Johnson Resonator   I picked up this instrument a couple of years ago here in Winnipeg. Modeled after the original, pre-World War II guitars, these resonators are probably the foremost affordable, decent, metal body guitars on the market.

For me this is a novelty instrument. I don’t play it much but when in the studio, the haunting, hollow, metallic sound is sometimes useful. My instrument is pretty good for the price range but there are certainly better. The sloppy, hollowness of the sound is a bit out of control on mine but I just can’t justify the expense of a really good one when I’d use it so little.

Resonater guitars are used a lot in traditional blues and blues-folk. I used this instrument on the intro section of Lord of the Starfields / My Dinner with Bruce. Bruce Cockburn himself uses a resonator guitar quite a bit. You can hear it spread about on albums since "Nothing but a Burning Light" but a good particular example would be "The Soul of a Man" off the same album.

-Steve B.

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