TONY, GRAB IT! (Heather would never let me!)

These were made my Mario Macaferri (designer of the Django Reinhardt guitar) after he came to America. He was a concert classical guitarist, Inventor, and marketing genius. He came up with a way of molding plastics that gave us the plastic clothes-pin, 8 track cartridge, full size plastic guitar, and several "celebrity" ukes. Godfrey was the biggest thing on TV, and got a healthy royalty.

Amazingly enough the little boxes with buttons to push down chords have been around since the twenties and are still being sold (on TV) TODAY!

Bert, you know how I hate to question you (because of your long white beard...which indicates wisdom) but I've seen several formby pictures where he is definitely using proper fingering for majors, minors, 7ths and diminished chords. I think he may have been simplifying it a bit with the "open chord" story. Uncle Dave Macon carried 2 banjos (minimum) on stage) and the story came out that he couldn't tune, or could only play in one key. One was tuned in G, and the other in "double C". I really think that these folks were just doing it to keep things moving faster in their stage shows. Having seen Joni Mitchell (many tunings), I wish SHE'd have brought pre-tuned instruments with her.

Rick