(This Article is already about two year old, but I believe its message is still very valid.) During IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) World of Bluegrass Business Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, the inventors of the Dobro, the Dopyera Brothers, were honored with Distinguished Achievement Award.
IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award is one of the association’s highest honors and recognitions for those in bluegrass music who have proven to be forerunners in their particular field of endeavor, or those who have fostered bluegrass music image with developments that broaden this music’s recognition and accessibility.
At the Special Award Luncheon on Thursday, October 27, 2005, this year’s recipients were announced. The Hotel Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel was filled with several thousand IBMA members and their guests.
Jerry Douglas, the world’s famous Dobro player, made a speech. On the big screens next to the stage, the old family pictures of Dopyera family were shown.
The Dopyera Brothers, John an Rudy, were instrument makers responsible for creating the Dobro, or the resophonic guitar. Born in Slovakia, their father Josef Dopyera was a miller in Dolná Krupá near Trnava. With the wave of Eastern European immigrants, the family with ten children, five sons and five daughters, came to the U.S. in 1908 and settled in California.
They were engineers, tinkerers, businessmen and accomplished musicians. The family had a history of violin making going back centuries and Rudy was an exceptionally talented and soulful Gypsy-style violinist. In 1926,
John patented his resophonic steel body guitar with three aluminum resonators. With his brothers Rudy and Emil and other investors, they founded the National String Instruments Company. Later in 1929 they separated and formed another company named DOpyera BROthers.
The motto on the company logo was “DOBRO MEANS GOOD IN ANY LANGUAGE”. They made also resophonic guitars with wooden body with the brand name Dobro. They combined Old World skills and traditions with the booming technology and futuristic tastes in the art of pre-world War II America. Companies National and Dobro merged in 1934, bringing the Dopyeras and their resonator guitars full-circle. So the Dobro became an integral part of world music.
Rudy Dopyera passed away in 1978 and John, who lived in Grants Pass Oregon, died in 1988.
Jerry Douglas presented the Award to John’s son John Edward Dopyera and daughter Anne Dopyera West.
Anyway, Jerry Douglas, who is called the “Dobro King”, was recently proclaimed the musician of the year 2005 by the CMA (Country Music Association) in New York. He also won the title Dobro player of the year by IBMA eight times.
You have already had an opportunity to see all three of them, and lots of other world class dobro and resophonic instrument players at the Dobrofest in Trnava. This annual music festival is dedicated to the memory of the Dopyera Brothers. In Trnava, there is also the only Dobro Museum in Europe. I’d recommend a visit there to all music lovers.
If you are interested to see the entire collection of music instruments made by the Dopyera Brothers, look at: http://www.elderly.com/articles/dopyera/dopyera.pdf. The bluegrass band Fragment represented the Slovak republic on this year’s IBMA World of Bluegrass week in Nashville again. They already have a big fan community there.
