My new James resonator guitar



Dobros (like the banjo I suppose) are good for people who like to tinker around trying to get the best sound. They are somewhat mechanical for a stringed instrument and prone to developing buzzes and rattles that need to be dealt with. I had gotten to the point that I felt I was ready for a nicer instrument than my basic Dobro, even though it sounds pretty good for a mid-80s Dobro...it has a Quarterman cone and has most of the buzziness out of it. I've added some mutes to kill vibrations below the bridge and above the nut...this has helped as far as getting the sound out of the instrument that I want, but there's not much more I could do to help the instrument. And I wanted better bass, more sustain, and a sweeter tone.

So, I've been looking around at as many instruments as I could, trying to decide what I wanted when I had the funds to upgrade. I've played Scheerhorn, DeNeve, Dobro (solid wood), Jasper, RQ Jones, Wolfe, TN Crafters/Rich and Taylor, and probably some more that I can't even remember. I've also seen but not played others, such as Harlow and Beard. All of these instruments have a lot going for them and vary greatly in price, and deciding would be difficult.

But a couple of months ago I answered an advertisement for an RQ Jones that I found on the internet. It was being sold by Harry James of Stringer MS. He also mentioned on the phone that he built resonator guitars and offered to send me some pictures. At this writing, Harry has built less than 25 resos...he does no advertising other than word of mouth, and builds the guitars as a hobby in his retirement.

I spoke with Harry over the telephone a few more times and he gave me the names and numbers of a few owners. I called each of these guys, and spoke or corresponded with some others that had played Harry's guitars but didn't own one. The upshot of all this was that I wanted to try one of Harry's guitars myself.

So, I hit the road and headed to Mississippi. Over 400 miles later I pulled into Harry's at about 1:30 in the afternoon. Harry had three guitars built up that I could buy and another that he had custom-built that the owner had brought by Harry's for me to try. He also told me that a couple other guys (Tim Hathorn and JD Thompson) would bring their guitars over for me to play.

Harry has settled into building two basic guitars: a large body guitar (based on an RQ Jones) and a smaller body instrument (based on a Beard). Either are built from a variety of woods: different types of maple, walnut, rosewood, cherry, and mahogany. Maybe some others I've forgotten. Usually he uses a solid top, but has built his own laminates for some of the cherry and (maybe) walnut guitars. He mostly uses a soundwell now, but has used a baffle system in the past. He also uses a variety of saddle material, the final choice depending upon what the guitar and the customer want - the instruments I tried at his house used cherry, maple, ebony-capped maple, and birch.

I was still getting over the drive and had Harry play each of the four instruments that were already there while I listened. Harry plays a lot in the Oswald style with a lot of slants and a lot of tremolo above the twelfth fret. Not the same style as me (I do a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs), but he's a very good picker, and he made each of the guitars sound great.

First was the custom built guitar...a large-body maple instrument. It was very nice, with an old-Dobro tone, but loud.

Next, a small-bodied walnut guitar with a baffle system as I recall. Even with the baffle instead of a soundwell, it had a very vintage Dobro sound.

Then, there were two large-bodied mahogany guitars. One was slightly thicker than the other and had a noticeably deeper bass. This one had stainless steel strings on it and the lower G and B strings weren't quite as strong as I would have liked. The thinner mahogany guitar had more brightness in the bass to my ear and was louder. According to Harry, this is because the thin guitar had a Dobro spider and the thick guitar had a Schoonover (sp?) spider. Harry had tried the Dobro spider in the thicker guitar and said that while it was then louder, it was a little harsh sounding.

JD's guitar was rosewood, and quite nice...it was actually probably my second favorite after playing with all of them. Unfortunately I don't recall if it was the large or small body.

Tim's guitar was a large body walnut guitar that was LOUD. Of course a large part of this was Tim's playing...he digs in harder than almost all other pickers I've seen and made all of the guitars sound louder. This was a good sounding guitar as well, but not what I was looking for.

After talking with Tim (he acts as a "test pilot" for a lot of Harry's guitars) and Harry, I decided I didn't want Harry to custom-build me an instrument. I've seen too many "identical" guitars that didn't sound at all alike. I'm convinced that Harry could have set-up a custom instrument to my liking, but I didn't want to go through all the iterations it may have taken going back and forth from here to Mississippi.

JD and Tim took their guitars and left and Harry put away the maple guitar. So at least that narrowed my choices down to the small bodied walnut and the two mahogany guitars. Well another option was to not get one of Harry's guitars, but I had pretty much ruled that out at this point! Then I got to seriously comparing the remaining three choices.

I have a problem making decisions like this anyway, but I'd play each of the guitars and decide that it was the best and think I'd made up my mind until I played the next one. It took me about 45 minutes of this to finally figure out that I'd be happy with any of these (after all, there is no one perfect instrument!) and decided on the larger mahogany guitar you see pictured on this page. After all, this is the guitar I had pictured in my mind when I was thinking about ordering a guitar long before I ever met Harry.

Harry James definitely does this out of a love of the resonator guitar, both as a player and a builder. He's not in it for the money...that's obvious, as his price is about half that of most comparable guitars. They are not only excellent guitars, but tremendous values, ranking right up there with DeNeves and Jaspers in my opinion.

He fine-tunes the setup of each instrument. While he will build a custom guitar, I think the normal progression is that he builds a guitar and plays it for a while, trying this saddle with that string, etc. until he gets the sound he thinks the guitar should have. He'll go to festivals, someone will hear him playing the guitar, fall in love with the sound, and buy it from him.

It's unbelievable how much patience he showed me while I was trying out his guitars. We talked about the sound of my mahogany guitar (before I decided on it) and he said "I'll bet this might sound a little better for your playing style with nickel strings...let's see" and changed the strings. An hour or so later, I asked how he thought it would sound with Beard strings and he said "won't take but a couple of minutes to find out" and changed the strings again. In total, I spent five hours with Harry on Saturday, and he didn't rush me in the least about anything, but continued to indulge me as I went back and forth among the guitars, sometimes playing them, sometimes having Harry play them.

Harry will never be a high volume builder, but will always be a high quality builder. He cares about the sound that comes out of each and every instrument he builds and he cares that the customer is satisfied with that sound. Harry told me that if I wasn't happy with my guitar, even a couple years down the road, he would trade with me on another guitar...even swap provided I hadn't damaged the guitar.

One of the stories I heard in my research was from a gentleman whose strap failed. The guitar hit a concrete floor at just the wrong angle and the neck and body separated, doing some serious damage in the process. He called Harry to ask about repair recommendations and Harry responded "no one knows that guitar as well as I do; I'd like to repair it for you", so he did, strengthening the neck-body joint, repairing all the damage and completely refinishing the instrument. He returned the guitar to its owner about a month later with a bill for a new set of strings and UPS charges only. According to the owner, you can't tell it was ever dropped.

I think Harry was a rare find, and you might be interested in talking with him about building you a resonator guitar if you're in the market. I almost hate to spread the word, because I don't want Harry to get so busy that he doesn't have time to help me when I have a problem or want him to do some set-up on my guitar.

I gain in no way if you purchase one of his guitars; Harry has as a goal to place one of his guitars in every state of the US of A, and if this page will help him achieve that goal in any way, great! You can reach Harry at 601-729-2836...tell him I sent you.

I hope to eventually own other guitars (my next choice may be one of Floyd Jasper's banjo-killers for big jam sessions!), but plan to keep my James guitar from now on. It will always have more sound in it than I'm capable of getting out.

Thanks, Harry!

I've since acquired a Scheerhorn L-body...click here to see it.

Lee Hiers
Cornelia, GA

Email to: aa4ga@contesting.com.