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Taraffo in the News
…and the timing is amazing. I was literally just about to post Franco’s new chapter in our growing Taraffo archive, when my email inbox offered up a note from Stephen Bennett, forwarded from one of...
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Regal Archives
Did I mention that the first-ever book on “Regal” brand instruments came out at the beginning of the year? Shame on me. I guess it’s because there wasn’t much harp guitar-related material that...
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If This Harp Guitar Could Talk…
…oh, the stories it could tell. Because, while we may know very little specifically about this instrument, an attractive Mozzani chitarra lyra ad un braccio, we know that its path, and that of its...
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More Non-Harp Harp-Guitars
There are plenty of instruments that people often confuse with harp guitars, perhaps none more so then 6-string guitars of the hollow arm variety. Readers are already familiar with many such...
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And More Guitar Books
I realized after my little rant last month (thanks to all who supported me, btw) that I hadn’t followed my own advice last year when I invited a photographer into our home for two days of shooting...
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Francisco Pistoresi’s Diamenophone
Here’s an interesting one! It’s also about as rare and obscure a find as you can get. Like some of my other recent blogs, it’s not actually a harp guitar, as one can plainly see – though the hollow...
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More Harp Guitars in Movies
We interrupt our ongoing HGG10 series for this brief diversion. A third person now – Michael Simmons – has spotted the harp guitar in the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein. It occurs about 50 minutes...
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D. D. Yokeley, We Hardly Knew Ye
Here’s a charming, albeit unfinished, story to cap off our year. I just snagged this off eBay and it arrived Christmas Eve: a press photo taken 1/29/64 and published in the St. Petersburg Times on...
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Black History Month, Part 1: African-American Harp Guitarists
Every time February rolls around and I see all the advertised “celebrate Black History Month” events (my own highly diverse Northrop-Grumman company goes all out), I ponder doing a Players Feature on...
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Black History Month, Part 2: James Reese Europe and the Clef Club Orchestra
Man, talk about making it under the wire! I had to get this blog up today (the last day of February) without fail. The second part of February’s special Players feature in honor of Black History Month...
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Payne Management
I miss my little title puns…gotta find a way to do more of those… I received this great new Lester Payne image awhile back from my friend in mandolin & HG historical research, Jim Garber....
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Meet the Garp
What does one do with a now-useless Gibson harp guitar missing its entire bass section? Turn it into a 6-string? Hang it in the repair shop until further notice? For the creative Soren Venema, the...
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Roy Butin, Revealed at Last
Well, it’s taken over a hundred years, but the world now has its first glimpse of the most famous, most-recorded, early American harp guitarist in history: Roy Hunter Butin. Sadly, after all this time,...
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Calling All Women Harp Guitarists
This is pretty cool – She Shreds – a guitar mag for and about women guitar players (of all styles). I thought it was a good cause, so donated the Knutsen Payne School photo (with the blessing of...
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HGG11: Sir Gregory on Super-Trebles
As I wait for photos from our Certified Harp Guitar Photographer Chuck Thompson, I’ll jump ahead a bit… As mentioned in the 11th Harp Guitar Gathering overview, for my segment on Saturday just before...
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Dennis Cinelli: 195- to 2012
During the Harp Guitar Gathering last month, Mark Farley was telling me of a new piece he was composing: a threnody (a piece composed as a memorial to someone deceased) for two of his guitar/lute/music...
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The Harp Guitar of Boris Perott
“I have Dr. Boris Perott’s Russian Harp Guitar.” That was the curious, intriguing subject line of an out-of-the-blue email I received over two years ago, and my introduction to what eventually became a...
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Harwood Harp Guitar Updates
A couple months back, this beautiful c.1895 cabinet card sold on eBay (for a record price). I was sorry not to get it, mainly because I was hoping for a better scan; this one is frustratingly blurry....
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J. Hopkins Flinn: America’s First Harp Guitarist?
Never heard of him? Neither had I. No one has. He’s not only the earliest named harp guitarist in America we’ve unearthed to date, but may have actually “invented” the first fully American harp...
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African-American Harp Guitarists, Revisited
Exactly one year ago, I published the special Harpguitars.net article Black Harp Guitar Players in honor of Black History Month. This February I am again celebrating the topic with some recent new...
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