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Thread: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

  1. #26
    Registered User f5loar's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Had Monroe stuck to his Epiphone I have no doubt the F5 would still have been brought into bluegrass by others. Charles Bailey was playing a '27 Fern with his brother back when Monroe was in the Monroe Bros. And Lester Flatt played a '41 F5 with brother Charlie before he joined up with Bill and Bill got his Loar. Just like today when you see more models then just the F5 or it's copies being played it's not always about what you want but what you can afford and get that matters. There is not doubt the F5 now dominates the bluegrass scene and that would be because of Monroe. Others have tried to go different but usually come back to the F5 style. When is the last time you saw a guy pick a Montelone Radio Flyer in a bluegrass band? How long did Duffey pick his "duck" model? How long did guys like Lawson, Bush, Osborne stick with their A5 copies before going back to their F5s? Not long! How many times has the Dawg strayed from his Fern or Loar but seems to always come back to them? Heck the Dawg had his own special "Dawg" model made by two luthiers. When is the last time you saw him with it?

  2. #27
    Registered User John Kinn's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Did Tim O'brien ever play other mandolins than his Nugget?

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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Good point F-5Loar....I don`t think Doyle plays his signature model as much as he does his Loar...I think Duffey was planning on staying with his "Duck" forever because he was peeved about his Gibson being stolen but as soon as it was found he went back to it...I liked the sound of the Duck myself but couldn`t satnd to look at it, John told me he made it like that so if someone stole that one that everyone would know who it belonged to, that was before he nade the second one for Akira....

    Willie

  4. #29
    Registered User f5loar's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Tim does own at least one Nugget F5 (or was it a Collins?). He used it on some of the Hot Rize shows but I've not seen him lately with it as he has mostly been playing guitar or mandocello.

  5. #30
    Ursus Mandolinus Fretbear's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Doyle can often be seen playing his black-face Gibson "Victorian"- an F-5 with F-4 appointments, a style I am partial to as well.
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    Not to hijack, but to sort of start a meta-discussion: is there any other instrument, about which the history and preferences of a single player have been so influential, as the mandolin and Bill Monroe? Earl Scruggs's Gibson Granada Mastertone banjo also exercised a lot of influence on subsequent pickers, and it's true that the Gibson flat-head Mastertone banjo has also become the "gold standard," at least for bluegrass. Perhaps it's a bit harder to discern, since banjos all have the same approximate silhouette, with only inlays, headstock profile, resonator flanges etc. to differentiate them.
    Allen,

    You need to ask that question over at banjohangout. Be prepared to run.

    Mike

  7. #32
    Registered User f5loar's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Yeah when Doyle wears his black rhinestone encrusted "Nudie" Manuel suit he likes the way the black top compliments it.
    When he wears his red or green one he goes back to the Loar.

  8. #33
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by mikeyes View Post
    ...You need to ask that question over at banjohangout. Be prepared to run...
    Yeah, Mike, I get ya. Jim Mills just researched and wrote a book on all the original pre-war flat-head Gibson Mastertone banjos that he could find, their history, current and past owners, what bands they've played in and what recordings they can be heard on. Despite our worship of the Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5, I don't think we've ascended (descended?) quite to that level of iconography.

    But of course, from across the room at a jam, it's harder to tell if the banjoist is playing a flat-head Mastertone or a Morgan Monroe, whereas I can differentiate an F-model from an A-model, two-point etc. at a hundred yards.

    I just think that it's interesting that we're still talking about what back-up mandolin Monroe might have played a half-century ago, or what he played before he could afford the F-7. Maybe the blues guys obsess over Robert Johnson's Gibson guitar, or the rockers over Hendrix's Strat. Probably they do. But it just seems that the history of mandolin in America would be completely different, perhaps unrecognizable, without the career and instrumental preferences of Bill Monroe.
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  9. #34
    Registered User evanreilly's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by f5loar View Post
    Yeah when Doyle wears his black rhinestone encrusted "Nudie" Manuel suit he likes the way the black top compliments it.
    When he wears his red or green one he goes back to the Loar.
    So, what mandolin matches this?
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  10. #35
    Registered User evanreilly's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    Yeah, Mike, I get ya. Jim Mills just researched and wrote a book on all the original pre-war flat-head Gibson Mastertone banjos that he could find, ....
    Despite our worship of the Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5, I don't think we've ascended (descended?) quite to that level of iconography.
    Well, consider this, however.....
    There are three editions of The F-5 Journal that have been published, and there have been rumors of a coffee-table edition with big pix of each one. And the published editions all preceded the banjo books, even the Tsumoro (sp?) collection.

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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    Not to hijack, but to sort of start a meta-discussion: is there any other instrument, about which the history and preferences of a single player have been so influential, as the mandolin and Bill Monroe?
    ...snip...
    J.S. Bach and the organ...Maybe even more so.
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  12. #37
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by evanreilly View Post
    Well, consider this, however.....
    There are three editions of The F-5 Journal that have been published, and there have been rumors of a coffee-table edition with big pix of each one. And the published editions all preceded the banjo books, even the Tsumoro (sp?) collection.
    Well, we'll be competing with the Mills banjo book, when some author tracks down every find-able Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5, interviews every owner, traces the history of each instrument, takes gorgeous full-color closeups of each one, and publishes the results in a large-format "coffee-table" book. The Tsumura Collection book was easy in comparison; all the compilers needed to do was go through Mr. Tsumura's house with a camera. The fact that Tsumura's company went bankrupt, and the collection was sold and dispersed, means that it was a short-duration opportunity to get so many banjos in one place. Mills went around the country tracking down and documenting the pre-war flat-head Mastertones. The hypothetical author of Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5's would have an even harder job, since there appear to be more Loars extant.

    And as for Bach and the organ: do organ websites have threads about what instruments Bach played when he was just an up-and-coming organist? 'Twould be interesting...
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  13. #38
    Work in Progress Ed Goist's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    The amazing thing about Bach is that he is also considered to me one of the greatest organ technicians in history, and certainly the greatest of his time. In many ways, the organ sounds the way it does today because of technical adjustments Bach made to the organs of his day.

    It's almost as if Bach is both the Bill Monroe AND the Lloyd Loar of the organ.

    But then again, JS is one of those "once every thousand year" people!
    c.1965 Harmony Monterey H410 Mandolin
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  14. #39
    Registered User John Kinn's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Any organs in the classifieds? I've heard that the pac rims are getting better.

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    Registered User f5loar's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Mills did not track down all the original flatheads and what he did find was cut down to do the one booklet. He has enough to do a Volume II and that's still not all of them. What he was trying to do is show different examples and patterns used in those original flatheads and went through over 10 years of production. There was only two pattern variations on Loars in a short 2 1/4 years, the flowerpots and the ferns. Once you narrow down an example from each dated batch you pretty much got the picture on what Loars are all about. No need to find and document all of them to do a book. Hit up about 6 Loar collectors and you got enough to beat the banjo booklet. The curator/owner/publisher of the F5Journal has more details then what you see in the Journals. The ultimate F5 book would cover all of the prewar years from 1922 to 1942. Now that would be a nice coffee table book.

  16. #41

    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    The only group of musicians I can think of who obsess to such an extent over the right make, model and age of instrument to play their particular brand of music are the Gypsy jazz, or 'Manouche' players. A single player (Django Reinhardt) popularised a Selmer guitar designed by Mario Maccaferri and made in Paris between 1932 and 1952. Maccaferri was only with Selmer for 18 months (shades of Lloyd Loar), but left a lasting legacy that a huge number of builders have followed. The instruments have an identifiable tone, and work best in just one style of music. Big parallels, I reckon!
    Tim (who has been sucked into that whole Gibson tone thing as well!)

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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    To be fair, I am enjoying the mandolin trememdously, more so all the time. However, to be percfectly honest, for a very long time the only reason I knew of Bill Monroe was because he once employed Earl and Lester. Earl's Granada, and about every banjo he ever performed with are well known .... Would there be a Bill Monroe discussion, if there wasn't an Earl?

  19. #43
    Registered User MandoSquirrel's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by hedgehog View Post
    .... Would there be a Bill Monroe discussion, if there wasn't an Earl?
    Would there be an Earl discussion if there wasn't a Bill Monroe?
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    Registered User f5loar's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    yeap, the old which came first the chicken or the egg. Monroe was doing alright with Beans on the banjo. When Earl arrived it was like the icing on the cake already baked. It just smoothed things out and put bluegrass in overdrive making Monroe the King of it and later the Father of it all. Earl has never been called the Father of Bluegrass although he does carry the title of King of the bluegrass banjo. Remember others were out there doing what Earl could do. You had Snuffy Jenkins, Wade Mainer and those guys putting the two and three finger roll out there way before Earl. Don Reno actually would have been hired before Earl had he not gone into the Army.

  21. #45
    Registered User evanreilly's Avatar
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    I, for one, hold what is probably a minority opinion and wish Reno had held down a long-term position with the BGB, instead of Scruggs. I believe Reno out-played Scruggs on both banjo and guitar.... no questions about his ability on either!!!!

  22. #46

    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Reno or Scruggs is a much discussed topic. Of course Monroe came first and he is considered to be the "Father" of bluegrass. But when I actually sit up and listen to a banjo lick from that period, 9 out of 10 times it is Earl driving the banjo. I've got nothing against Reno, classic Earl, that is Earl Scrugs in his prime, makes me want to pay attention though.

    Not long ago, I believe it was a writing linked here on the Café, a very famous luthier said that Bills Loar really wasn’t anything special, it had a hard life even before it was smashed up with a fire poker. The sound, you heard and admire was all Monroe.

  23. #47
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Don Reno served in WWII in the famous "Merrill's Marauders", a long range specialist unit that went behind Japanese lines in Burma. I am so thankful that he survived and came back home. In my opinion one of the most inovative 5 string banjo pickers ever. And he could flat out pick a guitar also. I witnessed him playing a D-28 with one foot up on the bumper of a car so he could rest it on his leg. Some of the most outstanding guitar picking I've ever heard, up there with Rice, White, Watson, etc. There are some things about Reno's banjo style that are very, very, difficult to do.

    Now as far as Gibson mandolins. The Gibson F5 by Loyd Loar is as good as it is gonna get. Just about every single luthier, or other big company that makes mandolins tries to copy to the best of their ability....... The Gibson F5..... that's enough said.

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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    I have to agree with Hedgehog, in my opinion I`ll take Earl anyday....The 13 days that I traveled with Reno and Smiley were all that I could take of him, or was it the other way around?

    Willie

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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by evanreilly View Post
    I, for one, hold what is probably a minority opinion and wish Reno had held down a long-term position with the BGB, instead of Scruggs. I believe Reno out-played Scruggs on both banjo and guitar.... no questions about his ability on either!!!!
    That would have been interesting. Hard to imagine those classics without hearing Earl's banjo in there. Still, makes you wonder what the result of a classic BGB with Reno instead.

  26. #50
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    Default Re: bill monroe's pre-loar mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by evanreilly View Post
    I, for one, hold what is probably a minority opinion and wish Reno had held down a long-term position with the BGB, instead of Scruggs. I believe Reno out-played Scruggs on both banjo and guitar.... no questions about his ability on either!!!!
    I agree in preferring Reno's playing to Scrugg's, but even more, the aftermath: Too many mediocre or worse imitators who make a godawful racket playing endless rolls. If Reno had been the model, I hope we'd have a lot less of that noise , & much better bluegrass music.`
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