Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - 52

COLUMN The (Way) Back Beat

An early Dyer
Style 5 (left),
a fancy early
Dyer, and the
"standard"
Style 5.

GUITARS TO DYER FOR

The Larson Brothers' Harp-Guitar Creations
By Peter Stuart Kohman with Bob Hartman

L

ast month, we looked at the early years of
America's greatest unsung (or at least littlesung) flat-top luthiers, Carl and August
Larson. Between 1900 and 1944, the brothers
built an array of fretted instruments including
some of the first true steel-string guitars. Great
achievements, these flat-tops also were crucial
contributions to an overlooked facet in the
evolution of the instrument - the harp guitar.
In the early 1900s, the harp guitar was a hot
trend, its array of sub-bass strings helping it serve
as a showpiece while conventional guitars ran
third in popularity to banjos and mandolins.
Stringed instruments were by then played in

schools and social groups rather than alone in
the parlor; harp guitars provided greater volume
while expanding the sound with more low notes.
Setting up shop in 1900, the Larsons were
at the forefront of these developments. They
began creating fanciful harp guitars alongside
six-strings and mandolins, though few bore their
own Maurer brand. Based on surviving instruments, the Larsons were among the most creative
designers, a fact obscured by their practice of
not using their name on instruments. Indeed,
they seem to have been the primary source for
many small-run, high-grade instruments in the
Midwest. Sometimes, different types and brands

VINTAGE GUITAR

52

September 2017

The later Style 5 label made no mention
of designer/builder Chris Knutsen.

built by the Larsons were advertised side-by-side
with sellers who claimed to make them.
One of the Larson's earliest known contracts
was for the Symphony Harp line marketed by
J.W Dyer & Brothers, of St. Paul, Minnesota. For
years, these fantastic instruments were thought
to date to the 1910s, but recent research points to



Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open

Contents
Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - Cover
Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - IFC
Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - 3
Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - 4
Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - 5
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Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - Contents
Vintage Guitar - September 2017 - open - 11
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