What about Guy Hart and Lloyd Loar?

[bones12]

Why is it that Guy Hart who developed the Gibson instrument line (with Mr Loar as the artistic aid) is not better known? We don't speak of that special "Hart tone" but should we? Was his influence only secondary? From my memories, we might thank Mr. Hart for the florentine scroll that many of us like. The only big information seems to be from Roger Siminoff. Any info on this lesser known man who went on to develop other mandolins? Thanks, Doug

[Jim Hilburn]

There seems to be a lot of mis-information out there about Guy Hart. He was Secretary-General Manager of Gibson from '24 to '48. He replaced G. Ferris at a time when the company was in trouble because they hadn't kept up with the changing trends in musical instruments.
This was at the same time that Loar left and there was a major transition in what instruments were made and how they made them. There's no evidence that I'm aware of that Hart had any connection to instrument development.
Ted McHugh is the more likely hands-on guy that has been forgotten.

[kudzugypsy]

jim is right - its not why dont we hear about guy hart, its why do we not hear about ted mchugh - he was the guy in the factory that was really behind most of the patents at the time. (which he smartly held in HIS name, not gibsons) he was sort of a p.a. bigsby kind of person - if you could draw it out - he could build it.

guy hart was the bean counter - there was a lot of talk of him in the 70's before people really got all the details straight. i was reading a '79(?) FRETS article and they seemed to think he had something to do with the loars, but time and more research as pretty much dismissed him as being anything more than the general manager who would ok or nix a product. plus, on the original grisman quintet lp, they called grismans mando a hart-loar or something like that. you dont hear that anymore.

now ted mchughs contributions at gibson would be a facsinating story. you can sort of see this in the patents he held.... mastertone tone ring banjos, adjustable bridge, adjustable truss rod, etc, etc.

[sunburst]

I think the reason we hear and read so much about LLoyd Loar, and so little about Hart, Mchugh, or anybody else that worked at Gibson in the 20s is; if you look through the F-hole of Bill Monroe's mandolin, or the others like it, there's a label in there with the signature of one Lloyd Loar.

[Lane Pryce]

Is there any record as to what endevour Lloyd undertook after he left Gibson? Lp

[sunburst]

Yeah, quite a bit. I think the Siminoff web site has a pretty comprehensive Loar life story.

He and some partners atarted their own company, and he worked on early electric instrument design.

Here ya go. (http://www.siminoff.net/pages/loar_background.html)