The National String Instrument Corporation was formed to manufacture the first resonator guitars, known as resophonic guitars. National also produced resonator ukuleles and mandolins. The company was originally formed by John Dopyera, the luthier who invented the resonator, and musician George Beauchamp, a steel guitar player who had suggested to Dopyera the need for a guitar loud enough to play a melody over brass and other wind instruments.
In Los Angeles, the early 1920’s was quickly becoming the entertainment capital of the world. In this era, many guitarists sought instruments that could complete in volume with other instruments in the orchestra. Guitars were un-amplified string instruments in those days and were relegated to just adding to the rhythm section. It was not loud enough to be a lead instrument. Many frustrated guitar players that wished they could be compete with brass and reed instruments like the banjo did, but sound sweet like an acoustic guitar.
Musician and vaudeville promoter George Beauchamp, sought a louder, improved guitar to play at his gigs. Several inventors had already tried to build louder stringed instruments by adding megaphone-like amplifying horns to them. Beauchamp saw one of these and went looking for someone to build him one. John Dopyera, a violin repairman with a shop fairly close to Beauchamp’s Los Angeles home was asked to innovate and build a guitar that was louder and better than when was already available.
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In 1908, the Dopyeras emigrated from Slovakia to California, USA sensing a war would erupt in Europe. In the 1920s, Dopyera founded his own store in Los Angeles where he worked making and repairing fiddles, banjos, and other wooden string instruments. Around this time, Dopyera patented several improvements on the banjo. John Dopyera was one of 10 siblings.
John Dopyera, a Slovak-American took up the challenge. Dopyera was already a recognized inventor that had several patents for various ideas. Some were for improved Banjos, that Dopyera and his brother Rudy were building in the small shop. Beauchamp wanted his own idea built that featured an Hawaiian guitar that sat on a stand; a Victrola horn attached to the bottom and pointed towards the audience. The Dopyera’s did not think much of the idea, but built it for George Beauchamp as requested. It was a failure as it did not sound great.
John Dopyera had been thinking about resonator guitar for some time, so the Dopyeras then started experiments with thin, cone-like aluminum resonators attached to a guitar bridge and placed inside a metal body. The early prototype utilized a large aluminum single-cone resonator, but working through the issues John Dopyera found that using three smaller cones produced a smoother more balanced guitar sound. They called this the tri-cone resonator, sometimes referred to a triplate.
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John Dopyera had experienced with several prototypes using from one to four resonator cones. He found that as one cone was a bit louder, three produced a nicer musical tone. He had also tried several materials including paper, pressed fibre, glass, tin and other sheet metal to make the resonant cones. Thin Aluminum that looked like a loudspeaker worked he best. He used a cast aluminum bridge and an inserted wood saddle as he saw it transmitted the sound from the strings to the resonator cones best.
Beauchamp, impressed with the tri-cone design, suggested forming a manufacturing company with the Dopyeras, who had already started making the tri-cone guitars in their small workshop. The Dopyeras called these guitars Nationals, the same name they used on their Banjos. They probably made about 40 or more guitars before a factory was established.
Beauchamp, trying to find investors, took the tri-cone prototype and the Sol Hoopii Trio (a world-famous Hawaiian group) to a lavish party held by his millionaire cousin-in-law, Ted Kleinmeyer. Sol Hoopii was a top steel guitar player and was being paid $500 to entertain the guests. The guests were mesmerized by the sound of the new tai-cone in the hands of Sol Hoopii. Kleinmeyer was so excited about the guitar and the prospects for a new company that he gave Beauchamp a check for $12, 500 that night. That was quite a lot of money in the 1920s.
Dobro Effect For Steel Comments Welcome
In 1927, National produced the first resonator instruments and sold under their new National brand. They had metal bodies and a tri-cone resonator system, with three aluminium cones joined by a T-shaped aluminium spider. Production of the metal-body guitars began almost immediately. Beauchamp, acting as general manager, hired some of the most experienced and competent craftsmen he could find, including several members of his own family and the Dopyeras. They were quite popular in the days before electric guitars, but were relatively time consuming and expensive to manufacture. Many of these guitars are quite ornate and engraved with scenes like palm trees. Art-Deco meets superior and innovative design that made guitars louder in the era before electric guitars. Nationals not only sounded great they looked fantastic.
Sol Hoopii was the first musician known to record using a National Tri-cone. He was a top Hawaiian steel guitar player. Tampa Red was the first African-American Blues player to record with a National. He developed a clean bottleneck style on his gold-plated style 4 Tri-cone. With three resonator cones in this model, he hits us with a lot of single-string sweet sustain.
The National line of metal-bodied resonator instruments are the most uniquely American guitars ever made. These louder, shiny instruments were built to satisfy the need for a louder guitar for jazz bands and recording. They were intended for use by Hawaiians and white dance orchestra guitarists, but wound up in the hands of black blues performers, white hillbilly performers jazz and various ethnic guitarists. National made nickel silver, Hawaiian guitars, mandolins, tenor guitars, and ukuleles. Their design shows a strong Art Deco influence, very modernistic, and a true blending of art and industry.
Maple Street Guitars
The new tri-cone was a huge hit for the new National Company. A Chicago Musical Instrument Company, one of the country’s largest distributors, ad from December 1927 boasted that the National Silver Guitars were fastest selling items since the Saxophone. The tri-cone were being sold as Hawaiian and Spanish style guitars and later Tenor models arrived.
National’s partners decided to form a corporation and issue stock to raise more capital. The Dopyera brothers sold the trademarked National name to the corporation in exchange for common stock. The members of the organization were Ted Kleinmeyer, George Beauchamp, John Dopyera, Paul Barth, and Murray Ferguson. The first Board of Directors meeting was on February 29th, 1928.
The new factory and purchased equipment was located near Adolph Rickenbacher’s tool and die shop. Rickenbacker (later known as Rickenbacker), was a Swiss born and highly skilled production engineer with experience in a wide variety of manufacturing technique (also a relative of WWI flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker). Beauchamp was first introduced to Rickenbacker by Ted Kleinmeyer. Rickenbacker owned one of the largest deep-drawing presses on the West Coast. Rickenbacker was also a good businessman and had invested in National. Soon National asked him to help manufacture metal bodies for the National guitars. Later, Rickenbacker had the title of engineer in the National Company in 1930 catalog.
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By 1928, business was booming at National with every major steel guitar artists playing a tri-cone. Almost an overnight success. Wild parties and big spending followed, that did not look kindly by John Dopyera. The freewheeling spending and excesses pained him.
Unfortunately, internal disputes within the National company that were present from the very beginning, boiled over. One big dispute between George Beauchamp and John Dopyera was over a single-cone resonator. Beauchamp wanted them as they would be less expensive am a bit louder, but the perfectionist inside Dopyera had yet to find one that pleased his ear. This was already after a few failed attempts Beauchamp had with some of his other ideas, like a Bakelite (early plastic) neck. Dopyera felt lots of money was wasted on crazy unfounded ideas already by Beauchamp.
So by late 1928, the Dopyeras became very disgruntled with the management of the company and what they perceived was the wasting of resources. Probably the last straw for John Dopyera was he found out that Beauchamp claimed the patent for the single-cone resonator for himself.
National Resonator Dobro Guitar
Dopyera and Beauchamp lived in different worlds and apparently were at odds on every level of personal, business and social interaction. Dopyera was a frugal inventor that was very health conscious, while Beauchamp was more or an entertainment type that was free wheeling and liked to party. They found that they could not work together successfully. Another problem was Ted Kleinmeyer, who had inherited a million dollars at 21 and was trying to spend it all before turning 30 (when he would inherit another million). A Roaring ’20s party animal, successful losing money faster than he could make it, he started hounding Beauchamp for cash advances from National’s till. Beauchamp did not know how to handle him, creating a huge strain on the company.
John Dopyera, quit National in January 1929 assigning his stock interest to Ted Kleinmeyer. Basically, he
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