Criminal Mandolin Players

[Bertram Henze]

Just saw a documentary about Vincenzo Peruggia, the famous thief who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 (and gave it back 2 years later).



Are there other famous criminals who played the mandolin?

[jaycat]

Depends on whether it's a misdemeanor to screw up a solo.

[Steve Zawacki]

There is a difference between criminal mandolin players and mandolin players whose play is criminal (I resemble the latter....).

[Givson]

Orville Wright was a mando picker - he broke the law of gravity.

[Tobin]

I can't find the thread now about the recently-infamous fake Loar, but what about the kid who was playing it? Can't remember his name, but he was pretty darn good and had quite a local following. If I remember correctly from the thread, he's spending some time in the pokey right now for something or other.

[F-2 Dave]

Al Capone.

[sunburst]

You mean convicted? How many of us have never broken a law?

[Eddie Sheehy]

Does that include gangsters that carried machine guns in mandolin cases?

Didn't Al Capone play the mandola?

[Charles E.]

This photo is from my friend, Marshall Wyatt, owner of Old Hat Records. It is a stringband in Central Prison, in Raleigh NC, circa 1910.

[Willie Poole]

My friend Buzz Busby spent some time behind bars, more than once I might add...

Willie

[Bertram Henze]

Thanks for all the answers. Al Capone is exactly the kind of guy I had hoped for. That prison band photo is also cool.

Yes, we all may have broken some law or other sometimes, but unless we get convicted we won't get famous for it.
And criminal solos don't count, nor does BG playing without a scroll.

[Beanzy]

I guess it depends on who's calling who criminal but Tibetan mandolinist Tashi Dondrup has been arrested a few times for subversive music.
He sings what the Chinese consider to be subversive songs ie: about the Dali Lama and Lhasa

[Bertram Henze]

I guess it depends on who's calling who criminal

The case of Peruggia is debatable, too. He never intended to make money with the Mona Lisa. I gather he had three reasons for stealing it:
- he felt that, since the picture was by an Italian artist, someone should bring it back home,
- he took it ill that the French always called him "Macaroni", and wanted to show them who's smart,
- he probably wasn't all that smart himself. He was a painter by trade. Paint contained much lead at the time, and he was treated once in a hospital for lead poisoning - lead is bad for the brain.
All in all, his act was pathetic rather than evil.

[SincereCorgi]

This photo is from my friend, Marshall Wyatt, owner of Old Hat Records. It is a stringband in Central Prison, in Raleigh NC, circa 1910.

Man, forget the mandolin, I wanna know what kind of weird-ass clarinet that is.

[William Smith]

Yes Eddie, Capone played the mandola and tenor banjo for sure on Alcatraz in what little free time they gave the prisoners. I've read he was very proficient. I read early on before prison he dabbled with the mandolin.

[mrmando]

It's amazing how few criminal mandolinists there actually are, compared to, say, the number of criminal heckelphone players.

[Wolfmanbob]

I play at a jam where many of the players should be arrested by the music police.

[John Flynn]

Benito Mussolini was an avid violin player who is also reported to have played the mandolin.

An interesting note: I found an article in "The Independent" reviewing a book called "The Captain Corelli Mandolin Home Tutor" by Sergio Beppino, from Music Educational Press, Turin. The article mentioned that "This book is not in fact a new one; it has previously appeared under such names as "Play the Mandolin like Benito Mussolini"; "Garibaldi's Mandolin Method" and "Strum Along with Niccol Paganini." (underline added, and of course this remark may have been tongue-in-cheek)

[JeffD]

OK I think I have the topper. I saw a mandolin in an antique shop locally. An old bowlback in good shape. On the front was carved some comforting verses of Scripture.

Turns out it was owned by a fellow on death row.

Much as I was tempted, I could not purchase that mandolin.

[Martin Jonas]

Just saw a documentary about Vincenzo Peruggia, the famous thief who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 (and gave it back 2 years later).

For what it's worth, suspects that were investigated by the French police over the theft of the Mona Lisa included both Picasso and his friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Picasso and Apollinaire both have mandolin connections: mandolins appear in a number of Picasso painting and in one of Apollinaire's best-known calligraphic poems/drawings, "La Mandoline, l’Oeillet et le Bambou". All these mandolin connections are probably just a symptom of the intrument's popularity at the time. After all, these days we wouldn't particularly remark on the fact that a famous criminal (or painter, or poet) was also known to strum around on a guitar in his free time.

Martin

[JeffD]

All these mandolin connections are probably just a symptom of the intrument's popularity at the time. After all, these days we wouldn't particularly remark on the fact that a famous criminal (or painter, or poet) was also known to strum around on a guitar in his free time.

Yea that's important. When we see a mandolin in an article or photograph or painting from that time, we have a modern frame of reference that notices its a mandolin, and we forget for so many years the mandolin reference meant no more than a typical musical instrument, like a guitar in a coke ad today. The only time nowadays we think of mandolin as just a reference to typical music is at Christmas time when we see all those angels playing mandolins.

[Bertram Henze]

...Turns out it was owned by a fellow on death row.

Much as I was tempted, I could not purchase that mandolin.

I can understand that - the kind of instrument that starts playing by itself in the middle of the night.

[Bertram Henze]

All these mandolin connections are probably just a symptom of the intrument's popularity at the time.

The motivation behind my OP was not merely to detect a statistically unlikely overlap of two groups (which is not that unlikely, after all, apparently), but more the questioning of truth behind a quote I know since my youth:

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

[MikeEdgerton]

I personally have had several parking tickets in my lifetime that I have plead guilty to and paid the fine. There, it's out in the open.

[sunburst]

What a responsible guy! I'm still waiting out the statute of limitations on a couple of parking tickets!