Chris Knutsen (June 24, 1862 - November 6, 1930) was an American luthier of the early 20th century, primarily known for his Hawaiian guitars and harp guitars. [1]
Johan Christian Kammen was born in Norway, the third child and second son of Ole Ferdinand Kammen and his wife, Birgette Skancke. He moved to Minnesota at age 3 with his parents in 1865. His first marriage to Ida Yahr, was recorded at Milnor Lutheran Church in Dakota Territory during November 1887. Subsequently, in 1888 he was married to his first cousin, Anna Cammen. They moved to Washington state in 1895, where he began patenting unusual guitar designs. [2]
Knutsen started building Hawaiian steel guitars as early as 1908. Most of the guitars produced by Knutsen have spruce tops, all have lateral or diagonal bracing on the back, also due to his eccentric building skills many of his guitars used some crude solutions such as: wide number of screws, brackets, wing nuts, sheared-off tuning machine plates, odd-shaped nuts and dressmaker's seam tape rather than wood strips to reinforce ribs and butt fitted back plates. [3]
Around 1914 he moved to Los Angeles, just as the Panama-California International Exposition ignited the Hawaiian music craze in the mainland United States. Accordingly, Knutsen began to produce harp ukuleles and Hawaiian guitars to meet the new demand. [4]
Lyon & Healy Harps, Inc. is an American musical instrument manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois and is a subsidiary of Salvi Harps. Today best known for concert harps, the company's Chicago headquarters and manufacturing facility contains a showroom and concert hall. George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy began the company in 1864 as a sheet music shop. By the end of the 19th century, they manufactured a wide range of musical instruments—including not only harps, but pianos, guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and various brass and other percussion instruments.
Rickenbacker International Corporation is a string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. The company is credited as the first known maker of electric guitars – in 1932 – and today produces a range of electric guitars and basses.
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that reflect characteristics of the human singing voice. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position with the use of a slide fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle. The term bottleneck was historically used to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked while the slide is moved over the strings to change the pitch. The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar.
A steel guitar is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar in that it does not use frets; conceptually, it is somewhat akin to playing a guitar with one finger. Known for its portamento capabilities, gliding smoothly over every pitch between notes, the instrument can produce a sinuous crying sound and deep vibrato emulating the human singing voice. Typically, the strings are plucked by the fingers of the dominant hand, while the steel tone bar is pressed lightly against the strings and moved by the opposite hand.
Benjamin Chase Harper is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live performances, and activism. He has released twelve regular studio albums, mostly through Virgin Records and has toured internationally.
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawaii's musical contributions to the music of the United States are out of proportion to the state's small size. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. In addition, the music which began to be played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii in the early 1900s is called cachi cachi music, on the islands of Hawaii.
Michael Alden Hedges was an American acoustic guitarist and songwriter.
Jack Hody Johnson is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actor, record producer, documentary filmmaker and former professional surfer. Johnson is known primarily for his work in the soft rock and acoustic pop genres. In 2001, he achieved commercial success after the release of his debut album, Brushfire Fairytales. Johnson has reached number one on the Billboard 200 chart with his albums Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George in 2006, Sleep Through the Static in 2008, To the Sea in 2010 and From Here to Now to You in 2013. His album In Between Dreams peaked at number two on the chart in 2005 and again in 2013.
The pedal steel guitar is a console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all steel guitars, it can play unlimited glissandi and deep vibrati—characteristics it shares with the human voice. Pedal steel is most commonly associated with American country music.
The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals which is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap or otherwise supported. The performer changes pitch by pressing a polished steel bar against plucked strings. This differs from a traditional guitar in which the performer's fingertips press the strings against frets. Steel guitars do not use frets, but have markers that resemble them. Lap steels may differ markedly in external appearance depending whether they are acoustic or electric, but do not have pedals— an important distinction from pedal steel guitars.
Philip Kunia Pahinui was a slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music.
Sol Hoʻopiʻi was born Solomon Hoʻopiʻi Kaʻaiʻai in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was a Native Hawaiian guitarist, claimed by many as the all-time best lap steel guitar virtuoso, and he is one of the most famous original Hawaiian steel guitarists, along with Joseph Kekuku, Frank Ferera, Sam Ku West and "King" Bennie Nawahi.
Pure Prairie League is an American country rock band whose origins go back to 1965 and Waverly, Ohio, with singer and guitarist Craig Fuller, drummer Tom McGrail, guitarist and drummer Jim Caughlan and steel guitarist John David Call. Fuller started the band in 1970 and McGrail named it after a fictional 19th century temperance union featured in the 1939 Errol Flynn cowboy film Dodge City. Pure Prairie League scored five consecutive Top 40 LPs in the 1970s and added a sixth in the 1980s. The band has had a long run, active from the early 1970s through the late 1980s. The band was revived in 1998 and again in 2004 and as of 2019 continues to perform over 100 concerts a year in venues across the US.
Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a German manufacturer of musical instruments, founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner (1833–1902). The roots of the Hohner firm are in Trossingen, Baden-Württemberg. Since its foundation, and though known for its harmonicas, Hohner has manufactured a wide range of instruments, such as kazoos, accordions, recorder flutes, melodicas, banjos, electric, acoustic, resonator and classical guitars, basses, mandolins and ukuleles
The National String Instrument Corporation was an American guitar company, that first formed to manufacture banjos and then the original resonator guitars. National also produced resonator ukuleles and resonator mandolins. The company merged with Dobro to form the "National Dobro Company", then becoming a brand of Valco until it closed in 1968.
And Along Came Jones is an album by American country music singer George Jones released in 1991 on the MCA Nashville Records label.
Black Ace was the most frequently used stage name of the American Texas blues musician born Babe Kyro Lemon Turner, who was also known as B. K. Turner, Black Ace Turner, Babe Turner and Buck Turner.
Buddy Gene Emmons was an American musician who is widely regarded as the world's foremost pedal steel guitarist of his day. He was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1981. Affectionately known by the nickname "Big E", Emmons' primary genre was American country music, but he also performed jazz and Western swing. He recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons, The Everly Brothers, The Carpenters, Jackie DeShannon, Roger Miller, Ernest Tubb, John Hartford, Little Jimmy Dickens, Ray Price, Judy Collins, George Strait, John Sebastian, and Ray Charles and was a widely sought session musician in Nashville and Los Angeles.
Lloyd Green is an American steel guitarist. Green is most notable for his session work, having played on records with artists such as The Byrds, Johnny Cash, David Allan Coe, Alan Jackson, The Monkees, Jean Stafford, Lynn Anderson, Don Williams, Paul McCartney, Charley Pride, Bob Dylan, Johnny Paycheck, George Hamilton IV and many others.
The Santa Cruz Guitar Company is an American manufacturer of acoustic guitars, located in Santa Cruz, California. The company was started in 1976 by luthier Richard Hoover, who is reputed to have "trained some of the most accomplished contemporary luthiers in his workshop", and investors Bruce Ross and William Davis. They produce somewhere between 500 and 700 guitars a year, and their instruments are known for being "some of the world’s finest steel-string guitars" with characteristics described as "being highly resonate and having a complexity of overtones".