| Subject: | [RESOGUIT-L] Hitler's Dobro Connection | | Date: | Sunday, April 1, 2007 13:06:35 (-0400) | | From: | Howard Parker <hlpdobro @....net>
|
==>Anyone have one of these? provide a s/n??
"Regarding the "Worco" resonator guitar mentioned in "Ask Frets
(Feb 89),
I'd like to shed a little light on it's history.Adolph Hitler's
love for the
Dobro became an obsession with him, and in 1937 he proclaimed
that every
German family would have a resonator instrument in their home. In
1937 he
commissioned Italian luthier, Vito Worconni, to design a low
budget resonator
guitar to be called the "Blitzenplecker". The guitar had a
coverplate screwed
to the two-ply body, without a cone or resonator. The sound wasso
inferior
that the project was abandoned. In 1939 Worconni fled to the
United States
and settled in Chicago.
In 1947 Kay of Chicago built bodies for Worconni"s student
guitars. These
instruments
were sold at J.J. Newberry and W.T. Grant stores for $6.95
retail. Today, the
"Worco" guitar is worth its original value, about $6.95.
There is an interesting historical footnote to the story. When
Worconni
fled Germany he left behind 1,000 coverplates at the
Blitzenplecker plant on
the Oder River in Frankfurt. Because of a steel shortage in 1939
these
coverplates were used as hubcaps on the early Volkswagen. The
holes in the
coverplates caused the hubcap to wistle when the auto reached the
speed of 32
mph and the German people loved it. Unfortunately, this was
Worconni's only
sucess in the field of sound. From 1958-79 Worconni was curator
at the Dog
Collar Museum in Whipsburg, Pennsylvania. Two Worco guitars are
still on
display at the museum, and one has been made into a floor lamp.
Vito Worconni
died of gunshot wounds in Richmand, Virginia, Oct. 14, 1981."
--
Howard Parker
hlpdobro@intr.net
|
Hitler's Dobro Con
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