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Mknut
Aloha
USA
6 Posts |
 Posted - 10/18/2006 : 09:37:10 AM
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Hello everyone, my name is Darrell Urbien and I am a volunteer researcher for Gregg Miner's Knutsen Archives:
http://www.harpguitars.net/knutsen/knutsen_home.htm
This is a website dedicated to a luthier named Chris Knutsen, one of the pioneers of Hawaiian Steel Guitar (and harp-guitar, and harp-mandolin, and harp-ukulele). Knutsen lived and worked in Seattle and Los Angeles from around the turn of the last century until his death in 1930. He was a luthier, player, and composer of Hawaiian music. He also performed on the radio several times in the 1920s. Trust me when I say this - if you had seen one of Knutsen's instruments, you would have remembered it! He was truly an inventive spirit!
I became interested in Knutsen after seeing some of his instruments at a luthier's convention. I read the book by Tom Noe and Dan Most (http://www.noeenterprises.com/ - NFI) and realized that while Knutsen was in LA he lived in my childhood neighborhood of Echo Park. I immediately found Gregg's site and have been working with him ever since - look for several of my articles on Knutsen to hopefully go live soon.. Gregg likes to joke that I'm like a Graduate Assistant working on my thesis - so I've taken on the nickname of "MKnut", the name of my fictional "degree." :) I'm also MKnut on the harpguitar and fleamarketmusic forums.
I have done a lot of digging into the histories of Knutsen's old residences and shops in Echo Park, as well as the many interesting people he interacted with - Los Angeles at that time was a great place to be if you were involved with Hawaiian music .. Luthiers Hermann Weissenborn and Leonardo Nunes lived close by.. CS Delano was playing and publishing music.. National was getting started.. Legendary players like Sol Hoopii and Bennie Newahi were working in the area..
Knutsen and Hoopii were also involved with Echo Park's Aimee Semple McPherson's International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which definitely helped spread the use of Hawaiian music and steel guitar with Church music.
I've been to several local SoCAL Hawaiian events, uke fests, etc. looking for anyone who might know more about Knutsen. I've discovered several new leads there and met a lot of great people. So I figured it made sense to join this forum in case anyone here might be able to help me learn more about this elusive character.. If anyone here has ANYTHING to share - whether it be info about Knutsen or his instruments, a player you know about, or even just historical info about the Hawaiian music scene in LA - PLEASE contact me! Or, if I could help anyone who has questions about Knutsen, please don't hesitate to ask - though I may have to defer to Gregg, as he's the true expert (I tend to focus more on Knutsen's life in LA).
As a personal player, I am actually more of a mandolinist. But I also have several ukuleles, including a Knutsen-style concert harp-ukulele built by Canadian luthier Micheal Dunn. I look forward to receiving a Dunn steel guitar (also modeled after a Knutsen) in the near future, but I have only started learning how to play that instrument!
When I'm not digging through various archives for Knutsen info, I teach CAD at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA. :)
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Darrell Urbien
Research Assistant for the Knutsen Archives
Member, Echo Park Historical Society |
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Mknut
Aloha
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2006 : 09:44:37 AM
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| Just realized my email's been dumping messages from this forum into a junk mail folder without me knowing it - if anyone's tried to contact me already and I haven't anwsered you, please resend your message and I'll try to catch it this time! Sorry! |
Darrell Urbien
Research Assistant for the Knutsen Archives
Member, Echo Park Historical Society |
Edited by - Mknut on 10/18/2006 10:34:08 AM |
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