Mississippi John Hurt's Emory guitar
Installed at Smithsonian Institution
Installed at Smithsonian Institution
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© 2020 — Kenneth Lelen - All Rights Reserved
© 2020 — Kenneth Lelen - All Rights Reserved
Please visit previous posts about Mississippi John Hurt's Emory guitar:
https://kenlelen.blogspot.com/2017/09/mississippi-john-hurts-emory-reappears.html
The vintage acoustic guitar played by Mississippi John Hurt at Newport Folk Festival in July 1963, missing for five decades and recently unearthed in a South Carolina luthier's shop, has been donated to Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Along with new findings on the guitar's possible origins, the John Hurt Emory is now on display at the National Museum of American History.
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Photos + Illus - SI / NMAH
The c. 1910 Emory acoustic
guitar and case on display at the
National
Museum of American History
backdrop is the John Byrne Cooke photograph of Mississippi John Hurt performing at Newport Folk Festival in July, 1963. |
The
Smithsonian acquired the John Hurt Emory from luthier Darrell Guinn, museum officials said, since the guitar
embodies the convergence of several nationally significant ideas. These include:
• A rise of musical instrument firms and proliferation of guitar building techniques in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
• The acclaim for John Hurt (1892 - 1966) following his performance of two sets of blues on a borrowed guitar — the Emory — at Newport Folk Festival in July 1963.
• A rise of musical instrument firms and proliferation of guitar building techniques in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
• The acclaim for John Hurt (1892 - 1966) following his performance of two sets of blues on a borrowed guitar — the Emory — at Newport Folk Festival in July 1963.
• The role of Newport's event and other folk festivals in U.S. music history.
• The work of Tom Hoskins (1941 - 2001), Dick Spottswood (b. 1937), Mike Stewart (1943 – 2007) and other blues enthusiasts who reveled in John Hurt's recordings from the 1920s. Once Hoskins found the musician residing in Avalon MS in February 1963, he verified the septuagenarian's musical chops. He then wrangled a 50 percent contract from Hurt for his musical output and began promoting the performer before contemporary audiences.
• The money was good while it lasted, but the story goes deeper. Some still decry the underlying racism of middle-class folkies, Newport audiences and the white promoters who "discovered" African-American blues artists in the 1960s, said Ulrich Adelt, author of Blues Music in the Sixties — A Story in Black and White [2010, Rutgers Univ. Press.]
In Hurt's case, the performances, recordings and song publishing rights were lucrative enough for Hurt and Hoskins. Yet the relationship between impresario and performer ended in a contentious contract dispute at the time of Hurt's passing in 1966.
• Finally, the recordings Mississippi John Hurt made in 1928 and in the mid-1960s, as well as his performances at festivals, clubs, coffeehouses and national television, are all testament to his renown. Today, Hurt's recordings fill more than 78 albums issued by multiple labels.
In his day, John Hurt was acknowledged for his avuncular blues and sly sense of humor. Today, his celebrated guitar playing style is admired by countless musicians and finger-picking acolytes.
In short, John Hurt and the Emory guitar represent many American musical stories. Musicians, researchers and museum visitors will now have access to a fine vintage acoustic guitar and a legendary musician.
Emory guitars and the Chicago
connection
Research
on John Hurt's Emory guitar led museum officials to enticing hints about a retail vendor of Emory guitars and possible fabrication in Chicago during the 1880s or 1890s — 20 years prior to previous estimates. This
info may help future musicians and guitar collectors assess the provenance of an Emory guitar as it comes into the vintage market.
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| Emory acoustic guitar played by Mississippi John Hurt at Newport Folk Festival, July 1963. |
Vintage
guitar experts say the John Hurt Emory guitar was built by unknown hands
sometime between the 1880s and 1920. Its design elements — rosewood body, spruce top, auditorium size, 12-fret neck, 25-inch scale length and slotted headstock — all suggest fabrication by the end of World War I. Fingerpicked or flatpicked, the
sound is deep, sweet and bright, with an amazing sustain.
The headstock's top
edge is stamped 1166 and
an Emory trademark is chisled into the neck block. A strikingly visible element across the
16th fret of the fingerboard are the letters E M
O R Y inlaid in an ivory hexagonal block.
It is
possible the Emory was a one-off or custom guitar for a single buyer. Just as likely, it was
a catalog offering by a maker who sold a limited number of guitars to jobbers, pawn shops, retailers, music stores and private tutors.
Heretofore guitar gurus have argued — without confirmation — for a Chicago or a Boston source as maker of Emory-branded guitars. I still suspect Lyon & Healy as the maker of Hurt's instrument, not Regal or Larson Brothers in Chicago and not J.C. Haynes in Boston.
Heretofore guitar gurus have argued — without confirmation — for a Chicago or a Boston source as maker of Emory-branded guitars. I still suspect Lyon & Healy as the maker of Hurt's instrument, not Regal or Larson Brothers in Chicago and not J.C. Haynes in Boston.
My view
is based on the late 19th Century catalog description for L&H's Washburn
Style #403 auditorium guitar, which is nearly identical to its contemporary,
the John Hurt Emory. The design elements, materials, body depth and
lower-bout width (14-1/2 inches) are the same.
While ivory
dots on the fingerboard's 5th, 7th and 10th frets are found on both, an ivory
hexagonal block in the 16th or 17th fret is only found on the Emory. And while
L&H produced both ladder-braced and X-braced guitars, the Style #403 listing does not identify if soundboard support was ladder-braced
(like Hurt’s guitar) or X-braced (like Martin and many L&H guitars in the same era).
L&H's
original bridge for the Style #403 was a flattened pyramid. The large pyramid-style bridge currently found on the John Hurt
Emory is a restored or retrofit item.
As for
the making of branded guitars — even some with serial numbers — for retailers, distributors and other private
buyers, Lyon & Healy's catalogs from 1889 and 1897 proclaim: "The
makers of the Washburn Guitars are prepared to supply extra fine instruments to
order for presentation and other purposes."
Emory guitars and the Omaha
connection
Research
by museum officials into historical newspapers found Emory guitars and Emory
mandolines offered in advertisements published in the 1890s. The
seller was Max Meyer & Brothers Co., a department store at Farnum and 16th Streets in Omaha NE. Opened in 1866 during the town's early rise, the business failed in the 1893 Depression.
One Max
Meyer ad was published in time for Thanksgiving on Sunday, November 15, 1891 in the Omaha Daily Bee. It shows
Emory guitars with prices ranging from $10 to $65 and Emory bowlback mandolines with
prices ranging from $18 to $75. The Emory instruments were listed with six brands
of violins and 500 styles of banjos on one page, while watches, eye glasses, lamps and
jewelry were listed on the opposite page.
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Emory guitars and Emory mandolines listed in a Max Meyer & Brothers Co.
newspaper advertisement in Omaha Daily
Bee, Sunday, November 15, 1891.
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The guitar listings showcased Emory and four other brands. This included Washburn by Lyon & Healy of Chicago, Bremo (unidentified source), Bay State by J. C. Haynes of Boston and Benary of New York.
What's more, a prominent illustration of an Emory guitar joins the 1891 instrument
listings. It is a guitar with 12 frets to the body, pyramid bridge and slotted headstock — not unlike
the John Hurt Emory. However, it shows a hexogonal fretboard inlay at the 17th fret —
unlike the inlay found at the 16th fret of the John Hurt Emory.
Museum
researchers also found sheet music published by Max Meyer & Brothers Co. dating to 1890 among possessions of the Library of
Congress. One song, titled "Emory
Waltz," was composed for play by two mandolins and a guitar. Coincidentally, researchers said, this sheet music was
sold by other publishers, including Lyon & Healy of
Chicago.
FOR MORE INFO:
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American Instrument Makers - Mugwumps
www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/16/blues-greats-re-emerge
John Hurt Discography - Wirz' American Music
John Hurt Discography - Wirz' American Music
http://acousticbluespickers.com/mississippi-john-hurt-his-life-his-times-his-recordings/
Meyer Brothers - Jewish Museum of the American West
www.jmaw.org/meyer-omaha-jewish/Meyer Brothers - Jewish Museum of the American West
National Museum of American History
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© 2020 — Kenneth Lelen - All Rights Reserved
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