"It kind of broke Konter's heart, but he became friends with them before they were married, and he stayed friends with them throughout their marriage," Boak said. While he was away, one of his friends, “Battleship” Bill Poole, who also signed the ukulele, married Cohen. Konter didn't marry until he was 70, to Joanna Cohen, whom he romanced when he was 36 and she just 17.īoak said Konter proposed to her on the night before he left for the North Pole expedition, but Cohen’s "father said, ‘Absolutely not he’s too old.’ "
#STORYO US UKULELE FULL#
The company really didn’t do that - it required dealers to have its full line in stores, Boak said, and “Konter didn’t have a store he just wanted to buy ukuleles cheap.” Martin III during the 1920s, when Konter wanted to be a ukulele dealer. He stopped adding to the collection about 1930.īoak said his and Bartram’s research found Konter established correspondence with C.F.
#STORYO US UKULELE MOVIE#
So did Helen Mack, the lead actress in the movie "Son of Kong," in which she plays a ukulele musician Harry Armstrong, who wrote the music to the barbershop quartet standard "Sweet Adeline" and Charles Frohman, a major producer of Broadway shows for whom Konter likely arranged ukulele music during the Roaring '20s, which Boak said was the pinnacle of the ukulele. Over the next few years, Byrd's teams frequently were feted, and Konter made it a point to get the autographs of more important people on the ukulele.Ĭoolidge, Lindbergh and Teddy Roosevelt Jr., who was secretary of the Navy, all signed it. (Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute) Byrd and Roald Amundsen, as well as significant political figures (e.g., Calvin Coolidge) and celebrities (Charles Lindbergh, Thomas Edison) of the day. The instrument bears as many as 100 signatures including notable Arctic and Antarctic explorers like R.E. Museum & Archives in Nazareth, PA, was carried to the North Pole on the 1926 Byrd expedition by Richard Konter, a ship's mate who accompanied Byrd.
"I think he clearly he knew that the Byrd expedition was going to be historically important, and I think it was kind of like an autograph book," Boak said. Konter also was part of Byrd's 1929 first expedition to the South Pole, and got most members of that expedition to sign the instrument as well. "People who went on the expedition were not typically very important, but after the expedition, many of the crew members actually went on to become very, very important people," Boak said. The expedition made its participants heroes. "As unlikely as it seems," the book says, "Konter's ukulele had become the ultimate souvenir of an important era." It’s the only artifact that actually went to the North Pole.”Īfter the mission was complete, all 45 crew members signed the ukulele. “So they unloaded all this crap from the plane, except that Floyd Bennett didn’t tell anybody that he had the ukulele packed in furs under his seat. "The problem was all the crew members had tried to smuggle things on board the plane, and they discovered that there was some 200 pounds of souvenirs on board, and it would probably have caused the plane to crash or not be able to make it to the North Pole," Boak said. He stuffed those names in the Martin ukulele, which he bought shortly before the expedition, and conspired with Byrd's pilot, Floyd Bennett, to smuggle aboard the plane. The expedition, ferried to the arctic by ship for staging, lasted many months, Boak said.īoak said Konter promised he would take photographs and names of all of the members of his Ukulele Chorus with him on the flight.
Not only did he play, he was the sole source of entertainment aboard the expedition." In fact, Boak said in an interview, Konter "was one of the greatest ukulele players to ever live. "The Stowaway Ukulele" says that when Byrd asked Konter to be a part of the Arctic expedition, "it was Konter's naval record and abilities that secured him a place on the crew," but his musicianship "sure didn't hurt his chances."
0 kommentar(er)
