Tondeleo: I am trying to learn as much as I can about the music of rural Americans and what the different instruments are and what they do. Most of these rural Americans have different guns for different things, and different guitars for different sounds and even for different songs. I haven't quite cottoned onto all the details, but am trying to learn.
The guitar in today's post is an example of what I mean. It is what Doc and his friends call a Dobro, but it is also called a resonator guitar by some people. Doc says that dobro is the name that he grew up calling it, and that calling it a resonator guitar was something that people started doing "here lately."
Doc: Ok Tondy. This here is my dobro. I ain't play it all the time, just some time. It looks different than a regular guitar. It's got "f" holes like a archtop guitar to let the sound out.
Some dobros ain't got f holes, but gots chrome rings with screen wire in 'em to let the sound out. It's got a metal plate on the top. The strings run through it, and sit on a wooden biscuit what sits on a aluminum plate like a pie plate, what resonates the sound.I don't play it that much.
Tondeleo: Why don't you play it so much, Doc?
Doc: I don't know. I go through phrases of playin' it and phrases of not playin' it. It sounds different than a regular guitar, sort of tinny like a banjo. It's got good volume, but I ain't always like the tone, for some songs. But for others I do. I like playin' electric guitar better. Maybe that's why. I got another acoustic guitar what I play more than this one. This one's good for playin' in streets, for buskin'. It's got a good tone for bein' louder than traffic, cause it has that resonator sound.
It's kind of old, as you can see. Got some cracks in it. I ain't know 
exactly how old, cause it was old when I got it. I give a boy $75 dollars for it one time. He needed money and knocked on the door of the motel I were stayin' at down North Carolina and asked me for $75 so he could pay his rent. I wrote a song on that dobro called "Six Days Away from Bein' Homeless." It's about payin' your weekly rent at the motel, and then you have to start thinkin' about gettin' money together for food, and knowin' you is just gonna have to do the same thing in 6 more days or you're gonna be out on the streets again.
Now this here dobro has a round neck like a guitar. That is more the kind of dobro used in playin blues. You hold it and play it just like a guitar. The part where the tuners go through is like a guitar, too. It has slots for the tuners, instead of them sticking through from the back. More like on a nylon string guitar.
I have taken this dobro in different places where they ain't play blues, and people ask what it is. You ain't see these too much, I guess.
Some of these dobros is metal, Tondy! The old ones was painted, and some of the new ones is chrome. I ain't never had a metal one. If I could get one for about a hundred bucks or less, I'd give it a try.
The other kind of dobro, what is for country and bluegrass, has a square neck, so it ain't good for nothin' 'cept layin' it on your lap and usin' a slide on it, like a lap steel guitar. That's what them country boys like better, the square neck one. It's got different kind of tuners on it.
Listen, Tondy, I took this dobro up to a place where they was playin' country music, an' they already had a guy playin' his square neck dobro.
Another dude there looked at this one, and said, "He cain't make up his mind whether he's got a guitar or a dobro!" And started laughin. I had a few thoughts of my own, but I kept them to myself right then.
Since I was the new boy there, I ain't said much. He was playin' one of them shiny plastic lookin' made in China guitars, and had on a cowboy shirt with yokes on it!!!
So I just played and sang, and it went down real well with the people there. I usually do pretty good in places like that, cause I ain't usually need a mic, an' I am good at keepin' a real strong beat an' a bassline what makes people tap they's feet.
Afterwards,their dobro player came over and looked at mine. He said he liked it, and that it was worth more than the $75 I give for
it. I ain't sellin' it, but it was nice of him to make me feel at home. Then he explained to the other dude with the cowboy shirt on, that there is different' kinds of dobros and this one was just different than that dude had seen, That was nice of him. Anyway, that's this here dobro.
