On Mardi Gras day (yesterday) in the French Quarter, I saw two different buskers playing metal-body resonator guitars with the name "Johnson" imprinted on the headstock. I've never heard of this brand ~ anyone know anything about it?

The first guy I saw actually had TWO different shiny new chrome-plated-looking Johnson guitars, replicas of two classic National models (single-cone and tricone styles). How did they sound? Can't say ~ the guy's act consisted of having his cute little tiny lap-dog retrieve tips (paper money only!) from onlookers and drop them into his collection can. He managed to pull this off without hardly playing any music at all. He'd start playing "Freight Train" in C, standard tuning, but never got more than 2 or 3 measures into the tune. Why he needed to bring a second guitar along with him, I'll never know.

Later in the day, I passed another busker, playing slide blues in an open tuning. Pretty good player, nice loud sound, same "Johnson" nameplate on his headstock and same shiny new metal body as the two guitars I had seen earlier.

Is this a brand-name worth looking into, for someone comtemplating purchase of a resonator model as a second guitar?