5s of all? In the hands of Mike Marshall, Chris Thile, John Paul Jones, John Reischman, Gene Johnson, Andrew Marlin, and many others, the February 18, 1924, F-5s have become the icons of a generation of mandolinists. Of course, this was the signature date on Lloyd Loar’s personal F-5. The story of those mandolins began with that stamp, one hundred years ago in the autumn of 1923. But while magic was being created in the wood shop, upstairs, a dark future for the F-5 was unfolding.

Gibson F-5 #75309 signed by Lloyd Loar February 18, 1924. According to the FONs known, this batch was most likely stamped in October or November of 1923. This batch is famous for the rich, dark sound.

What actually happened? Again, we are looking “through the glass darkly,” due to the lack of accurate records extant, and the primary source materials are as obscure as they are diverse. Also, none of the distinguished modern authors on the subject agrees on how events unfolded. After exhaustive search through various city directories, articles in Music Reports, Cadenza and Crescendo Magazines and many, many newspapers articles, we offer this report.

There were many factors at play on the world stage. The nation was still reeling from the pandemic of 1917-1918; the deflationary recession of 1920-1922 contributed to record unemployment; during World War I immigrants had flooded into Ellis Island and at the end of the war soldiers returned expecting their old jobs back; united workers’ unions threatened shutdowns and even riot; Prohibition continued to have a negative financial impact on legal establishments; organized crime in the North and the Ku Klux Klan in the south nurtured fear; easy access to new types of music by radio and phonograph recordings led to changes in musical taste, especially for a younger generation; and, innovations from Vega, Paramount, Washburn (formerly Lyon and Healy) and other musical instrument manufacturers offered stiff competition. All these factors led to red ink in the ledgers at Gibson.

In the autumn of 1923, in the most dramatic shake-up since they sent Orville home in 1906, the Board of Directors under the leadership of Judge John W. Adams hired Harry L. Ferris from Waukesha, Wisconsin, as “Secretary and General Manager,” and they changed the title of the corporation to “Gibson, Inc.,” dropping the words “Mandolin and Guitar.” In what some employees may have viewed as a painful stroke, they asked for the resignation of former General Manager and founding member Lewis A. Williams. In an extremely curious redundancy, Clifford V. Buttelman, formerly the advertising manager, was also given the title “General Manager.” Coinciding with this move, Lloyd Loar’s title was increased from “Acoustical Engineer” to “Superintendent and Acoustical Engineer” and sales and advertisement responsibilities were added to his role. Also, around the same time, they hired Guy Hart as accountant (a man who would figure prominently in the post-Loar era). (All these events are documented in articles in Music Trade Review except we do not have confirmation of the exact date of Ferris’ hiring, but the 1924 Kalamazoo City Directory, compiled at the end of 1923, lists him as resident and lists both Buttelman and Ferris as “Genl Mgr”)

Harry Lewis Ferris, around the time he came to Kalamazoo.

Harry Lewis Ferris left his vice-presidency at Waukesha Manufacturing Company, where his father was president, to come to Gibson. The Ferris family was well off, as patriarch William Ferris had flourished in manufacturing food products and cookware, and had groomed his son to follow his footsteps. It is unclear why the younger Ferris left the family business in 1923, but he returned there immediately after his year at Gibson ended. He was the first General Manager at Gibson who was not a musician. At Oberlin College, where he majored in Sociology, his only musical endeavor was as a member of the choir. Some writers point out that Loar and Ferris shared the same Alma Mater, and that Loar must have suggested Ferris for Gibson. Loar matriculated into Oberlin in 1903 and left at the end of 1905 to become a full-time musician; Ferris was in school there from 1912 to 1915, and upon graduation took an executive position in his father’s business. Most certainly Loar and Ferris were not classmates, and there is no evidence showing that the two had ever met before October of 1923.

Harry Lewis Ferris, Oberlin College yearbook, 1915.

Ferris has been lauded as “the man who saved Gibson.” Of course, the evidence that Gibson was in debt at the beginning of 1923 and was turning a profit during the Ferris reign supports the idea that hiring Ferris was an economically sound move. During the recession of 1920-1922, Gibson under Lewis Williams and Lloyd Loar poured energy and money into innovation rather than struggle with a depressed market. The fruits of their labors, like the luxury-priced F-5 mandolin, left the factory in surprising numbers in 1923. But those sales were either to artists, teachers or players, most of whom took advantage of payment plans. The actual remuneration for these innovations trickled in over time, and it wasn’t until 1924 that the project began to show profit. At that point, Ferris took all the the credit for the increase in solvency.

What did Mr. Ferris actually do? He went on a cost cutting rampage, with the costliest project, the F-5, firmly in his cross-hairs. During October and November of 1923, large batches of mandolins that were signed in 1924 were being stamped. Under Ferris, discrimination toward choosing only the best materials for the F-5 seems to have been compromised. For example, in the ’24 mandolins, we occasionally find spruce tops not book-matched; mildly figured and even slab-cut backs; and orphan parts from discontinued ideas, like 3-piece necks and bodies with side-bindings. The amount paid to Geib and Schaefer for the “Faultless 440 SP” F-5 case was reduced by discontinuing the emerald green silk-plush lining (SP) and returning to the red velour of the pre-Loar era. The cost of the case to consumers remained the same. Projects that may have been on the table for development, like the A-5 mandolin and the 10-string mandolin-viola, were scrapped. Lewis Williams, whose early interest in electronics is documented in this journal, may have teamed up with Lloyd Loar to broach the idea of electric instruments, but Ferris would have none of that. The H-5 mandola and the K-5 mandocello were relegated to limited production. Fern inlays, originally earmarked for H-5s, were put into F-5s. The K-5 mandocello became a guitar. Ivoroid binding was replaced with plain white plastic. Virzi-tone producers already in stock were put into mandolins without waiting for a custom order.

Gibson F-5 from the February 18, 1924 batch with mismatched top.

Gibson F-5 from the February 18, 1924 batch with 3-piece neck and side binding, both features from previous batches. (Photo courtesy Steve Gilchrist)

What may have been seen by the craftsmen at Gibson as a crippling strategy was instead a challenge to continue the commitment to excellence. They succeeded brilliantly. A darker shade of sunburst covered any imperfections in the wood and by late March they began scraping the finish off the white binding to create an elegant contrast. Of course, they continued to tune the instruments for tone and projection, and for whatever reason, the mandolins sound darker, moodier, what some call “chocolaty.” In fact, many feel that these are some of the best sounding F-5s of the entire Loar era!

Ferris’ mandate for efficiency, to put every scrap of wood into production and re-use parts from instruments not approved, helped create the largest batches of F-5s yet. Consequently, Gibson flooded the market with F-5s in 1924. At the same time, all mention of the F-5 or the Master Models was removed from Gibson advertising in the Crescendo and Cadenza, and no ads at all were placed in Music Reports or other magazines. Not surprisingly, many of these F-5s did not find buyers until 1926. Could it be that Ferris was not the man who saved Gibson, but the man who scuttled the Master Model Project? In short, he was the man who chose immediate profit over a legacy of excellence, and curtailed the possibilities for the long-term future of consistency, elegance and mastery that the team under Loar may have created.

Gibson F-5 75696, signed February 18, 1924, considered to be one of the best sounding F-5 mandolins, can be heard on selected recordings by Tony Williamson and is currently on tour with Andrew Marlin of “Mighty Poplar.”

During his year at Gibson, Ferris made an effort to discontinue, or at least greatly restrict, the artist/teacher program that had been the sales model since the days of Orville Gibson. In its place, he facilitated accounts with larger music stores and chains. Of course, under Buttelman and Williams, Gibson already had a relationship with such stores as the Grinnell Brothers in Detroit, Lyon and Healy in St. Louis and Jenkins Music in Kansas, City. These were indeed large operations with satellite stores, but also ones where the Gibsonians and Gibson Melody Maids were welcome to give concerts and demonstrations which drew musicians and teachers from the mandolin clubs and schools in the area. Ferris expanded to large stores that had previously focused on piano, band or orchestra instruments. However, none of these stores was particularly interested in mandolins, so Gibson began putting banjos on display.

Conn of Chicago announces acquisition of the Gibson line of instruments in the Music Trade Review, July 5, 1924.

In late 1924, Ferris began streamlining the employee roster. In doing so, he dismissed or gave notice to many workers who we think may have played key roles in building the F-5s, including woodcarvers John Patterson and John Voisine; woodworker Adrian Glerum (who was rehired to head the violin department in the 1930s); and draftsmen Henry T. Reeves and Francis Havens. Ferris realized the time and cost-saving advantages of using the new nitrocellulose lacquer finish which had been invented by DuPont employee Edmund Flaherty in 1921. In 1923, by using this new finish, General Motors had increased production and cut costs to create a more affordable automobile. Ferris took note. Nitrocellulose lacquer was inexpensive, could be sprayed on and would dry quickly. The “Two Gentlemen of Cremona,” Fred Miller and Cornelius Kievit, who created the “Gibson Cremona Brown” which employed a unique synthetic varnish finish, were dismissed. By 1925, Gibson would never again apply that finish, which was crucial for the look and sound of the Lloyd Loar F-5. And of course, most disastrous of all, Ferris’ insistence on high production and low cost instead of experimentation and innovation eventually made work at Gibson virtually unbearable for Lloyd Loar himself.

Lewis Williams had been an active player in the development of the Master Model project, and a staunch supporter of Loar’s work there. One cannot help but imagine his disappointment in his sudden departure from Gibson. Williams explained his departure in a letter published in both the Cadenza, (November 1923) and the Crescendo (December, 1923). We cannot help but sense the emotional component for Williams and his friends and supporters.

Williams had already established “Specialize Radio” at 718 West Kalamazoo Avenue, and had addressed a meeting at the Guild Convention advocating radio as a “furtherance for fretted instruments.” Spending nights in his shop creating custom amplifiers for radio, he must have considered applying this technology to fretted instruments. After leaving Gibson, he threw himself full-time in this work, and in 1933, attracted Lloyd Loar into a partnership to design, build and market electric instruments under the brand “Vivi-Tone.”

Buttelman remained at Gibson sharing the General Manager title with Ferris until at least January of 1924. His lasting legacy is evident when we open the pages of Gibson’s catalog “N.” (a copy was provided to Walter Jacobs in time for the January 1, 1924 issue of the Cadenza). Along with production manager D. C. Mafit and Lloyd Loar, the three men created a 60-page masterpiece showcasing the full line of instruments. Most famously, an artist’s rendering of the Master Model F-5 appears—in full color— for the first time in a Gibson catalog.

The first appearance of the Master Model F-5 in a Gibson catalog created in 1923, in circulation by January 1, 1924.

The original cover of Catalog N, created by C.V. Buttelman, D. C. Mafit and Lloyd Loar in 1923.

The second run of Catalog N was reduced to 30 pages, printed in black and white on less expensive paper and with fewer photos and illustrations: more of Ferris’ cost cutting.

Before coming to Gibson in 1917, Buttleman had been advertising manager for publisher Walter Jacobs in Boston, working via mail and telephone while maintaining residence in Jackson, Michigan, and managing the Jackson School of Music. Based on articles in both Cadenza and Music Trades, he still held a title at Gibson on January 25, 1924, and he first appears on the masthead of the Cadenza in February of 1924. The city directory of Kalamazoo shows he continued to have a residence there in 1924 with his wife Eulalia, who was a music teacher and a member of the Mendellsson Trio. It wasn’t until late summer of 1924 that he and Eulalia acquired residence in West Newton, Massachusetts.

Both Loar and Buttleman had their exit strategy from Gibson focused on Walter Jacobs Publications in Boston. Loar had submitted a number of articles to those magazines during his tenure at Gibson, many of which we have documented in this journal. Those articles were written in Kalamazoo and submitted through the mail. On the masthead of the January, 1925, issue of Jacobs’ Melody magazine Lloyd Loar appears for the first time as editor, along with manager C.V. Buttleman. The previous editor, Myron Freeze, was still at this post for the December 1924 issue.

Lloyd Loar’s first appearance on the masthead of a Jacobs publication, January, 1925.

Of special interest to our readers, especially those who own F-5s with a December, 1924, signature date: Exactly when did Lloyd Loar leave Gibson? Esteemed Lloyd Loar biographer Roger Siminoff, in his landmark book, “The Life and Work of Lloyd Allare Loar,” has published an agreement between Guy Hart and Lloyd Loar dated October 17, 1924. This documents the “final payment on patent contracts and royalties.” Some scholars take this as proof of Loar’s “last day at Gibson,” but nowhere in this document have we seen any text that specifically confirms a termination of employment (This document does explain why Lloyd Loar’s name does not appear on any patents for the design innovations created during his time at Gibson). Most likely it was indeed the beginning of the end of Loar’s time at Gibson, but was that actually the day he was out the door? We interviewed several business experts and have been told that when a key executive leaves a company, unless that executive is being removed for misconduct, a notice period of 14-90 days after termination is customary. And what about the December 1924 signature date? Of course, for the signatures on the April 25, 1923 labels, we have shown that Loar was in Washington, D.C. So there is precedence that his presence in teh factory at Kalamazoo was not always required for a signature on a given date.

The city directory in Kalamazoo lists Loar’s residence in the boarding house on 216 S Park Street from 1920 to 1923. We suspect he moved out of the boarding house in late 1923, as there is no mention of him anywhere in the 1924 directory. (He did not move into the house at 315 Woodward Ave until 1933). He does not show up in the Boston directory until 1925. So where was Loar in ‘24? We promise to continue our research for primary source documents and would love to shine more light on this mystery if possible. In October 2024, we will share our findings in “Breaking News: 1924.” In later years, Buttelman, Williams and Loar all lived in Evanston, Illinois. We like to imagine them gathering to share cigars...

During the shake-up upstairs and the departure of Williams in October of 1923, Loar remained focused on his work; one of his most gratifying duties must have been welcoming musicians who came to try out the new mandolins. The following letter from William Place, Jr. describes just such a meeting; Place returns home with F-5 73676 and by the end of August places an order for an additional two F-5s, probably for his orchestra members in Providence, Rhode Island.

Letter to Lloyd Loar from William Plaxce, Jr., published in Cadenza, October, 1923.

Articles in the music magazines confirm that Loar continued to teach music in Kalamazoo through 1924.

In addition to his focus on Gibson mandolins and mentoring gifted students, Loar continued writing articles on his exploration of the acoustical possibilities of musical instruments. In the October 1923 issue of the Crescendo, a lengthy article entitled “Overtones” describes his findings in some detail. In it, he ascribes the tonal character of a particular instrument to the quality and quantity of the partials, or overtones. A very much condensed version of this description of acoustical properties of the instruments, especially the F-5, appears in “A Talk About Tone” included in the fold-out entitled “Master Model.”

In the article “Overtones,” Loar invites the reader to perform a simple experiment to help the musician understand how the quality and quantity of overtones, or partials, contribute to the tone of the instrument. This experiment also demonstrates how, on an instrument of sufficient quality, up to 60 partials can be heard with the human ear. For our readers, we have included a short video replicating Lloyd Loar’s experiment on overtones:

Episode 11: The Griffith School of Music

September 20, 2023

Who were these Griffiths? To understand, we go back in time to the founder of the musical dynasty, Mary Burke Butt Griffith.

http://www.gilchristmandolins.com/loar-72615

Rick: Mike, when you came here to take lessons, you said maybe early 30s, it was in the house out back?

Rick: Did you come once a week?

Owner: Is there any truth to the rumor that they only accepted cash?

Mike: That was the only way I ever paid.

Owner: Did you pay them every time?

Mike. Every time. Yes.

Owner: I have heard stories that every evening they would go to the room upstairs and have tea and split the take.

Mike: Yes, split the take! (laughter). Could well have been. But I know that was a lot of money. And that mandolin he played was $250 bucks!

Rick: Is that what you paid for yours?

(laughter)

Tony: Did Mrs. Griffith have a special mandolin that was built like an F-5 with f-holes but didn’t have the scroll and points? Did you ever see that mandolin?

Mike: I don’t remember ever seeing that. I would have remembered a special mandolin. Something like that would have stood out in my mind.

Rick; I think Mr. Griffith was one of the leading Gibson dealers.

Mike: Mr. Griffith had a beautiful F-5 mandolin himself. Such tone. It had a wonderful tone.

We walk into the parlor.

Rick: This wood work in here is so beautiful. Oh look, here in the parlor. There’s a sign that says “Griffith School”

Mike: We did recitals here in the house. This is where the performers would perform, in this room. The musicians would set up in here in front of the fireplace and mantle.

Rick: You played in one of his groups?

Mike: Oh yeah. We played in one of his groups, used to play in here, and we had a radio program. At one of the radio stations. We had a theme song… [Hums a tune]

Tony: When you played in here, how many instruments…musicians were playing?

Mike: Oh you know, solos, duets, quartets, sometimes even more would play. As many as fifteen or twenty. As many as we could squeeze in. This was not the stage for the full orchestra, of course.

Tony: Do you remember where that would have been?

Mike: No. I have no idea.

Owner: I think there was also a school downtown.

Mike: There may have been a location on Peach Street, but this is the only location I was familiar with.

Owner: I found this photo and some music.

Mike: (points to the photo): That’s me.

Owner: That’s you?

Mike. Yes, I had hair then. I’m taking chemotherapy and lost my hair…I used to have hair… (pause)

Mike: …and there’s “My Old Kentucky Home.” We used to play that.

The group walks upstairs.

Mike: I only came up here rarely, but I know this is where Mrs. Dobbs taught. And this next room, Mr. Bedard taught mandocello and his wife L’Ella was over here. She could play everything.

Owner: Look how thick these walls are. And every room has a magnificent fireplace.

Mike: This was a fine old home in its day.

We walk over to the window and see the cottage out back.

Owner: I had been told that the Doctor that built this house lived there while the house was being built.

Mike: I always thought that those might have been the servants’ quarters in the old days.

Owner: Evidently not. That’s one part of the history I am vague on.

Rick: Mike, were you a teenager when you took from Mr. Griffith?

Mike. Yes, I was 16 or 17.

Owner: There is a pull down ladder to the attic and there is some sort of container in there. Something was up there for a long time. Yeah, we can go up there.

Mike: I don’t think I can go up there.

We go back downstairs and then to the outside. We are joined by another mandolin playing friend, Hal Jeanes.

Owner: There was a deck here. It’s pretty much gone now, we would like to rebuild it.

Mike: Do you have a key to Mr. Griffith’s studio? I’d like to take one look in there, to remember how it looked. I spent a lot more time in there than I did the house.

Rick: She found the key, she’s got it open!

We go inside.

Mike: This is where we sat for our lessons. There was another door over here.

Tony: Mr. Griffith’s studio. Amazing feeling here. Was there a room here where he kept his music, photos … Look, here’s some trunks.

(The trunks were empty)

Rick: No Loars in there. (laughter)

Tony: When Mr. Griffith gave you your lessons, did he use his F-5?

Mike: Oh yeah. We’d play, he’d play with me, show me. I saw it every week.

Tony: Did that make you want to have an F-5?

Mike: You bet! and I finally got one. And we would play them together.

Owner: If we were real quiet, I wonder if we could still hear it reverberating.

Mike: You’d have to be awful quiet. Awful quiet. I don’t think we can get that quiet.

Episode 10: Class of '23

September 06, 2023

An attic in Illinois. A rectangular black case, closed since 1962. The case opened. The “Holy Grail!” A 1923 Gibson F-5! A familiar aroma lit up my senses: The unmistakeable sniff of Loar varnish, but it was clouded by countless nights of music, smoke, beer and laughter. I thought, this man, like Lloyd Loar himself, must have enjoyed a good cigar! Rolled up music crowded around the mandolin, titles like “Golden Slippers,” “Bully Of The Town,” “The Bells of Saint Mary.” Photos and notes, a set-list. These were the clues that allowed us to trace the story of this incredible mandolin that had been delivered, in 1923, to the man who played it for 40 years. He will be one of three musicians profiled in this episode, the “Class of ‘23.”

We know of 139 Master Model instruments that were produced and signed by Lloyd Loar by September 1 of 1923. Based on our examination of photographs, letters, documents and publications, we have identified 57 musicians who acquired those instruments new. Some were well-known professionals, like Dave Apollon, C. C. Rowden, Clyde Doerr and Loretta Tabaka; many were artist/teacher/agents like William Griffith, Marguerite Lavery and T. A. Miles, who not only received their personal F5s, but populated their area with countless Gibson instruments. Some were entrepreneurs, like Dennis E. Hartnett of New York City, who promoted “all things Loar” through his chain of stores, the “National Music Studios.” Some, like immigrant Loreto Chichiarelli, simply wanted the greatest happiness possible during a difficult time of life. By far, most were like Clarence Bass of Peoria, who did not play outside his home town. In fact, we only know his story from the memorabilia left in his instrument case. Considering that these local players are very difficult to trace, we think we have identified only a portion of those who acquired these mandolins in 1923 “with the smell of new varnish.” We find it reasonable to conclude that the Master Model was very well received, and, at least in the first year of production, remarkably successful. It is likely that many were sold by Gibson at wholesale prices to or through artist/teacher/agents, and it is possible that others were delivered with extended payment terms. We cannot speak to the financial welfare of the Gibson company as a result of this venture, as we have not found adequate costs/sales records, but we can conclude that any failure on the part of Gibson to be commercially successful during this time was not because the mandolin-playing public rejected the F-5. Quite the contrary, it appears that a significant number of the leaders of the mandolin community embraced the Master Models wholeheartedly and even more amateurs stepped up to make that purchase. In future installments, we hope to tell the stories of many of these musicians. In this episode, we profile Dennis Hartnett, Loreto Chichiarelli and Clarence Bass, three of the first generation of Loar owners.

During the Guild Convention in New York City in April of 1922, while Sam Siegal and Walter Kaye Bauer ducked out to a Coney Island shooting gallery to match rifle skills with Annie Oakley, Lloyd Loar and Lewis Williams paid a visit to the Masonic Hall on 71 W 23rd St where Dennis E. Hartnett had established the headquarters of the National Music Studios. Hartnett became one of the first to embrace the F5 and offer the Master Model instruments for sale in his multitude of music academies. Many of the Loar-signed instruments that surfaced in New York over the years originally came through Hartnett. In a letter to Gibson in 1923, he gushed:

This letter from Dennis Hartnett was printed in the Crescendo XVI, October, 1923 and again in the Cadenza in November.

Lloyd Loar (standing on right) and Dennis Hartnett (white hair, second from left), in NYC, April, 1922.

Dennis E. Hartnett was quite a character. Born in Catskill, New York in 1872, he, his sister Lizzie and brother Timothy were all spinners in the Greene County Textile Mill by the time they were teenagers. Not cut out for mill-work, he was often absent as he perfected his skill on a variety of musical instruments. In 1898, Hartnett moved to New York City and began teaching music in an apartment on 23rd street under the prestigious title National Music Studios. At the outbreak of the Spanish American War, he enlisted in the National Guard in Syracuse, New York on July 20, 1898. His service record began at Camp Black in Long Island, where he had multiple episodes of sick leave, noted in military records as “Absent With Leave, claimed by him and certified by physician.” Finally, he found his niche with “Special duty with band” from November 23 to January 1. Private Hartnett was assigned to Company K, 203 Infantry, and sent to Camp Wetherill in Greenville, South Carolina, where he spent the remainder of the war with “usual military duties until he was mustered out on March 25, 1890.” Unlike many other National Guard Units, he was never sent to Cuba. (He did make it to Cuba in 1915, but not to charge up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt. It is unclear whether that was a honeymoon—he had married a 44-year-old widow, Nellie Dickinson McClellan in Springfield, Massachusetts, on October 24— or an attempt to establish a National Music Studio in Havana).

After his service was over, he returned to teaching and performing in New York City. The City Directory of 1903 lists him at 120 E 23rd Street under “banjo teachers;” in 1910, “musician” (same address); 1913 “music teacher” at 46 W 24th R1521.” Hartnett, “a tireless talker,” quickly ascended into the mandolin, banjo and guitar elite of the Northeast. In 1912, he was elected president of the American Guild and, as the story goes, on the train ride to Chicago for the 1912 Convention, shared a sleeper car with Bostonians Walter Jacobs (music publisher and editor of the Cadenza) and George Lansing (veteran banjoist and author of popular banjo method books). A tongue-in-cheek article in the Cadenza described the antics of the merry travelers, which somehow resulted in a flask of so-called “Florida Water” being spilled in Hartnett’s suitcase. Hartnett blamed his sister Lizzie, whom he claimed had packed his suitcase, but “It was noticeable thereafter that, whenever promenading the car aisle after changing his socks, this ‘Old Crow’, instead of leaving behind him an aroma of the Everglades of Florida, trailed after himself a decidedly pronounced and beautiful bouquet of ‘Old Kentucky Green River’ from the ‘County of Bourbon’.” (Cadenza, June 1912).

Dennis Hartnett, stepping off the train in Chicago to attend the Guild Convention of 1912.

Upon arriving in Chicago, Hartnett’s first stop was the to instrument exhibit where he met Lewis Williams and became enthused with Gibson instruments. By 1917, he was “Manager, Gibson Mandolin and Guitar Company” in New York, with a home address of 335 E 31st St. He expanded his National Music Studios to satellite studios throughout the metropolitan area and beyond. Promoting the “Hartnett System” of music teaching, he printed slogans like “Play, Or Don’t Pay;” or “Gibson Instruments Loaned Free!” and the endearing “Play, Drive Dull Cares Away.” In 1921, Lloyd Loar was included as a master of the Hartnett System in the National Music Studios of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Like Loar, Hartnett also patented musical inventions, most famously his “Developer,” a mute system that allowed a musician to practice without disturbing family or neighbors.

Lloyd Loar and William Griffith listed in the “Hartnett System.” Daily News, New York, New York, October 20, 1921.

Advertisement in The Daily News, November 2, 1921.

The Daily News, New York, New York, October 20, 1921.

Dennis Hartnett continued a lifelong friendship with Lewis Williams and Lloyd Loar, from his advocacy of Master Model Instruments to offering Loar’s music folios to students. By 1935, National Music Studios was the New York distributor for Williams’ and Loar’s Vivi-Tone instruments. Hartnett’s Vivi-Tone mando-cello, one of the most perfectly preserved and beautiful instruments produced by that company, can be seen today at the National Music Museum at the University of South Dakota, complete with electronics and speaker.

The Daily News, New York, New York, Mar 5, 1935

Hartnett continued to manage his chain of studios well into his seventies, although, by 1940, he embraced the “Shillinger System,” a teaching method developed by Joseph Shillinger, a professor at the New School in NYC who was influential on Benny Goodman, George Gershwin and Glenn Miller. After his death in 1947, Dennis Hartnett’s 148-acre estate in Southampton, Massachusetts, was bequeathed to the New England Forestry Association, where it remains an historical and natural preserve for public enjoyment and education.

Hartnett loved to use celebrities in his advertisement; silent film star Priscilla Dean was the archetypal Gibson Girl!

Charles Peterson (with Gibson banjo) and matinée idol, Rudy Vallée pose for a National Music Studios advertisement.

Loreto Chichiarelli, immigration document dated March 14, 1914.

Seventeen-year-old Loreto Chichiarelli packed his mandolin and sailed to New York City just ahead of the horrific war that engulfed Europe. Born on December 13, 1897, in the hills overlooking the sea near Rosciolo, Italy, he grew up half way between Rome and Naples, two cities synonymous with the mandolin. Arriving in New York City on March of 1914, all his US documents list his occupation as “musician.” He was welcomed into his uncle’s family home at 216 Lookout Avenue in Butler, Pennsylvania. Thanks to Percy Lichtenfels and Russell Truit, that area was a hotbed of Gibson enthusiasts, and we suspect Chichiarelli had his first taste of the American mandolin there. Wandering minstrel that he was, he made his way to Little Italy in Chicago, after which he discovered the little town of Meredosia, Illinois, with its mussel beds and buttons factories. Continuing west, he landed a position teaching music at the Sacred Heart College in Denver, Colorado in 1917. Unfortunately, politics caught up with him even there, and he was drafted into the US army. He was mustered in at Camp Lewis in Tacoma, Washington, in 1918 and assigned to the 75th Infantry. During his time there he contracted tuberculosis. He was discharged from the US Army on January 13, 1920, 100% disabled, and was sent to the Phoenix Sanitarium in Maricopa, Arizona, where he registered (as a Democrat) to vote on June 2, 1920, before moving to a sanitarium in Fitzsimmons, Colorado. On June 30, 1920, he married his nurse, Anna Daniels, in Denver. We like to think that with Anna, he had found a modicum of happiness, which was indeed complete in the summer of 1923, when a mandolin arrived from Kalamazoo. He wrote to Gibson, “I have received my Gibson Master Model Mandolin, style F-5, and I am certainly proud to own such an instrument. It is a wonder.” Based on the timing of his letter, he would most likely have gotten a mandolin from the July 9, 1923 batch. In 1924, he and Anna moved to Tucson, and in March, he was finally granted naturalization as a US citizen. On May 18, 1925, with Anna and his mandolin by his side, he succumbed to a pulmonary hemorrhage brought on by his tuberculosis. Funeral services were held at the All Saints Church in Tuscon, and Anna accompanied his body back to Meredosia where he was laid to rest. He was only 27.

Clarence Bass, 1960, with his 1923 Gibson F-5, sharing music with a relative.

The mandolin profiled at the beginning of this episode belonged to Clarence Clifford Bass of Peoria. He was born on February 4, 1883, in Kinmundy, Illinois, just east of St. Louis, to Jasper and Adeline Crain Bass. In 1899, the Bass family moved to Lewiston, Illinois, where Clarence, at the age of sixteen, was enrolled in Lewiston High School. He entered that school at the same time as the very bright thirteen-year-old, Lloyd Loar, whose family had just moved there from Cropsey, Illinois. Loar and Bass both graduated in 1903, part of a class that totaled 19 students. Sadly, his father, Jasper Bass, was killed in an accident in 1905, and Addie Bass moved back to Kinmundy to work as a servant for another widow, Thea Charlton. Clarence, on his own, found work as a machinist for Leader Iron Works in Macon, Illinois. By 1920, his relative Cresswell V. Groat, a banker in Peoria, encouraged Bass and his wife Bessie to move to that town. There, Bass found employment as a machinist, first in tractor manufacturing and later as a “screw machine operator.” Bass spent all his free time playing mandolin, and in 1923 became the very proud owner of an F-5 signed by his Lewiston High School classmate, Lloyd Loar. According to family members, the two classmates stayed in touch, and, in 1931, Bass and Loar (who had just moved back home from Boston) were in attendance in Peoria when Loar’s younger sister, Madelon, married Cress Groat on September 12.

When we discovered this mandolin in 2012, we took it to the internationally acclaimed luthier Lynn Dudenbostel. During the next few months, with techniques used by fine art experts, Dudenbostel removed ninety years of smoke, beer and dust that had encrusted the mandolin. When finished, he had uncovered 100% of the original varnish and shellac. No overspray or coating of any kind was needed.

Lynn Dudenbostel at his bench carefully removing grime and smoke build-up, leaving all the original finish intact.

Happy Day! The result? A beautiful, incredible sounding 1923 Gibson F-5, ready for another 100 years of great sounds!

When Lynn Dudenbostel had completed his amazing restoration, I went straight to the “Rubber Room Recording Studios” in Chapel Hill, NC, where engineer Jerry Brown recorded the following video of an arrangement I based on Clarence Bass’ music. We hope you enjoy!

Note: in writing these stories of the first generation of Loar owners, I have perused (and made copies of) thousands of primary source documents: birth, marriage and death certificates; US Census; city directories; military documents including draft cards, mustering and deployment records; immigration, arrival and departure logs; school records; University and Public Library documents; newspapers, journals, catalogs and magazines from the period; and my own library of fifty years of interviews with musicians, family and friends of that first generation. I am indebted to all those keepers of records and hope you enjoy my findings.

Next Episode, scheduled for September 20: “The Griffith School of Music”

Episode 9: Leave Early and Walk

August 07, 2023

L to R: Ethyle Hindbaugh Johnstone; Charles A. Templeman; James Hart Johnstone; Lloyd Loar; Marguerite Lichti. The Gibsonians, as advertised in the August, 1923, Crescendo. Of this group, only Loar performed performed that summer. Fisher Shipp, who was on all the 1923 concerts, was not included in any of the Gibson promotional photos.

Very early on August 6, 1923, Lloyd Loar, Fisher Shipp, and four young musicians left Carlisle, Ohio, on the Springfield Branch of the “Big Four” railroad, en route to Newcastle, Indiana. They had arranged for a driver to meet them at the station and take them south to the Rush County Chautauqua. There was no car awaiting them and none to be hired. The musicians walked, carrying their instruments twenty miles from Newcastle to Rushville, Indiana. They arrived just in time for the 2:15 show. They performed in dusty clothes, hot, tired and hungry. By the 8:30 show they had recovered somewhat, and there was some comfort in knowing that on the next day, August 7th, they would be in Shelbyville, Illinois. The Shelbyville Chautauqua auditorium, which seated 4000, had always been a highlight for Shipp and Loar. They arrived in a heavy rain, stunned by what they saw: a throng of over 10,000 people crowded Forest Park. Many were dressed in hoods and robes. The Ku Klux Klan had overtaken the Shelbyville Chautauqua.

The Decatur Herald, Decatur, Illinois, August 5, 1923.

The Picturesque Chautauqua Auditorium in Forest Park, Shelbyville, Illinois. In this grand auditorium, built in 1903, Fisher Shipp and Lloyd Loar had delighted audiences each summer for nearly 20 years. In 1923, a very different experience awaited them.

What has happened to the Gibsonians? To understand fully, we must take a look back on the events in the months prior to August, 1923.

During June, Lloyd Loar had focused on his work at Gibson, engineering the largest batch of style F-5 Master Mandolins to date. In 1922, as the leader of the Gibsonians, he began taking those instruments on the road, testing them in action and demonstrating their commanding sound. To book many of the performances, he capitalized on the popularity of his wife, Fisher Shipp. Since 1906, Shipp had been under contract with The Lyceum Bureau, which promoted the widespread and highly popular adult education events called the Chautauqua. With the Gibsonian name, they were also able to bring their show to mandolin, banjo and guitar enthusiasts across the country. In April of 1923, Loar’s 10-string mandola solos dazzled audiences; James H. “Jazz” Johnstone, founding member of the Gibsonians, handled the mandobass with as much ease as his tenor banjo; his wife, Ethyle Hindbaugh Johnstone, an accomplished musician in her own right, played a new F5 mandolin; the brilliant young Marguerite Lichti impressed everyone with her solos on the newly introduced L5 guitar, and doubled on H5 mandola; and her mentor and teacher, Charles A. Templeman demonstrated the K-5 mandocello to great advantage in the ensemble. Both the Cadenza and Crescendo magazines advertised that this group would perform that summer, following in the footsteps of the previous year’s edition of the Gibsonians who had entertained “…over 20,000 people (in) 105 performances” from June 20th to September 1st. (Music Trades Review, October, 1922).

The Crescendo, August, 1923. Fisher Shipp, the headliner of the summer program, is not mentioned or photographed in any of the Gibson related print media in 1923.

The summer tour of 1923 was anything but a repeat of the great success of 1922. There was an angry cloud looming in America that threatened the very spirit of education, philosophy, science and inquiry that the Chautauqua represented. Even before the Great Depression dealt the final blow to the summer series, the gatherings were very much in trouble. The Colorado Chautauqua Association pointed out that “in this era of gangsters and rum-runners, many middle Americans have demanded a return to fundamentalist (values);…the non-denominationalism exhibited at most Chautauqua programs cannot accommodate these impulses.” Many former Chautauqua venues were already being converted to camp meetings.

Despite the mistake on his name, this is Lloyd Loar residence while working at Gibson in 1922 & 1923.

Since 1920 when he moved to Kalamazoo, Lloyd Loar had lived in a boarding house at 216 South Park Street and spent his days at the Gibson factory on 225 Parsons St. Fisher Shipp lived with her mother at their home in Brookfield, Missouri. Thanks to the society page of the “The Daily Argus” of Brookfield, Missouri, we have a good record of the couple’s activities. For example, on November 6, 1922, “Fisher Shipp Loar left last night for Kalamazoo to visit Mr. Loar.” In late December, Loar traveled to visit her in Missouri, “returning to Kalamazoo on January 2.” On January 5, “Mrs Fisher Shipp Loar is in Linneus (Missouri) today on business of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau.” After the meeting, she signed a contract with Enos G. Stambach, a 21-year-old pianist who had just graduated Wesleyan College in Cameron Illinois. (Stambach was the son of 63-year-old Enos E. Stambaugh [or Stambach], a farmer living in nearby Meadville). On January 19, this notice appeared in the Daily Argus:

The Daily Argus, January 19, 1923. The first step in a departure from the Gibson Mandolin Orchestra accompaniment of 1922.

In the past, the Lyceum booked the Fisher Shipp Company one hundred or more engagements each year, from Ohio to Saskatchewan. For 1923, there were only sixteen dates available to her, one in Illinois and the rest in Ohio and Indiana. Did the board members of the Lyceum recommend a change in her program, were they in a position to dictate instrumentation? Was there pressure to move away from Loar’s focus on acoustic innovation and the international, multi-cultural repertoire? Did they insist on a return to more “legitimate” instruments like piano and violin? Or was it Shipp that steered the ensemble toward her sound of early 1900s? In 1923, advertisements placed by the Lyceum did not include Lloyd Loar’s name and advertisements generated by Gibson did not include Shipp.

Despite the fact that the music magazines like the Crescendo and Cadenza continued to advertise the Johnstones, Templeman and Lichti for the summer tour, they did not perform again as Gibsonians.

After having been elected to the Board of Directors of the American Guild of Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar at the convention in Washington, DC, Templeman announced that he was now the representative for Dayton mandolins, the eccentric designs of Charles B. Rauch of Dayton, Ohio. It was a stunning revelation, as Templeman had been a prolific proponent of everything Gibson in Sioux City, Iowa, since the mid-teens, and had sold countless Gibson instruments to his students and orchestra. By 1924, Templeman was promoting his own line of mandolins, “The Coulter,” which turned out to be very short lived.

top: Music Trades, November 1924; We have never seen a Coulter instrument. Bottom: Cadenza, April, 1923.

Templeman’s student, Marguerite Lichti, the bright young star who had first introduced the Gibson L-5 guitar to the world in Washington, DC, would not be joining the summer tour either. All accounts indicated that Lichti had all the makings of a world class performer. It is unclear whether she declined the summer tour out of devotion to Templeman, or if they were both phased out by the Lyceum Bureau. In any case, for her, the promise of a national career gave way to the quiet life of a Sioux City teacher.

Marguerite Lichti, the brilliant guitarist that introduced the Gibson L-5 guitar for the first time in Washington, DC in April, 1923. The Crescendo, August, 1923.

Ethyle Johnstone who played first mandolin in April, was already three months pregnant in this photo taken in front of the White House, and was not able to go on the summer tour. Husband James Johnstone elected to stay in Kalamazoo to be with his wife during the last month of her pregnancy.

The Gibsonians at the White House in April of 1923. Lichti, Mrs. and Mr. Johnstone, Templeman and Lloyd Loar. The very promising chemistry of this group was short-lived. Only Loar was left by summer.

In June, Fisher Shipp began rehearsing material with the young pianist in her home in Brookfield.

The Brookfield Argus, Brookfield, Missouri, June 28, 1923.

The Meadville Journal, Meadville, Missouri, July 5, 1923.

On Monday, July 2, Shipp and Stambach were in Kalamazoo to rehearse with Loar and the other musicians. It is unclear whether it was Shipp or Loar that recruited attractive twenty-one year old Marguerite Wood, from Clinton, Illinois, for the group. Just out of high school, she was known for her lovely contralto voice; she also played piano and had acting experience in local productions and school plays. She would join Shipp and Stambach in vocal trios and take roles in staged routines and comedy skits. All that was needed to recreate the sound of Fisher Shipp’s 1910 Concert Company was a violinist. It was most likely Loar that contacted Jacques Gordon, the highly regarded violinist and concertmaster with the Chicago Symphony, but Gordon declined, citing other commitments. Instead, he sent his star pupil, fifteen-year-old violin prodigy John de Voogdt.

Who, then, other than Loar himself, would be playing Gibson instruments in the Gibsonians? Concert reviews consistently referred to the ensemble as a sextet, and it was observed that three of them were men. Perhaps Loar invited one of the Gibson Melody Maids to join the group, as he did the next year? At this point the sixth person remains a mystery.

Marguerite Wood from Clinton, Illinois, and Enos Stambach from Meadville, Missouri, circa 1923.

Left: The summer itinerary; Right, a typical notice, this one from the The Richmond Item, Richmond Indiana, July 5, 1923.

The first show was in Cambridge City, Indiana, and for two months, “Fisher Shipp and the Gibsonians,” shuttled back and forth between Ohio and Indiana. On most venues, they performed an afternoon set of vocals and instrumentals, and a longer evening set that included readings, skits and comedy along with the songs. Thanks to the July 18, 1923, edition of the News Messenger of Fremont, Ohio, we have the program from both shows at the July 17 Fremont Chautauqua and a review of the performance.

The afternoon program of the concert on July 17. The News Messenger, Fremont, Ohio, July 18, 1923.

The evening program of the concert on July 17. The News Messenger, Fremont, Ohio, July 18, 1923.

Review of the concert at the Fremont, Ohio, Chautauqua on July 17. The News Messenger, Fremont, Ohio, July 18, 1923.

In the very early morning of August 6 they arrived in Newcastle, Indiana, expecting transportation. None was available. With determination, they walked to Rushville, carrying instruments and suitcases and arrived just in time for the afternoon performance.

The Daily Republican, Rushville, Indiana, August 7, 1923. Why such a flippant account of their plight?

When they ended the evening show around 10 pm, they were once again stranded. The entire town had been thrown into a frenzy. According to the August 7 edition of the “Daily Republican” of Rushville, “Excitement ran high as a crowd of 500 men armed with revolvers and guns kept watch all night for two suspects” accused of assaulting a young woman. Miss Zella Aldridge, 21, of Rushville, alleged that two African American boys “attacked her and detained her” for over an hour in a field just to the west edge of Sexton. Bloodhounds were brought in from Bedford and the hunt went on all night. On the afternoon of August 7, officers in Shelbyville, Illinois, over two hundred miles away, reported to Sheriff Hunt of Rushville that they had arrested two young African American farmhands. “The Daily Republican” of Rushville (August 7, 1923) printed a detailed account of Miss Aldridge’s lurid story. None of this proved true. There was no evidence at the scene or in the doctors’s examination to support any of her allegations. Finally, by the evening of August 7, Sheriff Hunt dismissed the episode as a “young lady with an overwrought imagination” and declared the entire fiasco a “hoax.” He telephoned the Sheriff of Shelbyville and asked that he release the two men they were holding. The timing of their incarceration could not have been worse, considering what was already happening in Shelbyville that day.

The Daily Republican, August 7, 1923. The fate of the two young African American farmhands arrested in Shelbyville remains unknown.

To understand what awaited the Gibsonians in Shelbyville, we have examined the national sensation, the “Mer Rouge Murders.” On August 24, 1922, in Bastrop, Louisiana, Samuel F. Richards and Filmore Watt Daniels were kidnapped by members of the Mer Rouge Ku Klux Klan and were never seen again. Almost a month later, two bodies were discovered in nearby Lake LaFourche. Since all the local authorities were members of the Klan, the United States Attorney in Louisiana sent A. E. Farland of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, to conduct an investigation. Agent Farland became convinced that the bodies were Richards and Daniels, and, in a detailed report, observed that the men had been “horribly tortured and then lynched.” Farland also uncovered evidence of numerous other crimes perpetrated by the KKK in that area, ranging from election fraud and assault to murder. The U.S. Attorney turned the case over to the Louisiana Attorney General who filed over 250 indictments under Section 241 of the Enforcement Act of 1870, in addition to murder charges for five of the Klansmen and a “Conspiracy to Commit Murder” charge for the man who allegedly ordered the murders, Captain J. K. Skipwell, leader of the Mer Rouge KKK. Over the next year, litigation dragged on. The New York Times published over 100 articles calling for justice. According to Times, Richards and Daniels, who were white, were targeted by the Klan because Daniels had a common law wife who was African American and that they were vocal opponents of the activities, authority and power of the Klan in that county. In their defense, the Klan sent speakers on public relations tours across the country. (“Murder At Mer Rouge” by Hannah Bethann Peterson, Honors Programs, Texas A & M University, April, 2004; “Mer Rouge Terror,” New York Times, November 27, 1922; and “Louisiana Klan Goes On Trial Today”, January 6, 1923).

When the Gibsonians finally arrived at the Shelbyville Chautauqua Auditorium, they found Forest Park in an uproar. Their afternoon show had been usurped by impassioned speakers, all high level members of the Ku Klux Klan. Four thousand people filled the auditorium to capacity and another six thousand, many in hoods and robes, pressed in from outside. Heavy rains added to the confusion. Opponents of the Klan were forcibly evicted. The keynote speaker was Captain J. K. Skipwell himself.

Journal_Gazette, August 8, 1923 Matoon, Illinois.

In his speech, Skipwell asserted, “Those bodies found in the bayou were planted there to manufacture a case against the Klan. We think Daniels and Richards are alive and those bodies are fakes, pure and simple…We know nothing ‘bout it. Only the Catholics and Jews know about that stuff.” He insisted that those “false charges” again the Klan were instigated and paid for by “New York Jews.” Then, Skipwell applauded vigilantism. “The Mer Rouge case resulted from the lawlessness and indecency of Watt Daniels and Tom Richards… Old man Daniels (father of Watt Daniels)… operated a bootlegging business and the lowest of gambling hells. His intimate relations with … (an African American woman) were shocking to respectable citizens. His son was worse and Richards was no better.” He then went on to maintain that “Every Christian man and woman owes a debt to the Klan.” Later in the speech, he blamed “Jews, Catholics, foreigners, immigrants, and (African Americans)” for all the ills of the country. (“Journal Gazette,”Mattoon, Illinois, August 8, 1923; “Effingham Record, Effingham, Illinois, July 27, 1923; The Decatur Herald, Decatur, Illinois, August 5 and 8, 1923)

For the full story, with disturbing details, see The_Decatur_Herald, August 8, 1923.

Advanced advertisement for the Shelbyville Chautauqua announced that two bands would be playing: Goforth’s Orchestra and Fisher Shipp and the Gibsonians. It does appear that Goforth performed the night before on August 6, but there is no mention of any performance by the Gibsonians in any accounts written afterwards.

Grafitti on the wall of the dressing room behind the stage at Shelbyville could still be seen there upon our last visit to Forest Park.

The Mer Rouge murder trials continued on into 1924. According to sources, the juries were stacked with Klan sympathizers. The Governor and Attorney who prosecuted the indictments lost re-election, and the new Louisiana Attorney General dropped all charges due to “insufficient evidence.”

After Shelbyville, the Gibsonians played the last four engagements of their tour without incident. Fisher Shipp went back to Brookfield; Enos Stambach took a job as music director and organist at the Star Theatre in Nevada, Missouri, and later the Gillois theatre in Springfield, Missouri; Marguerite Wood settled for quiet life of school teacher in her hometown of Clinton, Illinois; We have found no evidence of John de Voogdt’s musical career after this tour.

Finally, a happy note: proud parents James and Ethyle Johnstone announced the birth of Marion Francis Johnstone on August 28, a healthy baby girl. “Jumpin’ Jazz” Johnstone would be back with his tenor banjo and mando-bass for future Gibsonian programs.

Lloyd Loar returned to Kalamazoo to turn his attention to putting even larger batches of Master Models into production, and writing articles on acoustics, including one on overtone production in stringed instruments. Loar was a man deeply rooted in two worlds: On the one, he was a scientist, a theosophist, an inventor, an international traveler, a multi-linguist and a teacher; on the other, he was a musician, composer and band leader. During his tenure as Acoustic Engineer at Gibson, he blended both worlds brilliantly, and for that work in those brief four years, we honor him today and his name will be heralded for generations. After the trials and tribulations of the summer tour of 1923, he may have begun to seriously consider giving more priority to his “other interests and pursuits.”

Episode 8: The July Revolution

July 06, 2023

Miami Herald Sun, January 7, 1945. One of two posters created for the concert at the Orange Bowl.

William Smith Monroe, 1945, shortly after acquiring Gibson F-5 73987, signed by Lloyd Loar on July 9, 1923.

Did the F-5 mandolin make Bill Monroe, or did Bill Monroe make the F-5 mandolin? Either way, July 9, 1923, is a storied date, one that has made a tremendous impact on the century of the Gibson F-5. Bill Monroe scholars understand the significance of the poster above and how the extraordinary event of January 11, 1945, relates to what happened in Kalamazoo 22 1/2 years earlier. This episode will delve deeply into our study of posters, newspapers ads and articles and other primary sources, but first we must examine the mandolins themselves. The group of F-5s dated July 9, 1923, was the largest to date. With two sets of sequential numbers with similar appointments, 73719 to 73733 and 73747 to 73755 (a total of 22 mandolins) and a third sequence, 73980 to 74002, (also 22 mandolins), we are tempted to proclaim a total of 44 F-5s were finished and signed, ready to ship. Not all 44 numbers are accounted for today, so there is an enticing possibility that some are still to be discovered. An interesting side note, the latter sequence of numbers all exhibit a curious change in the installation of the top and back binding: the 3-ply binding is oriented so that the center ply, a black stripe, appears on the side instead of the top. From a production point-of-view, we consider this a separate batch, the legendary side-bound F-5.

Scrolls on two F-5s dated July 9, 1923. Left: 73753 with standard binding; Right, 73994 with black stripe on side

Before our imagination runs wild and we go out searching for the missing mandolins, we should start at the beginning. The first mandolin to receive the July 9, 1923, date was F-5 #73719, sold to Albert Bellson of St. Paul, Minnesota. Mr. Bellson, who had favored model F-4 (with his characteristic bone saddle to improve brightness), wrote to Gibson soon after receiving the F-5 which he played for the rest of his career.

Letter to Gibson from Albert Bellson, published in The Crescendo, October, 1923, p. 19.

Alfonso Bellasone was born in St Angelo, Sicily, Italy, on March 6, 1897. (Readers of “Breaking News” will recall that St. Angelo was also the home of the Virzi Brothers). He and baby brother Julius were brought by their parents on the ship Citti di Napoli to New York City on December 4, 1906. Alfonso’s name was recast as Albert Bellson on June 26, 1920, when he received his naturalization papers in Providence, Rhode Island, witnessed by none other than mandolin maestro Guiseppe Pettine. Pettine had welcomed the brothers as students, having recognized their remarkable musical gifts. Unlike his teacher, Albert embraced Gibson mandolins, possibly influenced by fellow Pettine student William Place, Jr. Spreading his musical wings, Bellson not only became a Gibson artist/teacher/endorser, but the leader of the 1921 Gibsonians (also examined in “Breaking News 1922”), sharing the stage with James H. Johnstone and the brilliant Leora Haight. When the Gibsonians performed at the Guild convention in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times listed Bellson along with Lloyd Loar as “Greatest Solo Artists In America.”

Los Angeles Evening Express, June 23, 1921_

After Lloyd Loar and Fisher Shipp were invited to headline the Gibsonian Concert Orchestra in 1922, Bellson moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and began building a clientele of students, offering lessons on “mandolin, banjo and ukulele.” Bellson School Of Music on 474 Collins St. opened in September of 1923, and remained an important center for music studies in that area for the next thirty years. A confirmed Gibsonian, Bellson populated his orchestra and quartet with the finest instruments his students could afford, including Master Models. One of his most talented pupils, Wallace Ziebarth, acquired Gibson F-5 # 72857, signed by Lloyd Loar on April 12, 1923, and perhaps this instrument inspired Bellson to order F-5 73719. Another star pupil was Vergel Viola Anderson. Born January 1, 1909 in Isanti, Minnesota, she came to the Bellson studios for instruction on mandolin as a teenager. Evolving into a brilliant proponent of the mandola as both teacher and performer, she chose the stage name Vergel Vanzora, and was known, like Lloyd Loar, for expanding the possibilities of the tenor voice of the mandolin family. She acquired a Gibson H-5 Master Model Mandola even before she became Mrs. Bellson in 1928.

**Standing, Wallace Ziebarth with F-5 #72857; Clifton Peterson, K-1 mandocello; Seated, Albert Bellson with F-5 73719 and Vergel Vanzora with H-2 mandola.**

Another woman who pioneered the Master Model F-5 in her community in the 1920s was Mrs. Julius Blakely of Highland, New York. Born Florence Clearwater in Lloyd, New York, in 1875, she was an English teacher and amateur mandolin player when she met her husband, Dr. Blakely. They were married on September 21, 1913, and she fulfilled her musical aspirations with local events, mandolin clubs, charity fundraisers and church performances. Thanks to her husband’s occupation, which provided a $15,000 home for her parlor concerts, she was able to afford the F-5 when it became available in the summer of 1923. She, like several of the new owners, wrote to Gibson: “The Gibson Master Mandolin has arrived and it is a beauty. I am delighted with it—the tone is wonderful.”

Mrs. Blakely’s Gibson F-5 73741 surfaced again in upstate New York in the late 1970s. This strong and dynamic sounding instrument is ready to find another good home for the next century.

Twenty-six year old Harry M. Wirsing left his mandolin at home when he was inducted into the US Army on February 22, 1918. He served in Company I, 112th Infantry, and fought against the German invasion in the horrific trenches in France. Wounded in action, he landed in Philadelphia on April 30, 1919, and by 1923 had a thriving music shop on 8 Seaton Avenue in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where he gave lessons and sold Gibson instruments. When he got his F-5, praise flowed from his pen:

Letter to Gibson published in The Crescendo, October 1923.

We have many more stories of the first owners of 1923 F-5s, and plan to share them in future episodes. However, on this auspicious date, we now return to the incredible event we alluded to at the outset of this episode.

In the years from 1939 through 1942, Bill Monroe and The Bluegrass Boys rocketed into the top echelon of hillbilly entertainers. Along with Roy Acuff, he was the headliner on the nationwide broadcast, The Grande Ole Opry, which blasted out of Nashville, Tennessee, with 50,000 Watts on WSM Radio each Saturday night. Played to a packed house at the 3500-seat Ryman Auditorium, these shows, which were also carried by NBC affiliates, captured the excitement and electricity of Bill Monroe’s performances and transported it to living rooms all across North America. Throughout the 1940s, Monroe ruled the airwaves with two Saturday night spots: 8pm to 8:30, sponsored by Purina, and 10pm to 10:15, sponsored by Wallite. Afterwards, and often immediately after, Monroe’s 1941 Chevrolet Airport Limousine led an impressive caravan of automobiles carrying musicians, comedians, instruments, a circus tent and even a baseball team across the southern United States. They travelled and performed Sunday until Friday, after which they always made it back to Nashville for the Saturday night Opry. Passionate fans driven by those broadcasts poured out to hear the show when Bill Monroe came to their town.

Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, autumn 1944. Left to right: Curley Bradshaw, “Sally Ann,” Monroe, Chubby Wise, Clyde Moody and “Stringbeans.”

On May 15, 1942, a great deal changed for traveling entertainers when the US government began rationing gas and rubber for the war effort. Gas stickers were granted based on how an individual contributed to the war effort. The “A” sticker entitled a car owner to 4 gallons a week and the “B” sticker, only 3 gallons. It is unclear how Bill Monroe managed to keep his automobiles on the road, but somehow he made personal appearances in Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky in 1943 and 44. For reasons that had nothing to do with the war, the American Federation of Musicians called for a ban on all recording beginning on August 11, 1942, and negotiations dragged on until November 11, 1944. Columbia records had signed Monroe before the ban, but had to wait to record him. (It was on February 13, 1945, at the CBS studios in the Wriggly Building in Chicago, Illinois, that Monroe kicked off his first recording session for that company with “Rocky Road Blues”). Despite the impact of these limitations, Bill Monroe still seemed to flourish. All the way down in southern Florida, NBC affiliate WIOD in Miami carried his show live every Saturday night during those years, and the Miami News and Miami Herald both carried notices reminding people to listen for Bill Monroe. Articles promised that “Bill will be singing the Mule Skinner Blues!” Or, “you will hear favorites like ‘Arkansas Traveler,’ ‘The Girl I Love Don’t Pay Me No Mind,’ ‘Black Jack Davie’ and ‘Katy Hill.’” Just as often, they would proclaim that the Bluegrass Quartet will be singing “religious numbers like ‘I Found A Hiding Place.’”

Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, October, 1944: Standing L to R: Clyde Moody and Bill Monroe; Front row: Howard Watts, “Sally Ann,” Chubby Wise, “Stringbeans.”

Immediately after the Opry show on January 7, 1945, Bill Monroe and a huge entourage drove out of Nashville headed for south Florida, his first trip that far south. Earl Scruggs made that same journey with The Bluegrass Boys one year later. In an interview with this author in January, 2007, Scruggs recalled his first trip as a Bluegrass Boy: “When we left Nashville that night after playing the Opry, we struggled through winter weather on two lane roads, some not paved, to make it to Atlanta around daylight. In Atlanta there were 93 stoplights. By the time I left Bill, I knew every one of them by heart. The lights were timed so that if hit you the first one just as it turned green, well, then, you could cruise on through. I remember that after we had made a few of the lights on green, a hay wagon pulled out in front of us and we hit every red light from then on. When we finally made it through Atlanta, we still had to go to Miami. It’s a long way from Atlanta to Miami.”

The Bluegrass Special! L to R: Monroe, Jim Shumate, “Sringbeans,” Lester Flatt, “Sally Ann” and “Howdy” Forrester. November 28, 1948, en route to show dates in eastern Tennessee. Photo from “Purina’s Grand Ole Opry Souvenir Album” dated 1946. (Original booklet given to this author by banjo scholar Jim Mills.)

January 1945 must have been just as grueling for the Bluegrass Boys and Girl. After performing on the Opry, they left Nashville at mid-night on the 7th. The first show was at The American Legion Arena in West Palm Beach on the 9th; then, down to the “Orange Bowl” (Burdine Stadium) in Miami for two shows, the 10th and 11th. Somehow, they made it all the way back to Nashville in time for the Opry on Saturday the 13th, after which they turned around and headed back to Florida for the Central High School Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale on the 15th and Vero Beach High School Auditorium on the 19th. Back to Nashville for the Opry on the Saturday the 20th, then back to south Florida for the Grade School Auditorium in Fort Pierce on the 24th, and, yes, back to Nashville in time for the 8pm set on the Opry on the 27th. In fact, the entire year of 1945 was like that, a non-stop, superhuman journey.

Bill Monroe Performances 1945: we can confirm all these dates and personnel based on newspaper ads and first hand accounts. More than likely there were many more.

The Palm Beach Post Tuesday, January 9, 1945.

Who got on board in January of 1945? Fiddler Chubby Wise and bassist Howard Watts (“Cedric Rainwater”), were both from Florida and may have encouraged Bill to expand his range in that state. Dave “Stringbeans” Akemen (later changed to “Stringbean”), from Eastern Kentucky, was Monroe’s first banjo player and had been with him since 1942. Originally from New Mexico, Wilene “Billie” Russell Forrester, whom Bill introduced as “Sally Ann, the Kentucky Songbird,” sang and played accordion all through the war years. (Billie was the wife of champion fiddler Howard “Howdy” Forrester, who left Monroe’s band to join the Navy on March 6, 1943. He endured bitter fighting in the Pacific while serving on the USS Pennsylvania, and was finally discharged on November 21, 1945 after the ship was torpedoed off Okinawa that August. Monroe gave him his job back when he returned). Clyde Moody had been Bill’s duet partner all through the war, and had acquired a good following of his own. But when the recording ban was lifted, Moody made his own deal with Columbia Records and was scheduled to head to Chicago just a few days after the Bluegrass Boys. To fill the significant loss of Moody on guitar and lead vocal, Monroe hired Georgian Tex Willis, who had been recommended by Wise and Watts. Curly Bradshaw joined on second guitar on some numbers and did solo spots with his “mouth harp” in the style of African American harmonica master Deford Bailey. This is the band that Bill would take to Chicago for that first landmark Columbia session, and one imagines musical chemistry congealing on this tour. In addition to the Bluegrass Boys, Zeke Clements was along as well. He shared the bill with Monroe, promoting his new hit, “Smoke On The Water.” “Grand Pappy” George Wilkerson and comedians Jam-Up and Honey added their minstrel antics. Thus, Monroe was able present a full in-person “Grande Ole Opry” experience to audiences throughout the South.

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan, 13, 1945. Note the names of the stars inverted.

In all probability, it happened in Miami. The stars lined up for an immeasurable impact on both Bill Monroe and the F-5 mandolin. On January 10, they arrived at Burdine Stadium, which filled the area between 6th and 3rd Streets in Little Havana just west of the Miami River. The first task was to erect the tent and arrange the bleachers and stage. Light rain commenced that night, and the temperature went down to 43 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a chilly night for folks in Miami, but they must have been snug inside the tent listening to their favorite Opry stars live for the first time. Without doubt, Monroe treated the audience to “Muleskinner Blues” and other powerhouse numbers that had made him a household name. The band was experiencing the excitement of a new configuration with the talented Tex Willis stepping into Clyde Moody’s place. As Moody was on the Opry with Monroe as late as December 2, this was most likely one of Willis’s first tours as a Bluegrass Boy. At some point he introduced a style of rhythm guitar playing that emphasized a strong back-beat. This perfectly complemented Monroe’s fast blues compositions like “Rocky Road Blues.” (Music scholars often cite this sound as an important root of Rock ’N Roll). We have no idea where the travelers found lodging for the night, but late 1940s Bluegrass Boy Jim Eanes told this author “he never saw the inside of a luxury hotel when he was with Monroe.” At best they might have arranged an inexpensive hotel or boarding house in Little Havana, which would have seemed luxurious after surviving on cat naps in the car. The morning of the 11th, they woke to a beautiful January day with a high of 64 that afternoon. If anyone wanted to get out for a walk, that morning or early afternoon would have been the best opportunity. Monroe often mailed correspondence, and the Main Post Office was located on the east side of the river on the block at 1st and 4th Streets. To go there from the stadium area, he would have walked across the bridge at 5th street and then turn down to 4th. There were any number of grand hotels along 4th, 5th and Biscayne: The Alcazar, the Floridian, and at 258 NE 4th Street, the brand new Liberty Hotel, just past the Post Office toward Bay Front Park.

Downtown Miami, ca. 1945. Arrow on left, Burdine Stadium where the concert was held January 10 & 11. Arrow on Right, The location of the Liberty Hotel. Total walking distance from stadium to beachfront, 2 miles.

These hotels all featured barber shops with windows to the street. Of course, there were independent barber shops all through Miami in 1945 including Stricklin’s, Sunlight, Star, Stokes’, Rialto, Royal, Rossi, Sam’s, The Seabreeze, and Reagin’s. After researching all of them, we discovered a number of classified ads for high quality musical merchandise, mostly mandolins and accordions, which had been posted in the Miami Herald in 1944 and early 45. All these ads listed the same address: “258 NE 4th Street.” The Liberty Hotel! Each ad used a different name but the same address: “A Mr. M. H. Davis offered a Pietro Accordion for $300”; “Dee” offered an “Italian bass accordion, best offer”; “Fine Gibson Mandolin with a $15 case” no name , just the address; and “Mr. Smith” offered for sale a “Gibson Mandolin, $150 with a leather case.” (In aftermarket ads, the keratol cover of the Geib & Schaefer cases used by Gibson were often mistaken for leather).

Miami Herald, classified ad, 1945. We certainly cannot confirm that this was an F-5 mandolin, but it does confirm that someone was dealing in fine Gibson mandolins and using the address at the Liberty Hotel in 1945.

The Liberty Hotel facing 4th Street, Bay Front Park in the background. (Postcard dated 1945)

The night of January 11, the temperature outside went down to 38 degrees, a record low there for that year. We cannot help but think Bill Monroe heated up that tent at Burdine stadium with Gibson F-5 73987, signed by Lloyd Loar on July 9, 1923, with the black stripes on the side. (Monroe often told the story that he found his F-5 in a “barber shop in Miami”). There is no greater confirmation of the fire that mandolin lit in him than the first recording of “Rocky Road Blues” made in Chicago one month later. The temperature may have hit a record low that night in Florida, but Bill Monroe hit a record high for the century of the F-5 mandolin.

Bill Monroe with Gibson F-5 73987 on stage at the Grande Ole Opry, ca. 1946: This was the most important mandolin of his entire career, and an inseparable icon of his musical identity. (Howard Watts behind with bass)

Episode 7: Earning Their Stripes

June 12, 2023

The Allegro Mandolin Sextet, 1923. Front row: Alec Jay Stright; Flora K Lichtenfels; Adolph B Fox. Back row: Charles M Dunford; Percy V. Lichtenfels, Director; Paul, A Wibel; and Edward P Green. On June 23, 1923, in a landmark development in the history of radio, their program was the first to be broadcast overseas; on that live radio concert, Mr. Lichtenfels played Gibson F-5 73679, signed by Lloyd Loar and dated June 13, 1923.

In June of 1923, we have reports of fifteen F-5s and one L-5 made; there is the possibility that more might be discovered. Some of those mandolins, in the hands of master musicians, went on to significant contributions to the history of American music. One F-5 was played in Pittsburg and heard in Europe, and another was the first F-5 to be recorded. Before we explore these remarkable landmarks, however, we would be remiss if we did not first examine a detail of some significance to students of the Loar signed instruments.

Gibson F-5 dated simply “June 1923” signed Lloyd Loar. A black stripe appears on the side for the first time.

F5 #73682. With the black stripe of the binding on the side, the top and back have a different look.

This very interesting F-5, #73682 is signed simply “June 1923,” the only Master Model instrument signed by Lloyd Loar with no particular day specified. It is a magnificent sounding and beautiful mandolin, but for those interested in understanding more about the process of construction, the most curious thing about it is the deep binding channel along the side which made way for the first appearance of a black binding stripe. All previous F-5s feature a stripe on the top, not on the side.

Gibson F-5 73675 signed by Lloyd Loar, dated June 13, 1923. The typical F-5 look with stripe on top and back, none on side.

Why is this detail important? More to come…

Gibson F-5 73677, signed by Lloyd Loar, dated June 13, 1923. The first “wide fingerboard” F5.

The first side-bound F5 was not the only mandolin from June of 1923 with surprising features. Gibson F-5 73677, with factory installed Virzi Tone Producer 10124, signed by Lloyd Loar and dated June 13, 1923, featured a wider fingerboard. Long before Gibson introduced the “Sam Bush model,” there was this mandolin with the fingerboard width increased 3/64 inch. It was exported to Toronto Music Company in Toronto, Canada and purchased by a Mr. Sorley in 1924. Sorley was a Scottish immigrant who had settled in Toronto and played in a mandolin ensemble. The fingerboard was not the only departure from standard catalog specifications. This is the only mandolin with the peg head sides finished in a single yellow hue, instead of the shaded mix of colors that produced “Gibson Cremona Brown” elsewhere on this instrument.

Gibson F-5 73677, yellow shaded color of the peg head.

Gibson F-5 73677 would be better recognized by classical mandolin aficianidos of the 1980s and 90s as the main instrument of virtuoso Charley Rappaport. Often filling concert halls acoustically with no sound reinforcement, Rappaport’s rendition of the such Russian tour-de-forces as “The Lark,” is the stuff of mandolin legend!

Charley Rappaport (on right) with Gibson F-5 73677, Sasha Lisnichuk, on guitar. This brilliant duet appeared on stage as “Yasha and Sasha.”

Charley Rappaport, in his journey across the US, has the surprising credentials of reigniting once lost mandolin communities where ever he settled; during his time in Atlanta, for example, the Atlanta Mandolin Orchestra found new life. More recently, a similar phenomena has happened in Pittsburg, where the Allegro ensemble once held court.

The Allegro Sextet, ca. 1921. Gibson catalog L, before the group upgraded to style 5 Master Models instruments.

Percy Verne Lichtenfels was born on November 6, 1884, in Pitcairn, Pennsylvania. His father Joseph Sides Lichtenfels was a clerk at the Railroad Transfer there, and the son followed his father into that profession. By 1910, Percy had worked his way up to inspector for Penna Railroads in Pitcairn. It is unclear when he took up music or who his teacher may have been, but a concert by his group, the Allegro Mandolin Sextet, was mentioned on October 1, 1911, in the Pittsburg Press. By 1921, his ensemble, the Allegro Mandolin Sextet, was making regular broadcast on Pittsburg Radio KDKA. None of the members were professional musicians: for example, Lichtenfels was a career railroad man; Paul Wible, a butcher; and Charles Dunford was the foreman at Westinghouse Airbrake Co. (which may explain the broadcast opportunities on radio programs sponsored by Westinghouse). Judging from reviews, their local popularity, and the challenging pieces in their repertoire, they were very serious about the music. Lichtenfels must have purchased Gibson F5 73679 very soon after the signature date, based on the letter he wrote to the Gibson Company which was later published in the October Crescendo. The concert, broadcast on KDKA on June 23, 1923 was broadcast throughout the US and Canada and to Europe as well, a landmark event for wireless communication.

Percy Lichtenfels letter to Gibson Company praising his F-5. Crescendo, October 1923, p. 19.

Percy Lichtenfels with Gibson F-5 #73679. Gibson Catalog O, 1924.

The landmark broadcast from June, 1923. Pittsburgh Daily Post, Jun 23, 1923 · Page 2.

Now, we shift our focus from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, to Providence, Rhode Island, where F-5 history was also made in 1923.

William Place Quartet. Left to Right: William H. Place, first mandolin and director; Lawrence V. Calder, mando-cello; Clinton S. King, second mandolin; and Milburn Chapman, mandola. Photo from private collection.

William H. Place, Jr., born April 24, 1889, in Providence, Rhode Island, was the son of a Providence policeman and his wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Irish immigrants. Place took up the mandolin at a very early age and after showing remarkable aptitude, was enlisted as a pupil of mandolin master Giuseppe Pettine. According to eminent biographer P. J. Bone, Place “attained great proficiency, a recognized virtuoso of rare attainment, and the chosen mandolin soloist at many of the American Guild Conventions.” (Bone, “The Guitar and Mandolin,” 1954 edition, p. 282). By 1920, Place had opened a music store in Providence and was the Gibson artist/teacher/agent there. Although he had been a regular at previous Guild conventions, he missed the unveiling of the F-5 in Washington, DC, in April of 1923. Instead, he remained in Providence hosting the Harp Convention, where his wife Helen Vivian Place was a performer. Prior to that event, he had travelled across the country “wearing goggles and driving his motorized go-cart” (Crescendo, March 1923) organizing the delivery of 100 harps for the occasion!

William H. Place, Jr., with Gibson F-5 73676. Gibson Catalog “N” p. 10. (1923)

Place had performed on the same venues as Lloyd Loar on a number of occasions, most recently in Atlanta in 1921 and New York in 1922. Place, like Loar, had played Gibson mandolins since the ‘teens. Most likely he would have known Loar, but whether or not they had had conversations about the new development in American mandolins we may never know. He was also a colleague of Walter Kaye Bauer, and may have seen the F-5 Walter had played in 1922. In any case, in the summer of 1923, he purchased F-5 73676, with the June 13th signature date. That instrument became his preferred mandolin for his entire career, and the Gibson catalog boasted that he used it exclusively. By the 1930s, he had moved Place Music to a larger building at 1350 Narragansett Blvd. in Cranston, Rhode Island, which became a Mecca for all stringed instrument endeavors, and the legacy of that center can still felt in that part of the country today. In addition to teaching, performing and procuring instruments for students and colleagues, “The William Place Method For The Mandolin, Volume I,” published by Joe Nicomede in 1934, became one of the most popular mandolin instruction manuals in America, with volumes two and three following in 1936. The method was kept in print through the 1950s by Belwin Mills Publishing Co., of Melville, NY., and can still be found in used book stores (and on eBay). Through talent, industry and business acumen, William and Vivian were able to leave public life in 1947 and retire to Martha’s Vineyard. For us today, Place commands a distinct “place” in the history of the American mandolin as only he joins Dave Apollon as a first generation Loar F-5 owner with a significant recording career. He made a number of records for Victor, beginning with a session in April of 1913 that yielded his most popular 10-inch disc, “Sing, Smile, Slumber,” available for 75 cents in record stores from Tampa to Vancouver. He continued to record for Victor, as well as for Columbia and Edison, and though his sales never competed with the great Samuel Siegal, he was constantly showcasing Gibson mandolins. The Gennett session of 1923 most certainly features F-5 #73676. Accompanied by Vivian on piano, here with the brand new F-5, is William Place, Jr. and the “Spanish Caprice!”

Episode 6: Darkening Tones, Chasing the Tail of the letter "F"

May 28, 2023

Gibson F-5 73481, signed May 29, 1923. Photo courtesy David McLaughlin.

Signature label, Gibson F-5 73481, signed May 29, 1923. Photo courtesy David McLaughlin.

From the beginning, the goal of the Master Model project was to create mandolin family instruments with the power and projection of concert violins. Comparing extant Gibson F-5 mandolins from earlier in 1923 to those produced in the second half of the year, there seems to have been a gradual movement toward darkening the sound and color.

Possibly less than a dozen F-5s were signed by Lloyd Loar and dated May 29, 1923, the first signature date after the last relatively small batch of April 25. Our featured mandolin this episode was made famous in the 1980s as played by David McLaughlin in the popular Bluegrass band, “The Johnson Mountain Boys.” It is unclear exactly when F-5 #73481 left the factory, but our research has concluded that it was acquired by Adams Byerly for “The Byerly Brothers Music” in Peoria, Illinois. The Byerly Brothers were the only Gibson dealership in Peoria in the 1920s and may have had more than one F-5 (inscribed under the pick guard of 73418 is the serial number 73727, which is a known F-5 signed July 9, 1923). The F-5 was the flagship of a display at the store that included Gibson mandolin family instruments and even a harp guitar.

As the Byerly Brothers franchise grew, they opened a second store in Molline, Illinois, and started a third in Peoria, Adams Music. Driven by public taste and sales numbers, by the late 1940s, they focused almost entirely on pianos, woodwinds and horns. They carried sheet music, marimbas and batons in their inventory, but no mandolins, guitars or banjos could be found there, and there were no lessons available for someone interested in learning those instruments.

Byerly Brothers and Adams music in 1952. Not a mandolin to be found among this impressive list of teachers.

Many of their Gibson instruments, including F5 73481, remained unsold; the entire collection went into storage to make room for the display of pianos. (Many unsold Gibson instruments were returned to the factory, refreshed and sent back to the store, or to other dealers, and the refreshed instruments continued to be offered as new. This process would not have affected the color. Whether or not this was the case with 73481, it remained in new condition and in Byerly inventory until their transition away from stringed instruments).

The storage area was discovered in 1958 by musician and musicologist Mike Seeger of the New Lost City Ramblers. This was one of three Loar-signed F-5s he was known to have had and this is the one he used on their recording of “Long Journey Home.” Around 1980, he passed 73481 on to David McLaughlin. This mandolin can be heard on the many excellent recordings of the Johnson Mountain Boys.

Peghead of Gibson F-5 73481, signed May 29, 1923. Photo courtesy David McLaughlin.

Treble side view of Gibson F-5 73481, signed May 29, 1923. Notice the dove-tail cap on the point. Photo courtesy David McLaughlin.

F-5 73481 heralds a shift in the nature of the F-5. As the “Gibson Cremona Brown” darkens, so does the tone. The F-5s created earlier in 1923 all feature tightly focused projection and crisp clear highs. In late May, there seems to have been a conscious effort to begin a movement toward a darker, richly textured bass, greater complexity overall, while still keeping the characteristic power in all frequencies.

As the Gibsonians were not scheduled to begin their summer tour until July, Lloyd Loar was on duty at the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo during May and June of 1923. The Gibson contingent had just returned from the Guild Convention in Washington, DC (end of April, 1923), and as quite a few of the attendees of the convention became F-5 owners, there must have been optimism toward the project, if not an outright mandate to produce more of that model. It is also reasonable to assume that in addition to orders, there was feedback to be considered. Herman Von Bernewitz, a student of Walter Kaye Bauer, attended the convention as a member of the Nordica Club, the hosts of the convention and the orchestra that boldly performed Beethoven’s 5th Symphony on mandolin and banjo as the finale. Years later, Von Bernewitz recalled meeting Lloyd Loar at the convention and inspecting several F-5s there. He commented to us when we interviewed him in the late 1980s: “I told him they were too bright. I much preferred the sound of my F-4.” As an aside, Von Bernewitz and 7 others left the Nordica Club after the convention to form the Tacoma Mandoleers in hopes of adding lighter selections into their repertoire. The Mandoleers organization has endured, and are still performing 100 years later!

The Nordica Club at the American Guild Convention, Cadenza cover, June, 1923. Herman Von Bernewitz, seated on the conductor’s left. Did Herman’s conversation with Lloyd Loar influence the direction of the F-5?

Perhaps Von Bernewitz’s comments to Loar had impact. Von Bernewitz indicated to us that his observation on brightness was shared by several of his fellow musicians, as they were happy with the mellow sound of oval hole instruments. Whatever the case, the Gibson team seems to have taken steps toward a transition in tone, and curiously, as they darkened tone, they darkened the color. In 1924, Von Bernewitz purchased a gorgeous, great-sounding H-5 mandola, with the dark tone and dark finish. If the team at Gibson came home from the convention with an interest in creating these changes, to whom among the woodworkers would Lloyd Loar, as acoustical engineer, want to discuss this plan? What things would they talk about and then do to alter that tone?

The Gibson team of woodworkers, circa 1915, many of whom were still at work in 1923: George Altermatt, middle row, 3rd from left and Frank Eugene “Gene” Weed, back row on right. Photo from Julius Bellson, “The Gibson Story,” p. 12.

In Episode 4: Shape Brace To This,” we discussed the woodworkers of 1922. While most were still at work in 1923, two longtime Gibson workers seem to have moved into greater roles and may have led the team in new directions. One was George Altermatt, who, in 1925 became foreman and filed a patent for the Mastertone banjo tone ring (he is often attributed as the inventor of the Ball Bearing Ring, but the ball bearings were part of a patent by Victor Kraske and were already in use on the trapdoor banjo in 1922).

We also like to think that the man with the labels was an important ally to Loar. There has long been a controversy around the question of when and where the labels were attached. In our previous episode, we presented the theory that by identifying the person who filled in the serial number labels on the F-5, we may be able to create more understanding of the process of construction. This led us to examining the World War I draft cards from all the Gibson workers. Those cards, required for all men 18 to 45, were filled in by the applicant in cursive, thus giving a perfect handwriting sample! We eliminated workers who could not read and write English; then we found cards for over twenty-five woodworkers, six assemblers, twelve stringers, four finishers, two draftsmen, and a few foremen and managers (Loar, Johnstone and Lewis Williams, for example). (We are happy to share all these handwriting samples with interested parties). Sadly we do not have writing examples from the older employees such as Ted McHugh and Victor Kraske who were well past draft age, nor do we have any samples from the female staff. However, after closely examining all those handwriting samples, only one fits the flowing tail of the letter “F”; this sample also fits the slant and curve of the numbers. So now, we offer the identity of the man with the pencil.

Serial number and model number in pencil on the label of Gibson F5 72060. Notice the slant of the numbers and the sweeping “tail” of the “F.” The appearance of the writing on F5 labels were consistent until an interesting change took place later that summer.

Label of 73481. The bleed through of the finish may indicate a factory refresh. The label was clearly filled out by the same hand as earlier 1923 F-5s. Photo courtesy David McLaughlin.

Draft registration for Frank Eugene Weed, 1917.

Frank Eugene Weed, or “Gene,” as his co-workers called him, was born in Dakota territory, on September 1, 1881. His father, Joseph Edson Weed, was born into a family of farmers in Wales, New York, in 1845. After serving in the 100th New York Infantry during some of the bloodiest campaigns of the Civil War, he came home and married the “girl next door,” Orcelia Fydusia “Carlina” Stephens, and they promptly made their way west to Coopers in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, where he plied the trade of wagon maker. In 1880, events converged to lure him further west: The Homestead Act offered 160 acres of free land to settlers of new territories; after a brutal winter, the rains came to the fertile eastern part of Dakota territory; the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad opened a spur to Pierre, South Dakota; most of the Sioux had been herded onto reservations by the US Calvary; and a new town under construction needed skilled carpenters. Joseph and Carlina headed to Dakota territory to start a new life.

Homesteading in Dakota Territory in 1880: Settlers headed west with the promise of free land..

Gene Weed was born on a farm in Dakota territory as his father helped build the tiny town of Mellette in Spinks County, South Dakota (population in 1890 had grown to around 200; by 1990, it was down to 184). There were no schools, so he learned his letters and arithmetic from his mother. From his father, he learned about farming and woodworking. In 1894, the family gave up the prairie life and moved to back to Kalamazoo where Joseph found work in the carriage industry, and Gene, at 13, went to work as carpenter’s apprentice. By 1910, he was at work at Gibson making mandolins, and continued there as a woodworker until his retirement in 1951. (The 1940 census lists him as “woodworker, Medical Instruments Mfg. Co.” but this is a misprint by the census taker, as his draft card of 1942 lists his employment as “Gibson, Inc. (Guy Hart).”

In the past, scholars have assigned the role of filling in the labels to James Johnstone, the “jazzy” foreman of the stringing department, based on a sentence in the 1921 Gibson Soundboard Salesman: “‘Jimmie’ checks the instruments in on records and fills the orders.” The records referred to were most likely the shipping ledgers, not the serial number label. A look at Johnstone’s handwriting confirms he was not the man with the flowing “F.”

And some still insist Loar himself did these numbers, as was the case on the first F-5, 70281, but in the many examples of his writing, Loar always put a down-stroke on the right side of the bottom flag of the “F.” That figure is consistent in all of his writing samples that we have examined.

What is the conclusion here? First of all, we must mention that the writing on the serial number label takes a distinct change as we move further into 1923. More on that soon to come. But for now, if we can accept Gene Weed as the man with the pencil, we can also infer that the labels, at least in the first half of 1923, were created by a woodworker, not an assembler, stringer or finisher. This may change the way we think about the process, and maybe give new interest in researching the contributions of Eugene Weed, a gifted worker of whom not much has been written.

Episode 5: The Capitol Idea

April 25, 2023

Gibson F-5 73006, signed by Lloyd Loar and dated April 25, 1923. (Photos by Emma McCoury, courtesy Ronnie McCoury)

Left to Right: Marguerite Lichti, H-5 mandola; Ethyle Hindbaugh Johnstone, F-5 mandolin; James H. Johnstone, mando-bass; Charles A. Templeman, K-5 mando-cello; Lloyd Loar, MV-5 mandolin/mandola. Photo taken at 2 pm, Monday, April 23, 1923, in front of the White House in Washington, D.C.

The last week of April in 1923 was an auspicious time for the Gibson Master Model mandolin family of instruments: the official debut was scheduled for the Convention of the American Guild of Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar. On the night of April 25, Lloyd Loar and the Gibsonians with Fisher Shipp performed for the leaders of the plectrum world in the “Grand Concert For The Annual Banquet.”

In Kalamazoo, we know of fourteen F-5 mandolins, numbered 73002 through 73015, that were either finished or nearing completion. Each contained a label dated April 25, 1923, signed by Lloyd Loar. Some of those found their way into the hands of extremely significant players, including Dave Apollon, Nancy Blake, Byron Berline, Herschel Sizemore and Ronnie McCoury.

Labels in Gibson F-5 73006. (Photos by Emma McCoury, courtesy Ronnie McCoury)

At this point, we have examined labels in nine of the fourteen. The signatures and dates are consistent with the handwriting identified with Lloyd Loar. The serial number in each is written very neatly in ink. In other F-5s from 1923 that we have examined, the serial numbers are in pencil (so far, in our current chronological examination, only the very first known label, 70281, has a serial number in ink). How is it possible that Lloyd Loar could sign labels for mandolins in Kalamazoo and be in Washington D.C.? Why has the very consistent serial number signer switched to pen for just this one batch and returned to pencil afterwards? Or, has a different person undertaken the task of filling in the serial number labels for these fourteen? Thus begins our search for answers to an intriguing mystery that may actually shape how we imagine the labeling process.

Signature label on 73014. (Photo courtesy Steve Gilchrist.)

Serial number label on 73005. (Photo courtesy Tom Isenhour.)

Compare the April 25 labels to earlier labels:

Serial number label from F-5 72060 in pencil.

Serial number in pencil on label in F-5 72211.

Both labels in ink from 70281. (Photo courtesy Steve Gilchrist)

The adventure began on Saturday, April 21. Lloyd Loar, Lewis A. Williams, C.V. Buttleman and Ethyle and James Johnstone undertook the 16-hour ride on the Capital Express from Chicago to Washington D.C. They, and possibly additional Gibson personnel, were stewards of a “considerable collection of mandolins, mandolas, mando-cellos, harp guitars, mandolin-banjos, tenor banjos, cello-banjos” and at least one mando-bass. (Cadenza, July 1923) By Sunday afternoon, an exhibit of those instruments, along with framed photographs of Gibson endorsers from all over the world, was ready for view in the Raleigh Hotel on 12th Street, N.W. and Pennsylvania Avenue. During the hours in which the exhibit hall was open, Loar and Johnstone were on hand to greet the public, demonstrate the instruments, and most especially, to show off the new F-5, H-5 and K-5 models. Lloyd Loar figured prominently in the proceedings as he took part in meetings and concerts as well as the Gibson exhibit. Charles A. Templeman and Marguerite Lichti , from Sioux City, Iowa, arrived to complete Gibson’s instrumental team. It is unclear when Fisher Shipp, aka Mrs. Lloyd Loar, arrived, as her appearance is not documented until the final concert on Wednesday evening, April 25. Thanks to detailed accounts in both Cadenza and Crescendo magazines, which we have carefully cross-referenced for accuracy, we are able to present the following account of the events as they were planned and what actually took place.

Raleigh Hotel, 12th Street, N.W. and Pennsylvania Ave., Washngton, D.C., ca. 1920.

Program sent out in advance, Crescendo, April, 1923.

Program sent out in advance, Crescendo, April 1923. p. 2.

On Monday morning, April 23 at 9 am, the convention officially opened.
The first order of business was a tour of the exhibit hall. A number of future Master Model proponents were on hand, including William and Margie Griffith from Atlanta, Percy Lichtenfels from Pittsburg, Roy Veiock from New Brighton, Conrad Gebelein from Baltimore, Herman Von Bernewitz from Washington D.C. area, and Claud Rowden from Chicago. Afterwards, the keynote address by Secretary Of Labor James J. Davis and the business meeting that followed dragged on an hour past schedule. At 1pm, the members rushed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House to be received by President Warren G. Harding. Some of the members, including Loar and company, carried their instruments along in hopes of an audience with the President. After greeting each of the 87 people lined up to meet him, Mr. Harding declined the impromptu recital. Once the President excused himself, a photographer was ready for a panoramic group photo, which we have divided into four shots (below).

Standing 3rd from left: Charles Templeman; 4th, Marguerite Lichti; 6th and 7th, Mrs and Mr. Johnstone.

Sitting, 4th from left: Lloyd Loar; standing, back row, far right, C.V. Buttleman.

Standing, back row on left: William Griffith; back row, 3rd from left, Walla Zeller.

By this time, it was well past lunch time. Guild members hurried to Gallotti’s Italian Restaurant, except Loar, the Johnstones, Templeman and Lichti. They took time to pose with their instruments for the extraordinary photo shown above.

By now the afternoon schedule had been abandoned. The family-style feast went on for some time, and as dessert was served, Signori Gallotti appeared with his trombone and serenaded the guests to the accompaniment of recorded music. It was noted that he made particularly powerful sounds. Lewis Williams must have been quite disappointed, as his afternoon lecture on radio technology, which was his new passion, was deleted from the program completely. The Monday evening concert also contained disappointments, as Samuel Siegel, who was on tour in Europe, and Giuseppe Pettine, both stars of previous conventions, had cancelled.

Monday night concert schedule, Cadenza, April 1923.

Monday night concert schedule, Cadenza, April 1923. p. 2

In the evening concert, Marguerite Lichti, the twenty year Gibsonian from Sioux City, performed in the first half.

After intermission, Lloyd Loar took the stage with his 10-string MV-5, and made a convincing argument for the additional strings.

Cadenza, July, 1923. As an aside, the act following Loar, the guitarist Johnson Bane, who played with high nut and slide, was accompanied by Margie Griffith on piano. By the end of 1923 she would own the only Loar signed A-5.

The Gibsonians continued to make appearances throughout the program. Charles Templeman was elected to the board of directors in the opening meeting. At the final business meeting on Wednesday, Lloyd Loar and James Johnstone were tasked to create “Standards of Attainment” for mandola and tenor banjo, respectively. When the meeting adjourned, the Oak Room of the Raleigh Hotel was prepared for the banquet and final concert, which went on well into the “wee hours.”

Guild convention members toward the end of the banquet, prepared for a concert that would include Lloyd Loar and the Gibsonians with Fisher Shipp.

Cadenza, July 1923. We assume that there were other selections in their concert, but at this point we have no further documentation.

Gibson F-5 73006, signed by Lloyd Loar and dated April 25, 1923. (Photo by Emma McCoury, courtesy Ronnie McCoury)

The April 25 fourteen! Incredible mandolins, mysterious labels! When? Why? Where?

During the past year, we have carefully plotted Lloyd Loar’s whereabouts; this is the first occasion where we have clear evidence that he was not at the factory during a signing date. Did he sign and date labels ahead of time, at the hotel, or after he returned? One plausible explanation, they were signed in advance to accommodate a shipping schedule. Below, we have plotted all the known signature dates from the first half of 1923 in a futile search for a pattern or schedule.

The known signature dates for F-5 in the first half of 1923. (Thanks to Dan Beimborn’s excellent “Mandolin Archive,” for making this exercise possible).

Was April 25th selected to commemorate the the Guild Convention? Did the anticipation for a boost in sales after the convention affect the process? (There is evidence that the exhibit did create demand for the F-5. All the artist/teacher/agents mentioned above purchased and/or brokered multiple Master Models over the next few years). Why the pen with the extra fine nib instead of pencil?

These are extraordinary instruments, and our devotion to this study will continue as we search for greater understanding. Let us hear from our readers: What do you think?

In putting together this episode, I am deeply indebted to the following friends: Steve Gilchrist, for images, ideas, exhaustive knowledge, and his unswerving support of this project from the beginning; Tom Isenhour for images, knowledge of the mandolins, ideas and readiness to help; Darryl Wolfe (F-5 Journal) and Dan Beimborn (Mandolin Archive) whose works I keep at my fingertips; Scott Tichenor for his support through the incredible resource at Mandolin Cafe, and especially Ronnie McCoury for sharing his great mandolin and Emma McCoury for the breathtaking photos! Thank you all! I’ll be back next month with another episode of Breaking News 1923!

Episode 4: April Showers Bring May Flowerpots

April 12, 2023

The 1923 Edition of the Gibsonian Concert Orchestra. L to R: Ethyle Hindbaugh Johnstone; Charles A. Templeman; James P. Johnstone; Lloyd A. Loar; Margaret Licthi. Not shown: Fisher Shipp (Mrs. Lloyd Loar). Crescendo Vol XVI #2 August 1923.

Advertisement for the Concert on April 12, 1923. Star-Gazette, Elmira, New York, Apr 11, 1923, Page 12

Charles Avril Templeman, multi-instrumentalist, orchestra leader and Gibson artist/teacher/agent, was on the faculty as music teacher and band leader at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. Loar had met Templeman at the Guild Convention in 1922, and on July 26, when Loar and company played in Davenport and Muscatine, Iowa, he took the opportunity to spend time with Templeman. Templeman had organized an orchestra of over thirty members in Sioux City, Iowa, and his quintet, which featured his family members, had achieved local notoriety. Young daughter Hazel, especially, drew considerable attention with her skill on the Lyon & Healy Harp. In 1922, it had been announced that Miss Templeman would add her harp to the Gibsonians in 1923, but this does not seem to have come to pass, at least not for the first tour in April. Loar had also been impressed with another Sioux City musician just out of high school, Marguerite Lichti, with her “kind heart and quiet manner.” Miss Lichti excelled as guitar soloist, and also performed on mandola in the orchestra. James Johnstone, who had founded the Gibsonian Concert Orchestra, was once again on tap for mando-bass. We notice that his 1923 bass no longer had the large position markers of the 1922 instrument, which had presumable been installed to compensate for Johnstone’s poor eyesight. Fisher Shipp again led the group with her gift for entertainment and notoriety as performer. Johnstone’s wife, Ethyle, completed the troop as second mandolinist, moving Lloyd Loar to first mandolin in the ensemble selections.

Star-Gazette, Elmira, New York, Apr 13, 1923 · Page 9

In April of 1923, in addition to his role as musical director and performer with the Gibsonian Concert Orchestra, Lloyd Loar was undoubtedly engaged in a shower of activity as acoustic engineer at Gibson Mandolin and Guitar Company, signing off on newly completed F-5 mandolins.

In March and April of 1923, there was a curious phenomenon from Loar’s pen. Typically, on a given signing date, a number of mandolins from within a batch or batches were launched with the distinctive signature. One signature date (March 31, 1924) yielded over 60 instruments! From what we can discern from mandolins currently known, there appears to be a number of single instruments in the spring of 1923: in March, 72361 on the 8th; 72450 on the 16th; 72615 on the 27; in April, 72663 on the 2nd; 72799 on the 10th. On April 12, there was a small batch, with numbers ranging from 72853 to 72859, inclusive.

To make those signature dates, which we assume took place at the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, Loar must have spent a bit of time back and forth on the train, as his concert schedule, which was a key element in marketing the instruments, was also taking off. Loar’s performances for 1923 had actually begun on March 7, most likely before the Gibsonians had begun rehearsal.

Lansing State Journal, Lansing, Michigan, March 7, 1923,

Between this concert on March 7 and the first of April, Charles Templeman and Margret Licthi made their way from Sioux City to Kalamazoo to begin rehearsals. The first show with the entire group took place at the Lincoln Theater in Kalamazoo on April 6. Mrs. Edna Dole Wilcox, who had toured with the Gibsonians in 1921, attended the show with a number of her students and reviewed the performance with enthusiastic accolades in the Battle Creek Enquirer. On April 7, the troop made their way to Cleveland, Ohio, where Loar’s friend and virtuoso/teacher/orchestra leader Walla Zeller had organized a venue to host them. Similarly, Roy Veiock of New Brighton, Pennsylvania, hosted the Gibsonians at Veiock Music. Did Loar bring the gorgeous F-5 #72211? Was it then that Veiock first saw it?

Gibson F-5 72211, signed by Lloyd Loar on February 26, 1923.

Roy Veiock’s business card and a photograph of his music store in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, as it appeared in the 1920s. Mr. Veiock hosted the Gibsonian Concert Orchestra here in April of 1923 and may have arranged the purchase of his mandolin at that time.

Crescendo, May, 1923. Jenkins Music, which did indeed host the 1922 Gibsonians, was located in Kansas City. We have not located a Jenkins Music in N.Y. in 1923. Similarly, we have also been unable to identify the F.A.Jenkins at this time.

Stock certificate issued to Lloyd Loar on April 3, 1923.

The Gibsonians were scheduled to attend the American Guild Convention April 22-25, and Gibson had signed up to display at the exhibit hall during those days. Those who study Gibson serial numbers and signature dates realize that April 25, 1923, is an important date. How could Lloyd Loar be in two places at once? Stay tuned for our next essential episode, “A Capitol Idea!”

Episode 3: "The World Hears A New Tone"

March 07, 2023

The initial flier advertising the Gibson model F-5 mandolin, “The Master Model,” appeared in March of 1923. (high quality reproduction courtesy Tom Isenhour)

The March 1923 issue of the Cadenza magazine opened at the center to a two-page advertisement entitled “Again The World Hears A New Tone.” With that, the campaign to market the new Master Model mandolin officially began. With typical Gibson hyperbole, the F-5 was proclaimed the most important innovation in the mandolin world since Orville Gibson carved the first mandolin soundboard.

Cadenza Vol. XXX, #3, March 1923, center pages, 16-17.

The first Master Models appeared in 1922. It had been a long time coming, the result of a team of talented people infused with the work ethic that was often a hallmark of that era. Lloyd Loar had brought ideas and innovation as well as aggressive supervision and a demand for perfection; Lewis Williams, General Manager and founding member of Gibson Mandolin and Guitar Company, supported such innovation and was an inventor himself; in the factory, the foreman Victor Kraske had already put a violin-type f-hole into a Gibson mandolin almost twenty years earlier and we suspect he may have been a key element in the creation of the new mandolin. Superb craftsmen, many of them immigrants, commanded space at the workbenches: Hans Larsen, Adrian Glerum, John Patterson, John Voisine, and George Altermatt to name a few; Ted McHugh had moved from his position as foreman to construction engineer; Henry T. Reeves, draftsman, worked alongside McHugh; machine operator Joseph P. Curtiss may have played a key role; and Fred Miller and Cornelius Kivet, former painters in the automotive industry, created the “Gibson Cremona” varnish finish. (For a more complete list of woodworkers, machinist, draftsmen, finishers and inventors who worked for Gibson during the Loar Era, see “Breaking News 1922, April 5, 1922, ‘Shape Brace To This.’”) In the office, stenographer/musicians such as Dorothy Campbell and Nell VerCies helped design and reproduce advertisements, such as the one above, and kept up the correspondence with the teacher/agents across the country. (By night, these multi-talented young women performed on Gibson instruments in the all-girl orchestra, “The Gibson, Melody Maids.”) In a final operation unique in the annals of music manufacturing, The Gibsonians, professional musicians led by Lloyd Loar and including such brilliant instrumentalists as Walter Kaye Bauer, carried the first of these new instruments throughout the mid-west and Canada, playing over 100 engagements, testing, trying and approving them under the most extreme conditions. (See Breaking News 1922, August 4, 1922, “On The Road”) The Master Model was now ready for “the world to hear.”

Gibson factory as it appeared when Lloyd Loar first moved to Kalamazoo. Left, the stringing department, James P. Johnstone (with glasses) foreman; Right, one section of the woodworking department. Gibson Catalog “M” 1921.

In March of 1923, what was the world actually hearing? Gibson had high hopes that at the upcoming Guild Convention in April the mandolin world would be dazzled by the qualities of the new instruments. However, at around the same time Gibson was turning out the first batches of new mandolins, a 22-year-old African-American musician from New Orleans got off the train in Chicago. His name was Louis Armstrong. He had arrived at the invitation of his longtime idol and mentor, Joe Oliver, to join “King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band.” From across the midwest and beyond, music fans, both black and white, overflowed Chicago’s Lincoln Gardens to hear them every night. Their first recording session, scheduled for April 5, 1923, showcased their brilliant new star, and knocked the world of music on its ear. Armstrong had begun a career that would lift jazz out of the dins of iniquity and transform it into a truly American an art form.

Left to Right: Honore Dutrey, trombone; “Baby” Dodds, drums; King Oliver, trumpet; Louis Armstrong (kneeling), trombone and trumpet; Lil’ Hardin, piano; Bill Johnson, banjo; Johnny Dodds, clarinet. (Photo: , Jazz Archive)

“Moral disaster is coming to hundreds of young American girls through the pathological, nerve-irritating, sex-exciting music of jazz, according to the Illinois Vigilance Association. In Chicago alone, the association representatives have traced the fall of one thousand girls in the last two years to jazz music.” New York American, January, 1921.

Young ladies performed the “Charleston” dance to Jazz music and adopted short haircuts and hem lines that ended well above the ankle.

By March of 1923, the jazz age was in full swing. Prohibition had resulted in an opposite effect than intended. Alcohol consumption skyrocketed. In New York City alone, where, in 1918, there were only a few neighborhood pubs, there were now over 5000 speakeasies. A multi-million dollar illegal industry—controlled by mobsters—sprang up overnight. Every speakeasy boasted a raucous scene and equally raucous music. Young people flocked to the joints to enjoy the frenzied new dances and all-night revelries. Young women sported short hair and what for those times were considered shockingly short hem-lines. Some even formed all-girl jazz bands and played the new music to packed houses.

The Ingenues, circa 1925. These young women were a sensation as they toured the US from their home base in Chicago.

What did this mean for the professional mandolin player? The traditionalists continued playing the music as before, which was based on European tradition. Many agreed with the Illinois Vigilance Association, expressing rage at the loss of moral integrity and predicted a quick demise for the “noise” called jazz and a tragic end to those who participated in the primitive gyrations. Virtuosi like Samuel Segal and Giuseppe Pettine found audiences in Europe more receptive to their performances.

On the other hand, for many musicians, the situation created unprecedented opportunities for employment for those willing to take a walk on the wild side. Of course, this meant embracing the new sounds, and learning to play them, and in many cases, for the sake of volume, switching from mandolin to the tenor banjo, or mandolin banjo. Gibson stalwart, James P. Johnstone, was an early proponent of the new sounds and sought to bring other plectrum players along, finding a place for it in the existing system of mandolin clubs. His emphasis on banjo music and rhythm earned him the nickname, “Jumping Jazz Johnstone.” In an article for the Crescendo, Johnstone explains: “Jazz playing is nothing more or less than ragtime or syncopation only in a more intensified form. The various styles of syncopation are learned and then applied to any given melody. The book that I have written and published is, I believe, the only book of its type entirely devoted to jazz playing, and I’ve tried to illustrate, as far as can be done with printers ink, all the styles of syncopation and their method of application. The article covers the subject more or less without the aid of printed music. Jazz playing after all, is just stuttering, and the more you can stutter over a melody the more you were jazzing it. Foxtrots in 4/4 time are best adapted to jazz playing as there are more whole and half notes to stutter over.” James P. Johnstone, Crescendo, July 1920.

James “Jazz” Johnstone, on right, and Wyatt W. Berry, “stuttering” with banjos at the Gibson factory. The Gibson banjo had found a place for novelty tunes in mandolin clubs, but at this point, all the commercial jazz players preferred other brands. Those with lucrative earnings were often seen with Paramount banjos.

Lloyd Loar took a broader view. In a lengthy article entitled “Is Jazz Constructive or Destructive” in “Melody Magazine,” he defended both camps equally and with prophetic insight, proposed a musical synthesis—a melting pot—that would eventually contribute to the development of a unique and truly American music that would have a place for all instruments, including the mandolin, and especially the F-5.

“While Jazz is a rather indefinite term, we might say it is a more highly seasoned dish than the one we were fed a few years ago. The extra seasoning may consist of more intricate or insistent rhythms, dashes of more brilliant tone color, or greater variety of harmonic material. The constructive effect jazz has had on popular music is decidedly noticeable. The improvement will continue; good taste and a liking for beauty will keep on working their constructive changes and the first thing we know we will have a national music liked and understood by all of us!”—Lloyd Loar, Melody Magazine, June, 1924, “Is Jazz Constructive or Destructive?”

The one person who understood the entertainment potential of the new music and the place the F5 would fit into it was Dave Apollon.

Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa, Sunday, May 10, 1936,

On December 3, 1928, the headline of the Indianapolis Times read: “Hot Jazz Music is Big Indiana Hit.” The article refers to an appearance by none other than “Dave Apollon and his string orchestra with his Broadway Review.” Apollon realized the F5 was an instrument that could fulfill the needs of the modern player and be heard even above jazz rhythms. His lavish production included dazzling instrumentals and vocals and young women dancing the new dances while sporting short haircuts and even shorter outfits. Apollon understood that if he were to maintain his stardom, he must give jazz fans of the prohibition era the show of a lifetime. The difference of course, was that instead of cornets and saxophones, the girls danced to mandolin music!

Dave Apollon with Gibson F-5, most likely #73009, signed April 25, 1923. Inscription reads “To Gibson Co. many thanks for the wonderful instrument. Sincerely, Dave Apollon.” (photo courtesy Tom Isenhour)

Episode 2: "Carved and Shaped Like a Violin"

February 21, 2023

Gibson F-5 72211 signed by Lloyd Loar on February 26, 1923. The “Tiger” Loar.

Unique, not only for its striking appearance, immaculate condition and crystal clear tone, this 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolin has hidden secrets. Was 72211 on the bench as a pattern in the spring of 1922 when the first F-5s were made? Then, was it assembled later for a very important showcase?

“Shape this brace to this” in blue ink, written in Lloyd Loar’s distinctive cursive by the treble tone bar.

Pencil lines made with a straight-edge outlining the placement of the tone bars,

Curious yellow stains in rather odd places. This one, on the inside of the maple back behind the neck-block.

Altoona Tribune, Altoona, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1923.

On Saturday morning, February 24, 1923, Russell and Riggs Music of Altoona, Pennsylvania, invited customers to come play a “fine new mandolin…with sweet tone of harp,” available at an explosive list price of $200. Gibson planned to unveil the F-5 on April 22, 1923, at the American Guild Convention in Washington D.C., and had coordinated scores of print media ads and articles to be published in March and April. Meanwhile, F-5s were already being delivered to Gibson agents across the country. Russell and Riggs served a hot bed of mandolinists in western Pennsylvania, including some of the first Loar F-5 owners, such as Percy V. Lichtenfels, Paul Weible, Charles Dunford, and Roy Balser Veiock.

Roy Veiock, on left, in the 1914 Gibson catalog “I,” p. 29.

The original owner of 72211 was Roy Balser Veiock, “teacher, soloist, and mandolin orchestra conductor” of New Brighton, Pennsylvania. Such an extraordinarily beautiful mandolin may have been earmarked for the Gibson display at the convention, and Veiock may have purchased it there in 1923. In 1924, he and his students joined the convention orchestra performing H. F. Odell’s “The Crescendo March,” with Mr. Veiock on his beautiful new F-5.

Veiock Music at 507 14th St. in New Brighton was a very successful music merchandiser. Judging by the newspaper ads in the 1920s, much of their commercial focus was on pianos and radios. In an addition to providing Gibson instruments for his students, Veiock had dealerships with the Federal, Steinitz, Atwater and other well-known radio brands, and Starr, Foster Cable, Nelson, Remington, and Colonial pianos. They encouraged their customers to “name your own terms.’

The Evening News, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) · Monday, Apr 16, 1928 Page 12

On April 15, 1928, Roy Veiock was returning home from a visit to his brother’s house when tragedy struck. His death must have devastated his family and the entire mandolin community. The Tiger Loar remained in the case, silent, for many years.

Why “carved like a violin?” Why arch top, f-hole? Since 1064 when William the Troubadour (William IX of Acquitaine) “had brought the song up out of Spain / with the singers and viels” (Ezra Pound, Canto VIII), the mandolin and its ancestors were built with round or oval sound holes, flat or bent tops and bowl backs. After almost 900 years, what inspired such a radical departure from tradition? Why do the names “Cremona” and “Stradivarius” continue to come up when marketing mandolins?

For the answer, we look back another 20 years to find a petite young women with a very big sound and an extraordinary violin.

Marie Hall, at 28, poised to conquer the world of music.

In our opinion, the English violinist, Marie Hall, ignited Cremona fever in the United States in the early decades of the 20th Century. Miss Hall had just turned thirty when she left London for a six-year world tour. She was at the top of her game, having dazzled the classical cognoscenti of Europe since she was a teenager. The American leg of her tour lasted from late 1905 through 1907. She filled every concert hall with brilliant performances and incredible tones on the 1709 Stradivarius violin known as the “Viotti.” Beginning with her debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Wednesday, November 5, she blazed a trail of momentous performances, leaving violin fans stunned in her wake.

She arrived in Chicago for a performance on Thanksgiving Day. The Thanksgiving concert was poorly attended, but the few people who were there reported so enthusiastically that on December 2, Orchestra Hall was packed with a standing-room-only crowd. It was a landmark event for Chicago’s music lovers. From there she toured relentlessly across the nation, including many smaller cities in the midwest. In April of 1907, she returned to Chicago for her final midwestern concert on April 4 at Chronicle Hall.

The Inter Ocean, Chicago, Illinois, Nov 26, 1905

Remnant from the program at the Chicago concert, November 25, 1906.

Off to San Francisco by train, then ship to Australia, the Pacific Islands (where she worried incessantly about the distress of the humidity on her violin) and finally, South Africa in 1910, where she earned £10,000, reportedly the highest fee ever paid a violinist for a single tour.

Often her diminutive size caused reviewers to refer to her as frail, and point out the contrast between her appearance and the majesty of the sounds coming from the violin. Everywhere her performance was praised and it was almost always pointed out that the sound of her violin was “magnificent,” “heard in every seat, even in the back of the third balcony.”

What does Marie Hall and the “Viotti” Stradivarius violin have to do with Lloyd Loar and the F-5?

On December 18, 1905, Lloyd Loar’s younger brother Jonathan died at the Loar family home in Lewiston, Illinois. Lloyd left college and went to be with his family during this tragic time. Oberlin records show that he did not graduate in the spring of 1906 with the rest of his class, nor is there any indication he came back to school after New Year’s Day, 1906. By the spring of 1906, he was on tour full time with the Fisher Shipp Concert Company.

At the same time as the passing of the 17-year-old Jonathan Loar, in late December of 1905, Miss Fisher Shipp of Brookfield, Missouri, was absent from a number of engagements with the Oilenbein Male Quartet with whom she had appeared throughout the mid-west for the previous three years. She was already a regional star, and well known in Missouri society. By early 1906 Miss Shipp had signed with the Columbia Concert Company in Chicago, and had invited Lloyd Loar, mandola, and Freda Bethig, violin, to join her as they performed in many of the same towns and venues as Marie Hall.

In 1905, Victor Kraske was in Chicago building banjos and mandolins under his own name, and was associated with Orville Gibson. In 1906 Kraske left Chicago to work for Gibson in Kalamazoo when the first f-hole Gibson Artist Mandolin was built (See Shape Brace to This, Episode 4). What inspired him to put f-holes in one of Orville Gibson’s designs?

In a departure from our preferred adherence to primary source information, we cannot resist the following conjectures.

Were Victor Kraske and Lloyd Loar—and perhaps even Orville Gibson— in the audience when Miss Hall took the stage in Chicago in 1905? Were they stunned with the power, tone and projection of the instrument? Did they meet her backstage for a chance to inspect the “Viotti” Stradivarius? Did this amazing instrument and brilliant young virtuosa inspire Loar to embark on a twenty-year journey to excel as musician and create a better mandolin as acoustical engineer?

Now, consider Mrs. Andersons’ dinner party. At 10:30 pm. on February 5, 1906, thirty guests were treated to a private house concert by none other than Marie Hall. The hostess was Mrs. Ardell Anderson of Kansas City, Missouri, and her guest list included the crême de la crême of society. At midnight, they all dined in the grandest style. Shipp had already performed for President Roosevelt and had tremendous social standing in Missouri. This was a short distance from Miss Shipp’s home, where her 1906 concert group were most likely already rehearsing. Was Fisher Shipp one of the guests at Mrs. Anderson’s party? Were Lloyd Loar and Freda Bethig there?

The Kansas City Star and The Kansas City Times (Kansas City, Missouri) ·Feb 6, 1906, Page 12

L to R: Lloyd Loar, Fisher Shipp, Francis “Mamie” Allen and Freda Bethig. Were they inspired by Marie Hall?

Whether this thesis is a revelation, or the product of imagination run wild, in the wake of Marie Hall the word “Cremona” became a buzz word for music in America that Gibson continued to apply to mandolins over the next century. And while a study of violins like the Viotti Stradivarius may have been a jumping off place, the Tiger Loar represents the culmination of a vision twenty years in the making.

Episode 1: "The Most Momentous Development"

February 07, 2023

“The Gibson” F-5 72060, signed by Lloyd Loar, February 8, 1923, .

“The Crescendo,” Vol. XV, #8, February, 1923, p. 19.

The February 1923 Crescendo magazine, which was mailed from Boston on January 27, contained a mysterious, auspicious announcement promising a “most momentous development.” By the time the magazine arrived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on February 8, Lloyd Loar was putting his signature, with his unique flourish of the fountain pen, to another batch of labels to be affixed into finished F-5 mandolins. His signature, in his capacity as “acoustic engineer,” had already appeared on June 1, November 28 and December 20 in 1922, and January 5 and 12 in 1923.

The maiden voyage of the F-5 during the summer of 1922 had been a big success. Lloyd Loar and his “Gibsonian Orchestra” had showcased the new designs in mandolin and banjo family instruments, playing Loar’s own compositions and arrangements. At over one hundred venues in midwestern United States and Canada, the initial response had been tremendous. The Gibson Mandolin Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan, had every reason to expect a huge demand for the new instruments.

Many modern writers have concluded that the mandolin orchestra movement was extinct by the 1920s. Many young music lovers and dancers had embraced the new sounds and rhythms, and the banjo had grown significantly in popularity. However, in the December issue of the Cadenza, Walter Kaye Bauer, who had performed with The Gibsonian Orchestra in 1922, published a list of well over a hundred mandolin ensembles still very much alive in February of 1923. Many incorporated the banjo alongside the mandolin with a variety of repertoire. While not all these ensembles were “Gibsonites,” most of the F-5s known to have been sold between 1923 and 1927 were in the hands of players in one or another of these ensembles. In some instances, popular big band leaders appropriated F-5s for multi-instrumentalists to add color to appropriate selections.

In the same article, Bauer listed active small ensembles (see below). Nearly all these groups had at least one F-5 mandolin by 1927. Some even featured the H-5 mandola and a few had a K-5 mando-cello.

“The Cadenza,” Vol. XXIX #12, December 1922, pps. 35-37.

In addition to the f-hole, carved-top design and the “Gibson Cremona” finish that were the hallmarks of the F-5, a unique innovation appeared early in 1923 and became almost standard issue by 1924: The Virzi Tone Producer.

The “Virzi Tone Producer” from Feb 8, 1923 F-5 72060, one of the first mandolins to receive the Virzi Tone Producer at the time of manufacture. Photographed in situ, exactly as it was installed in 1923.

Violin makers Giuseppe and Giovanni Virzi from St. Agata, Messina, Sicily, learned their craft in the shop of their father, Rosario Virzi, master wood carver, cabinet maker and musical instrument maker. Younger brother Giovanni, who had made and played violins and mandolins in Sicily, arrived in New York City on May 4, 1907, and, according to immigration records, Giuseppe and his family were already settled there. On March 25, 1914, after a wood-buying trip to Italy, Giuseppe returned to New York on the ship “Hamburg.” At that point, the brothers began working in earnest at their workshop at 503 Fifth Avenue. They became celebrated for their high-quality violins modeled after a Stradivarius loaned to them by a “Mr. Betti.” They used old Italian wood exclusively and made an oil varnish of their own formula in either golden yellow or reddish yellow color. On July 30, 1920, the News Journal of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was first to announce the invention of a secondary vibrating surface to be suspended inside a violin top, which created a “striking quality of sound” even when installed in “ordinary, inexpensive instruments.” A US patent for a “Tone Amplifier for Stringed Instruments, Giuseppe Virzi, inventor,” was applied for October 21, 1920, and granted April 11, 1923. It is unclear exactly when Lloyd Loar became interested in their work, but by 1922 he was experimenting with the device in mandolin family instruments. It seems possible that, like so many of the outsourced appointments of Gibson instruments, that the actual “Amplifier” for mandolin that Gibson used may have been made at the Virzi shop in New York and shipped to Kalamazoo complete with label with serial number and Virzi logo. In addition to installing the device in new mandolins, Gibson created a revolving door approach, installing and/or removing the Virzi in existing mandolins at a charge of $15 for each operation. Many instruments from this period on through the 1930s show evidence of having had the back sawn off to facilitate this procedure. In 1923, a “Gibson” violin was marketed. Except for “The Gibson” label, it is our understanding that it was an instrument built by the Virzi Brothers in New York. Gibson’s relationship with Virzi continued through 1927, three years after Loar had left the company to work in publishing in Boston.

In 1923, the outside tip of the foot of the Virzi was removed to fit against the tone bar. The contacting surfaces of the foot were glued to the underside of the spruce top and the tone bar with hide glue.

Virzi Tone Producer removed from February 18, 1924 F-5. Note the outside tip of the feet has only a slight notch, quite different from the foot on the installation in the 1923 mandolin. By 1924, the position of the braces had been widened to accommodate the Virzi attachment. Some later models also had a small brad securing one of the feet to the top,

Below, Lloyd Loar’s first article on the Virzi Tone Producer, published in the Music Trade Review, December 16, 1922.

Music Trade Review, December 16, 1922 (continued from above).

While Loar describes the effects of the Virzi in his characteristic technical language, the modern audience may want to approach this as a subjective phenomena. In our experience, we have noticed that many Virzi mandolins have remarkable projection, and a sustain that seems to amplify the tremolo. While many players report a reduction in volume, in most cases, there is an opposite assessment by those listening at a distance. This effect is most profound when played acoustically in a concert hall with excellent acoustics.

The February 1923 edition of the Crescendo Magazine had another headline of great interest to the mandolinist: “Are you making arrangements to attend the Guild convention at Washington on April 22? As announced last month, there will be two concerts. The official hotel with be the Raleigh hotel at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Engage rooms ahead in order to secure proper accommodations.” Suffice it to say, big plans were being made in Kalamazoo, and the spring of 1923 will be the public unveiling of “the most momentous development!