|
Post by Michael Messer on May 12, 2019 12:21:14 GMT
This has just turned up on social media.
Rare footage of Sol Hoopii, Sol K Bright and other Hawaiian musicians in the 1934 movie "Down To Their Last Yacht", performing the classic song "There's Nothing Else To Do In Ma-La-Ka-Mo-Ka-Lu". A real gem! So far it's the only proper footage of Sol Hoopii playing a National Tricone. It is sad to see these great musicians portrayed in this tacky way and it's an awful version of the classic Hawaiian song, but it is the only moving footage I know of Sol Hoopii playing a Tricone. (Sol Hoopii is the larger of the two Hawaiian guys playing Tricones, he is on our right, next to the guy playing the harp guitar. The guy to the left of Sol K Bright appears to be playing a Triolian) Who are the other musicians in the film?
This is how that song should sound. It's a whole different thing.
Shine On Michael
|
|
|
Post by snakehips on May 13, 2019 8:43:11 GMT
PS. Am I imagining it, OR does Sol's Tricone body look deeper than standard ??? Quite a bit engraving on the side too.
|
|
|
Post by Michael Messer on May 13, 2019 9:39:59 GMT
I think there were two Tricones made for Sol. It does appear deeper in the movie and in this photo which is a still from that movie session, but I am thinking that is an illusion as I have never heard anyone speak about that detail. There was a time when a small crowd of us would talk well into the early hours about Sol's Tricones and their existence! There is one photo that I can't find, and that is the one of Sol's guitar on the piano in the big band shot. Shine On Michael
|
|
|
Post by snakehips on May 13, 2019 11:22:32 GMT
Hi again !
That movie still definitely seems to show a much deeper guitar body, and binding on the headstock, with a black face and pearl large shield ???
Oh, and in no pictures, have they put the tuners on the wrong way round, with the tuner buttons facing upwards, like the fashion seems to be these days !
|
|
|
Post by snakehips on May 13, 2019 11:56:44 GMT
Hi again !
I was just copying the movie still photo on my PC to send to someone - and noticed the file name includes the words "... with his National Tri-cone deep body guitar" - so it's not just me who has thought it has a deep body !
|
|
|
Post by Michael Messer on May 13, 2019 12:27:22 GMT
This is really difficult to know for sure, but going through the film inch by inch I agree that Sol's guitar looks deeper than any other that I have seen. Why or how that exists is impossible to know at this time. It appears to be a production Tricone, not a handmade one like Sol K Bright is playing. I don't understand what happened here because of the tooling implications. It is possible that it is a handmade one, and we think we know what its number would be, but it will take more research. We could all go round in circles on this, but we are looking into how, what, if.... etc.
Shine On Michael
|
|
|
Post by Michael Messer on May 13, 2019 18:57:30 GMT
Here you go... so we can see the two guitars in better detail. Sol Hoopii's is the one we are examining and researching. Mark is currently writing a detailed explanation of what he and one or two other researchers have come up with about this very early period. Mark pretty much knows the serial number of this guitar, even if he doesn't know what it actually is. The film was released in 1934, so it was probably shot in 1933, which is five or six years past those early experimental days and when Sol's Tricone with his name on the side was built. From doing a few calculations today, Sol's Tricone appears to be approximately 1" deeper than a standard one. If that is the case, it was a one-off test model that never went beyond one guitar. Sol Hoopii's Tricone.... Sol K Bright's Tricone.... Shine On Michael
|
|
|
Post by creolian on May 13, 2019 20:37:53 GMT
This is really difficult to know for sure, but going through the film inch by inch I agree that Sol's guitar looks deeper than any other that I have seen. Why or how that exists is impossible to know at this time. It appears to be a production Tricone, not a handmade one like Sol K Bright is playing. I don't understand what happened here because of the tooling implications. It is possible that it is a handmade one, and we think we know what its number would be, but it will take more research. We could all go round in circles on this, but we are looking into how, what, if.... etc. Shine On Michael Hi Michael,all, Without knowing whats inside of it or how the back is shaped, A larger body will have an extended bass response at the expense of volume as compared to the standard dimension. I think its safe to assume that the larger body was intended to have a mellower voice. .02 Jeff
|
|
|
Post by Michael Messer on May 13, 2019 20:50:30 GMT
Jeff, in theory you are absolutely correct, but from past experience I have found deeper resonator bodies, especially metal ones, tend to start to sound a bit water-tank-like, and the clarity gets lost. I think they would have been trying for more volume in the pre-amplification days, but again that doesn't work either. If it was a handmade Tricone by John & Rudy it most likely had a flat back. However, because the grilles look like factory stamped grilles, anything could be possible. The headstock has binding around it and what appears to be an inlaid style four type sheild.This is definitely a one-off test instrument that I think was made back in the early experimental period in the mid to late 20s. Why Sol chose to use it in this 1933 film shoot.... only Sol would be able to answer that.
Every time we think we have found them all, another one comes along!
Shine On Michael
|
|
|
Post by creolian on May 13, 2019 21:37:26 GMT
Jeff, in theory you are absolutely correct, but from past experience I have found deeper resonator bodies, especially metal ones, tend to start to sound a bit water-tank-like, and the clarity gets lost. I think they would have been trying for more volume in the pre-amplification days, but again that doesn't work either. If it was a handmade Tricone by John & Rudy it most likely had a flat back. However, because the grilles look like factory stamped grilles, anything could be possible. The headstock has binding around it and what appears to be an inlaid style four type sheild.This is definitely a one-off test instrument that I think was made back in the early experimental period in the mid to late 20s. Why Sol chose to use it in this 1933 film shoot.... only Sol would be able to answer that. Every time we think we have found them all, another one comes along! Shine On Michael In the couple years here, Ive discovered Its a delicate interplay tween body size, porting, saddle height, break angle, string size, tension, and cone weight that will acoustically load the enclosure in such a way to optimize volume and get a desired frequency response. ( otherwise its a banjo ;-) I dont think Sol would have played a baggy sounding instrument which leads me to question the unseen... Watching that Vid, I can only imagine the texture of those different instruments combined. In that the metal guitars are playing the same thing during a lot of it, it makes sense to me to have different voices in a guitarchestra. Given the sound quality Im not sure, but I think I could differentiate between guitars in the mix. Most of the Hawaiin music that Im familiar with from that era is orchestra ensembles. I think Id be willing to pay rolling stone prices to hear Sol in person with no PA system to muck things up. As you mention Michael, its a lot of speculation at this point... mine is nothing but my assumption regarding getting a different voice into the mix. Given the way sound was recorded seperately for film in the 30s ( disc cutting lathe ) that guitar might just be a prop meant to confuse reso players in the future. 😲 Im curious as to what Mark has to say about this "custom shop" tri...
|
|
|
Post by Mark Makin on May 14, 2019 11:21:16 GMT
The Sol Hoopii guitar (with SOL HOOPII on the side) is still something of a mystery. What do we know about it? It was a handmade prototype made in 1926 by the Dopyeras to help promote the new National company. New photographs show that it has some small additional grilles on the bottom right corner of the top which are not dissimilar to the small grilles on the early protoype ukulele owned by Andy Griffiths the US TV star. Bob Brozman suggested the back was probably the back that is visible standing on a piano in the large Sol Hoopii orchestra picture featuring 13 other Nationals. This shows a style 3 pattern with a heart shape and an inscription. Bob had this style copied on a Triplate that NRP made for him as a custom instrument. However, this can't be accurate because the earliest recorded and perhaps even the first Style 3 made is #390. This was originally owned by Little Jimmy Dickens . It has letter "E" on the sides perhaps referring to Elizabeth Dopyera who designed it. This instrument dates to around January 1928 - a good two years after Sol's guitar was presented to him.
Marc Schoenberger (US's most reputable National guitar restorer and researcher) sent me an article in a magazine that he had found seeming to give details relating to what happened to Sol's famous guitar. It goes as follows:.... "As Hoopii gained traction on the California entertainment scene, his fame rose and the first instrument builder to be associated with him with the newly formed National string instrument Corporation, which in 1926 provided a prototype square- neck hollow body tri-cone resonator steel guitar with Hoopii's name etched along it's lower side. It was written off after being stolen before he got a tip one day that it was hanging above a cocktail bar in Oakland. He and his wife, Anna, paid a visit to the club, even after explaining the situation to the manager/owner he refused to relinquish it... But that's a whole 'nother story...."
Now comes the possible serial number issue. Let me go over what we have. #101. This is the first one. It now resides in the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, Southern CA. #102. This is featured in Brozman page 49. #103 we know is a Style1 with strip grilles and 7 extra diamonds. #106 is also the same. It seems logical that Sol's guitar should be 104 or 105. These would be the first squarenecks built that are more or less close to the finished article - still not production guitars but reasonably close.
Looking at the still picture from the film, it is obviously NOT Sol's famous triplate and I do agree that it definitely seems to be a deeper guitar body by around an inch or so. If National were still making body changes, then it should logically come from this early period and may possibly be #105. I don't think it is. Does it have thin strip grilles or is it a production stamped top? Maybe it is a later custom instrument made with a deeper handmade body but with a production top. It does seem, however to have the early long diamond fret marker on the 12th fret. It definitely has a stud tailpiece and what looks like a pearl chevron in the first fret. It would seem unlikely, almost impossible to produce new production dies for the deeper body for just one instrument. Either way, it would seem to be a custom handbuild in some form. As far as the pattern goes, I think there may be elements of a style 3 pattern visible on that film-still picture somewhere amid the relections of sol's skirt. As a conclusion and, in the light of these new pictures, I would suggest that the back of the guitar shown in the large orchestra picture is, more than likely this deeper bodied guitar that Sol is playing in the film and consequently probably was made around 1928/29. Its serial number is probably between 550 and 600.
While I'm on this subject of these early Sol Hoopii related instruments, it is worth mentioning that the guitar shown in the "Beauchamp Advert" on page 10 of Brozman is actually the same guitar being held by Glenwood Leslie on the left side of the famous Sol Hoopii Trio picture (Brozman p116). This one is also a possible contender to be #104 or #105.
Of course, there is the possiblity that these early Hoopii promotion instruments given to them by National never had any numbers at all!
|
|
|
Post by Michael Messer on May 14, 2019 13:38:16 GMT
This is excellent!
Thank you Mark for bringing us up to date with your knowledge on this particularly specialised area of National guitar history. To my knowledge, this is the first time anyone has written down what you have just documented.
We are very lucky to have your involvement in this forum.
This thread has taken such a turn in its direction and become so important since I started it a couple of days ago, and I hope nobody minds, but I have edited the conversational stuff out and moved it into the National Avenue section of this forum.
Shine On Michael.
|
|
|
Post by Michael Messer on May 14, 2019 18:50:55 GMT
|
|
|
Post by ukulelezaza on May 14, 2019 21:02:31 GMT
Great info about the squareneck that Sol is playing in that wonderful video! To me, the deep tricone doesn't look like an early prototype, it's too fancy. And it would have had the extra diamond holes, right? I tend to go with Mark's theory that it's the "piano" tricone. Do we know the exact year of that orchestra photo? The vinyl record it was used for says "ca. 1930".
Mark suggests the SOL HOOPII engraved tricone might not have a serial number. Totally makes sense to me. The version of the Sol-seeing-his-old-guitar-story that I've heard (from Greg Tutmarc) is that it was in a Greek restaurant in Seattle. When I heard it I thought: there mustn't have been many Greek restaurants in Seattle around that time, perhaps I should investigate. But then I thought: plenty of people must've done that already. But now that I hear a version with different data, it might be worth it after all?
Anyway, I uploaded that new Sol Hoopii video. Found the entire movie at some obscure Russian website. At the very end of the movie there's more footage from this scene, but you can only hear the music (solos) and the whole cast sings on top of that. I guess it's worth posting that bit too?
|
|
|
Post by Michael Messer on May 15, 2019 8:28:36 GMT
I know that Mark recently went through every movie that people claim Sol Hoopii was in, or contributed to, so yes please do post that clip of the film.
It is strange talking about Sol's guitars in such detail because it reminds me of conversations that Mark, me and one or two others used to have 30 years ago. We used to sit up all night talking about Sol's Tricones. Were we obsessed.... absolutely not!
Thanks
Shine On Michael.
|
|