Mini Dobrofest -- Dobro still means good in any language

Last night was a homecoming of sorts, in Trnava, Slovakia -- an hours-long concert in honor of John Dopyera, who with his brothers invented the dobro, or resonator guitar.

Last night's concert was also billed as a "mini-Dobrofest" -- a much smaller, but still fun successor to the Dobrofest festival that for years took place in Trnava to celebrate the instrument and its creators.

Dobrofest was founded in 1992, just when Slovakia was gaining independence through its "velvet divorce" from the Czech Republic. The country was, subconsciously perhaps, looking for national heroes, and Dopyera became one -- the archetypical local boy who made good, even though he left the country to do so.... Dopyera was born in the village of Dolna Krupa, near Trnava, in 1893 and emigrated to the United States with his family in 1908. They ended up in California...

Year after year, Dobrofest brought top international musicians to Trnava, including the Americans Peter Rowan, Bob Brozman and Jerry Douglas -- as well as local bands.

Here's a video of Peter Rowan performing with the Czech band Druha Trava at Dobrofest in 2005:

But Dobrofest sort of ended for lack of funds in 2008 and then sputtered into mini-fests after that.

I attended it several times, the first time in 2003, when main events were held in the town's main square as well as in other venues, including one of the synagogues.

Last night's concert took place in a music cafe that is part of a huge new stadium and shopping mall complex. I met up with some of my oldest friends in Europe's Imaginary Wild West and country music scene.

The headliner was Willie Jones and his band. A big bear of a man with a full beard, Willie (and bandmember Roman Ac) were two of the very first people I met in the scene -- back in 2003, when he was working as the "singing cowboy" of the Pullman City wild west theme park in Bavaria.

I was working on an article for the New York Times back then, and I followed Willie and Roman on an adventure into the Czech country world.

Willie Jones and Roman Ac in Trnava March 11, 2016

As I wrote in an earlier post on this blog

One of my first experiences in the Imaginary Wild West was, in fact, a cowboy-style party in a country-western roadhouse in a remote village in southern Bohemia....I was led there by Willie Jones, an American who at the time was working as a singing cowboy at the Pullman City wild west theme park in Bavaria. Along with a Slovak bluegrass group, we traveled in a three-car convoy from Pullman City into CZ. 

The road house was in a village too small to appear on my map. From the outside it looked like an anonymous village restaurant, but inside it was decorated with Wild West paraphernalia including horseshoes, sepia photographs of Native Americans and Billy the Kid, and a framed arrangement of pistols and playing cards. 

The occasion for the party was the 50th birthday of Franz Zetihammel, a figure well known on the Czech and German western show circuit for his portrayals “Fuzzy,” an “old coot” persona harking back to characters played by comic western actors such as Gabby Hayes or Walter Brennan. Fuzzy has long straggly grey hair and beard and never appears in public without his cowboy hat, cowboy boots and turquoise bolo tie and other jewelry. 

A Czech country duo got the guests up and dancing with locally written Czech country songs and Czech covers of American hits such as John Denver’s “Country Roads” and even “I’m and Okie from Muskokee.” 

One of the party guests, a man in his forties, was dressed head to toe in full cowboy attire, including sheriff’s star and a six-shooter – which Fuzzy at one point pulled from its holster, brandished at the dancers and then fired at the ceiling – fortunately, it was loaded with blanks....

Other artists on the line-up last night were the award-winning Czech guitarist Jakub Racek, the English singer Dave Peabody (who duetted with a Bratislava-born fiddler, the only woman onstage...), and the Slovak dobro player Peter Sabados.

The show last night was MC'd by Peter "Bonzo" Radvanyi -- the bluesy local performer who had been the driving force behind Dobrofest.  He ended the show by getting everyone to sing a sort of "Dobro chant" that had ended the festival events in its heyday.

And then he got everyone one stage to do this -- at the very end of the show

I sat with a table of friends in the front row -- they were people who really helped me in my quest to follow the scene over the years and explain the fascination with American country style, country music, bluegrass, and all that goes with it. Thanks guys!

Slovakia -- RIP Dobrofest (at least for now) and RIP Cowboy Beckham

So, football star David Beckham is no longer going to be the advertising face of Pepsi Cola....Over the past 10 years in the job, he reminisced:

"I’ve played a gladiator, a cowboy, a surfer, and worked alongside Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez as well as some of the biggest names in world football. "

The tears are flowing....but why mention it on this blog? Well, I thought I'd mark the solemn occasion by recalling how a Pepsi poster with Beckham in his cowboy persona formed part of the atmospheric decor of a Wild West saloon in the little Slovak town of Trnava...

The photo was taken during the annual Dobrofest festival there -- I guess I have to call it the late, lamented Dobrofest, because municipal authorities, who sponsored the festival, have decided there will be no Dobrofest this year, and who knows if it will be revived.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Real tears are flowing over the demise of Dobrofest.

It was a wonderful festival that honored the resonator (or resophonic) guitar, one of my favorite instruments (especially when it's played by Lubos Novotny, of the Czech band Druha Trava. He's a genius on it).

Lubos Novotny (and Peter Rowan) at Dobrofest in 2005. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The festival was founded in 1992, just when Slovakia was gaining independence through its "velvet divorce" from the Czech Republic. The country was, subconsciously perhaps, looking for national heroes, and John Dopyera, who invented the dobro, became one -- the archetypical local boy who made good, even though he left the country to do so.... Dopyera was born in the village of Dolna Krupa, near Trnava, in 1893 and emigrated to the United States with his family in 1908. They ended up in California.

States the Dobrofest web site:

The sound of the resophonic or resonator guitar dobro has already hadseven decades of contribution to popular music. Its first appearance on the music scene began in the mid-twenties of 20th century in the USA, where today it is regarded as an American folk instrument, and since those times its use expanded into the whole world. It was created during the times when the musicians who played guitars felt the need for a louder sound for their instruments yet the possibility of electrification was still in the cradle. Clever application of acoustic sound technology, by which the metal resonators work like natural mechanical amplifiers, expressively changed the sound of popular music and went into the history forever.

Although it is undoubtedly one of the most significant artistic-craftmanship-technical inventions by which Slovakia through its natives enriched the world´s musical culture, the fact that the inventor of resophonic dobro was Slovak native Ján/John Dopyera (1893-1988), was until lately practically unknown. In June 1989, however, one year after John Dopyera´s death, a newspaper article came out with the information that the inventor of the dobro was from Slovakia. It is very symbolic, that the first article appeared directly in Trnava (in the monthly Culture and Life of Trnava), the same town where a couple years later there arose the international music festival Dobrofest-Trnava dedicated to the inventor´s memory.

In this way Trnava succeeded in discovering this famous native for the whole of Slovakia and later, through the Dobrofest, gave that information to the world. We can say without exaggerating, that the end of the 20th century belonged to the dobro in the worldwide music scene as well as in Slovakia. The resophonic guitar came back again to the foreground, after decades of eclipse due to electrical amplification, on the fashion wave of return to acoustic music and became literally the symbol of so called unplugged music.

Year after year, Dobrofest brought top international musicians to Trnava, including the Americans Peter Rowan, Bob Brozman and Jerry Douglas.

The extraordinary Bob Brozman at Dobrofest 2005. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

And a Dobro Museum - the "Dobro Hall of Fame" -- was established as part of the local Museum of Western Slovakia.

Dobro Hall of Fame museum, Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

So, read this and weep....