Hearing Jerry Douglas talk about the dobro is like listening to someone describing his first true love. There’s a deep respect, nostalgia and genuine affection for the resonating guitar, and after more than four decades as a musician, Douglas is considered its undisputed master.
Invented in 1928 by brothers John and Emil Dopyera, the word dobro is short for “Dopyera brothers”; it is also a Slovak word meaning “good.” One of the first resonator guitars invented and mass-produced, the instrument is known for its Art Deco-era aesthetics and its ability to create a sound louder than an acoustic guitar.
Over the course of his career Douglas has won 14 Grammy Awards and played on more than 1,500 records, collaborating with such artists as Garth Brooks, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Elvis Costello, Earl Scruggs and Ray Charles. On Aug. 22, the Jerry Douglas Band is playing an intimate seated show at the Majestic Theater. Isthmus caught up with him to talk about his unique instrument, his approach to musicality and how he helped bring the dobro into the modern era.
Do you see yourself as an ambassador for the dobro?
I do. All my life, I’ve been playing this thing. And for so long, people would ask, “What’s that? What’s a dobro?” But I find myself explaining it about 85 percent less now than I used to. People know what they are now, they’ve heard them on the radio and on records.
How did you get interested in the instrument?
I heard it first on records. When I’d be getting up to go to school in the morning, my dad would be going to work in the steel mill in northeast Ohio. His favorite band was Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. The best dobro player of the time was Josh Graves. He was my hero. I wanted to play like that guy.
The thing that got me about the instrument was how [dobro players could] play these really fast tunes, these amazing arpeggios, but then [they] could turn right around and be the bluesiest guy in the band. [Dobro] lends itself really well to blues and can create all these emotions. It’s a wonderful sound. It’s the closest to the human voice, at least of all the acoustic instruments.
What was your first instrument like?
I was 10 years old and playing the guitar. On a dobro, the strings are a ways off the neck and you play with a slide. So I talked [my dad] into raising the strings on my guitar, which created tension in the neck. It was a silvertone guitar, not very expensive. It exploded. I had to get a real dobro after that. I took to it really easy and learned fast, because that’s what you do when you’re 10 years old.
How did you get your start as a performer?
I started out really early and played with my dad’s band. We played taverns and honky tonks for the steel mill workers until I was about 15 or 16. Then I went on the road with a band called the Country Gentlemen which was based out of Washington D.C. and played with them between my junior and senior year of high school in 1974. I was going to go to the University of Maryland, but I decided to trade it in for a life of hard knocks in the music business. I don’t think it was a bad idea.
My career has taken me all over the world. There used to be these tours that were set up by the United States Information Agency, and I got to see some places off the beaten path. I played a lot in southeast Asia, India, Turkey. But that was back when you could do that, in the 1980s and 90s. I wouldn’t feel safe doing it now. But back then we were ambassadors of goodwill and music.
The dobro has such a unique voice, which makes it great as a solo instrument, but it’s also one of many voices in an ensemble. What’s the key to striking that balance?
Patience is what it takes to be a great player — that, and listening to what everyone else is doing. You have to pay attention, you can’t be the lone wolf in a band. You’re operating on what your teammate just played, and you want to stay in character. Listen to the singer, the point they’re trying to put across, the emotion involved, the substance of the song, the attitude in which everything is being played. That’s what I’ve done. Just been a chameleon.
When I’m playing I try to be a singer as well. I’m trying to keep things in a certain register and to have a train of thought and to stay in that throughout in order to deliver the statement. You want to get your message across and take the listener on whatever journey you’re on — you don’t want to leave them behind.
What types of dobros have the best sound? Do you have favorite styles for performing and recording?
I do have favorite instruments, and those are the ones that sing. They have to have a good, balanced sound, all the way through from the highest note to the lowest note. They have to be structurally sound. I want an instrument I can count on, same as the instrument can count on me. The older dobros have a different sound than the newer ones. Newer ones are sort of hybrids that make the guitar louder than it was originally made to be [by] putting improvised pickups on the instrument. I’m one of the main violators of this. It’s kind of a hard thing to explain, because a lot of it is electronic physics I suppose, but it really does sound like a dobro when I’m plugged in, and it’s as loud as [an electric guitar].
Dobros and resonator guitars were invented because they were louder than acoustic guitars. So the next step for the instrument is to go full electric?
Every dobro player that’s playing in a loud band has one of these pickups. It’s something I worked on for a long time — and slowly. Some people were reluctant [to go electric], because they didn’t want to change the sound of the instrument acoustically, but it doesn’t — that’s the best part about it. Some of the first pickups we tried did [change the sound], but we kept experimenting.
We arrived at a manmade substance called tusq that would restore that sound. What a wonderful day that was. We tried ebony, maple, hardwoods, all the things that usually work, but with the pickup they didn’t. But tusq is like bone, like ivory. But it has [fewer] air holes than natural bone, and it transfers the sound well.
Were you involved in the experimental process?
I won’t take all the credit, but I was there because nobody wanted it more than I did. I was playing bigger and bigger places and needed something that would untie me from a microphone. It’s been a marvel and a boon.
What’s next for you?
There’s a thing I’m really proud of called the Transatlantic Sessions, which is a show filmed in the highlands of Scotland. We bring people from the U.S. to play with people from the United Kingdom. It’s all about collaboration. We film it in a castle or manor house over the course of two weeks. We’ve done six of them. A fellow named Aly Bain and I are co-musical directors. It’s been on PBS and we brought it to the states [for a tour]. We’ve had Alison [Krauss], Bela [Fleck], James Taylor, just a ton of people over there. And we have four more [sessions] coming. It’s a big part of my legacy.