The Steel Guitar Forum

Richard Terry · From: Sacramento, California, USA

I'd like help identifying the pictured guitar which have a different dated photo of me playing in 1951, age ten. Can't remember the maker.

Thanks for any help
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Richard Terry · From: Sacramento, California, USA

Thanks to those who have looked at the post on the 8 string c1950. The angle of the image makes identification difficult.

Yesterday I separately emailed that great resource, Michael Lee Allen, to make sure he knew of my post. He kindly replied that the guitar might be a Magnatone. But he doesn't have pictures of Mags from that period.

My teacher was definitely providing large numbers of Mags to her students. I have 8x10s from the early 1950s that prove it. The lucite fretboard and the pickup cover sure looks to me like Magnatone. I know I'm woefully uninformed about the many forms of steel guitars. But I'm also a retired reference librarian, and I have ancestors from Missouri, so I want to see the documents. Laughing at myself!

thanks to the forum and viewers and Michael Lee Allen.

Richard
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RH2 Chandler, D10 SuperSlide

Brad Bechtel · From: San Francisco, CA

It's a hard question to answer based on that photo, but it looks to me to be similar to this six string Aloha lap steel. I have no information on Aloha steels, but that's what it looks like to me.
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Richard Terry · From: Sacramento, California, USA

Thanks Brad. Your lead to Aloha resulted in me finding a website on those instruments that includes a reference to a "name" Aloha reportedly built by Magnatone in the 1950s. They have some great pictures of the steels that look very much like the one I played and one of them, a six string, looks very much like another one played by a fellow sitting next to me in the original 8x10 photo I cropped him out of to get my posted image. I'll post that image later. The pictures for an Aloha guitar that sold on eBay with Magnatone amp includes a certificate of the sale by the Aloha Conservatory of Music, Fresno, CA. The sale was in 1950. I was a student of Ethel Starr, Starr Studios, Fresno.

Here is the url for the website: www.jedistar.com/aloha.htm

Page down to get to the 50s Alohas. I am sure they were 6 string variants of the 8 string I played. The description on eBay also noted the blue fake fur lining of the Aloha's guitar case I and I have a memory of having had such a lined case. But of course I can't swear what guitar it was for.

Thanks Brad

Richard
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RH2 Chandler, D10 SuperSlide

Michael Lee Allen · From: Fresno, Ca & Chicago (when it used to be something)

In a private email replying to Richard I told him I was pretty sure his guitar was a Magnatone product. It looked a little on the thick side but then i realized that he was a ten year old kid standing behind it. Looking at the headstock, knobs and lucite I'm 99% positive it is a Magnatone. Maybe it said Aloha on the headstock. Maybe it was blank, done that way so the studio could apply their sticker.

The webpage Brad linked to has bad information. That guitar screams out Magnatone from it's lucite tuners, knobs, fingerboard, and case (if it's original). Aloha in Chicago NEVER built anything. All they sold were rebrands built by others. That S Halsted St address was a studio operation in a theatre building at a major transit corner/terminal. Some Aloha folios from Chicago are actually reprinted Manolff material and Manoloff was one mile due west of Aloha on S Ashland Av. Manoloff never sold his own instruments either. They were all rebrands, usually the cheapest Regal or Kay products. I have never seen or heard of any factory-produced electric guitars or electric steel guitars made in Hawaii during the time period in question. There may have been some other connections between the Chicago Aloha and Manoloff. Paul Warnick posted awhile back that he had located Manoloff's son and had interviewed him.

There probably was an Aloha "Conservatory" or "Music Studio" in every town big enough to support then back in the day.

i've seen 1930s Aloha/Chicago branded stuff and it's ALL Kay or Regal. Never seen an Aloha amplifier that was NOT made by some other manufacturer either. And I grew up there and worked in the music industry and researched it way back when nobody cared about any of this stuff.

Ethel Starr sold truckloads of Magnatone stuff before she started pushing Fender later on. There is very little early 1950s Magnatone print literature as they sold mostly direct to teaching studios at that time. By 1955 they were more diversified and started dealing with "jobbers" on a regular basis. I have flyers for the similar six string version of Richard's eight string. The eight string would have been considered a pro instrument in that time and not that many were probably made.

So I say with 99% conviction that the instrument in question is a Magnatone/Magna Electronics product.

3/4 of all the Starr Studios stickered instruments that turn up here are Magnatone/Magna Electronics. It seems like one turns up every week and I get a call asking if I can look at it and ID it.

MLA
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Richard Terry · From: Sacramento, California, USA

Wow, you guys are great. Between you I've gotten all kinds of great information. Having been a reference librarian in the California State Library' s California history section, I'm fascinated by the flow of these connections and how difficult it is to get information on the past.

Brad, your post was exceedingly helpful to me because I was able to see images of the likely guitars taken from above and of course I saw that eight string that way for probably two or three years. The 50s "Aloha" looks right, the heft of the neck and its shape, etc. The dates fit the photographic evidence I have including a photographer dated 1951 image, West Coast Student Guitar Competitions, Burbank, where I am playing the single neck 8.

The web page I provided a link to was the result of a google search for Aloha guitars.

Michael, the knowledge you have of the background of this is a treasure for me. And I think the guitar must have been, as your evidence directs, a Magnatone/ Magna Electronics product. It is amazing to me that I didn't take more interest in who made these guitars and so on. It was like the instruments were provided and the makers automatic. We were kids and our parents and Mrs. Starr took care of the next guitar. It is a revelation to me, the use of decals and rebranding. All a part of the business. I think you're right that the 8 string versions must have been rare.

In the picture, I'm left, Eddie Barber right playing a six string version. Note the different shape of the pickup cover on Eddie's guitar. It matches one of the "Aloha" images. Also, for me, I think the difference in the thickness of the two guitars is quite striking. They really beefed up that 8 string.

Thank you both.
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RH2 Chandler, D10 SuperSlide

Ron Whitfield · From: Kaaawa, Hawaii, USA

This fuller pic shows Eddie with an aluminum bodied Aloha and Richard with an ever rarer wood bodied 8 str. version.

Cool picture, and it'd be great to see an original uncropped copy.
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Richard Terry · From: Sacramento, California, USA

Hi Ron

The photo was an 8x10 and is a posed Starr Studio set up of just Eddie and myself. I don't remember the circumstances. But Mrs. Starr was always bringing in a photographer for various events and I have these images because my Mother bought them and kept them. I only recently realized what they were.

I'm sure you're right about Eddie's guitar being an aluminum version. That certainly explains the great difference in the thicknesses of the bodies and necks. The wooden six strings are in closer proportion.

My lovely wife tells me I must have been very happy student as I always have a smile on in the photos.

Thanks for your comments

Richard
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RH2 Chandler, D10 SuperSlide

Ron Whitfield · From: Kaaawa, Hawaii, USA

Thanx for accomodating my request, Richard. I knew the full shot would be even better.

You guy's must have enjoyed your lessons indeed. Those kind of smiles can't be faked. I know I didn't feel like that at my accordion lessons...
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State Trooper to the country boy he pulled over - 'got any ID'? The driver - 'about what'?
Coming to Hawaii? - http://hwnsge.5u.com - www.kualoaranch.com
For inspiration - www.rothoriginals.com - www.jerrybyrd-fanclub.com