The Steel Guitar Forum

I took my 1928 National square neck (#488) down to Marc Schoenberger for servicing.

When we opened it up we saw writing on the back of the cone cover. It took us a couple minutes to realize there were autographs from Sol Hoopii and Lani McIntyre. Sol's autograph says "Sol Hoopii -- Honolulu Hawaii."

Also penciled on the back of cover is the name Fred Gouveia, whose family I bought the guitar from, and his address in Daly City. The 1930 census shows him living at that address, supporting the theory that he was the original owner.

Gouviea was born in Hawaii in 1905 into a Portuguese "paniolo" family. His daughter-in-law remembers seeing pictures of him in rodeo costume. She also remembers him playing Hawaiian tunes at family parties years later. He moved to California in 1929.

The guitar is in good shape, but the work Marc did really improved the sound. It sounds great now.

Now, who would take the cone cover off to get an autograph? Did Gouveia take just the cover to a concert? Did he attend a workshop with Hoopii?

There is also a short love note from "Sally", and a list of names of three great Hawaiian guitar players, including misspellings: "Eddy Bush, Sol Hooppi, and Sam Ku."

What is that about? Sympathetic magic trying to channel their playing into the guitar?

In any case an exciting surprise.

That is the coolest thing ever.

Cool indeed.
That's only the second Sol autograph I've ever seen, the other is in my collection, on a Dickerson promo photo.
Lani's is a rare one as well.
Probably the only autograph by Fred Gouveia in existence, but who was he other than a cowboy and the owner of the guitar?

Makes you wonder what surprises lay inside other steels...
Reminds me of a friend discovering David Kelii's penciled signature inside the PU cavity of what we now know is his old Epiphone steel.

Per Sam Ku, that was his real name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Ku_West
Are those other three names written by the same person? If that's Sam's autograph that would obviously be even more special.
Here is Sam doing Palolo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fBw5ibH3UQ

I'm not much at handwriting analysis.

I thought these three names were written by the same hand, but now that I look at them again, Sam Ku's looks different. A different capital S for instance.

Ku's autograph? Maybe. He recorded in Oakland in October 1928, but I don't place Gouveia in the bay area till May 1929 when he arrived by ship. But Ku and Hoopii were both in in Hawaii during the summer of 1928 according to Ku's CD notes.

The other two do seem to be by the same hand, and it is these that are misspelled. Eddie Bush spelled his name "Eddie" not "Eddy" and, of course, "Hoopii" is not "Hoppii."

Very cool!

Absolutely fascinating . I do have Sam Ku's signature on some letters which his grandson gave me copies of. Here it is ....taken from a letter he sent from Singapore in 1926 to his wife back home in Honolulu. What do you think Lloyd ....similar ?
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Thanks Les,

I'd say the "Ku" looks pretty close to yours. The "S" in Sam is a bit different, but not entirely dissimilar.

In spite of the obvious differences between the two examples, there is more than enuf similarity to say the chances are that it is Ku's signature on the guitar. BAM!

Wow, really? That K looks awfully different to me, as well as the initial S and some of the lower case letters.

Darrell Urbien wrote:Wow, really?

I'd lay $ on it.

If I am correct, Sam Ku was also known as Sam Ku West.

George Keoki Lake wrote:If I am correct, Sam Ku was also known as Sam Ku West.

From my link above... West first performed professionally as a member of Irene West's touring band, adding the "West" surname to his birth name, Sam Ku, Jr.

I missed your link Ron... Should have read it more closely. Sorry.

Really fascinating, Lloyd! It looks as though the loops on the S and the l of Sol may have been melted a bit by the yellowish substance. Might that be flux from the solder holding the screen in place? If so then perhaps the cover plate was signed at the factory before assembly was completed. Or maybe the substance is some sort of lacquer applied later on. I wonder if Mr. Hoopii might possibly have signed Honolulu to indicate where he was from, not necessarily that he was there when making his signature?

I have a style 2 tricone serial #169, which would make it about the 70th instrument built. No signatures inside of that one, darn it! The instrument has been played like crazy, with thousands of little bar dings all up and down the fretboard. I like to think that one of the great Hawaiian players made his living playing it, but I'll probably never know.

I was thinking flux too, Steve. The inside of these guitars sure aren't finished as nicely as the outside.

My impression is that the pencil the goes over the flux, but did not adhere well to it. I'll have to wait till the guitar is opened again to look closely at that.

Here is a shot showing both "Sol Hoopii" and "Honolulu Hawaii" in relation to each other. I am mot certain that these are by the same hand, but I thought the "H's" looked similar. Today they look rather different.

Other than a slight similarity in the H's, Sol's script is much cruder that the Honolulu/Hawaii, and it doesn't make much sense for him to have wrote that. Also, having seen a few of Sol's autographs, it would be abnormal for him to have added anything other than a typical Aloha Pumehana.

Here is Lani McIntyre's signature.

Wikipedia: "sometimes spelled Lani McIntire, 15 December 1904 - 17 June 1951."

I associated MacIntyre with Bing Crosby's Blue Hawaii and "sweet" dance bands. I didn't know that he was part of Hoopii's Trio until 1930 or that with his own band he made several records accompanying Jimmie Rodgers.

This would have been an unbelievable discovery, but I'm not convinced that the signature is Sol's. Have a look at Sol's signature here:



The "S" and the "H" are very different. As far as the other misspelled names, I wonder what that was all about.... Also, Lani McIntire spelled his last name with an "i". Here's a sample:

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/jukejoint_2110_247006734


I hope I'm wrong about all this.

Another copy of Sol's signature for comparison ...like Mike I'm not at all sure that the signature on the guitar is Sol. Still fascinating though !

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Mike & Les,

I'm not sure of any of this either. I suppose I would like to believe it, since it's my guitar.

Tho only things I am certain of are that the guitar did belong to Fred Gouveia , that he was born in Hawaii in 1905, and that he lived in Daly City in 1930.

The Brozman book has an 1927 Hoopii autograph on page 114 that is quite different than any of these.

Lani does seem to spell McIntyre both ways. At least it is written both ways by others. Are there autographs?

Lloyd Elliott wrote: Lani does seem to spell McIntyre both ways. At least it is written both ways by others. Are there autographs?

Yes, follow this link:
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/jukejoint_2110_247006734

Also, Lorene Ruymar's book, "The Hawaiian Steel Guitar" has a few additional examples of these signatures and they don't seem to match up, at least not to my eyes.

I mentioned that there were love notes inside the cover as well.

I read one as "Most of all...." and signed "love, Sally."

As I was listening to my Hoopii recordings I happened to see one was called "Most of all I want your love." I am pretty sure that what is written is "Most of all want your love Sally." Maybe it is not signed by Sally, but addressed to her from Fred. In either case either the title is used as a love note.

Remember I have only seen inside the cover one time for ten minutes. Other than that I am relying on photos.



Seeing the use of the song title this way made me think about the other note that I couldn't figure out, and indeed it is a line from a song as well. "You the rose .... left in .... heart." Lani McIntyre's song is "You're the one rose that's left in my heart."


This was a hit in in 1936 and was widely published then, but it was first recorded by Jimmie Rodgers with McIntyre's Hawaiians in 1930.



Maybe all the writing is by Fred and/or Sally. I don't know.

All very interesting! Only thing I have to suggest, is that my signature is inconsistent. Specially if I have to write on a surface that's not level. We're used to singing papers on a flat, level surface.

If Lani McIntire never wrote his name with a "y" instead of an "i", there could not be much argument for a legit autograph.

Without proven original autographs to compare to, it's so hard to say. On old promo photos, the signatures are frequently not those of the artists they claim to be from. Think about the "Blind Lemon Jefferson" and "Blind Blake" photos in the old Paramount promos--signatures obviously by the same hand, and most likely not from the hand of someone without sight. In the McIntire/Hoopii promo, look at the dates, and they look like they were written by the same person. The 3's, the 8's the 2's the 4's--they look the same.

Several years back, I ran into Muhammed Ali in the Memphis airport. Kids were gathered around him asking for autographs, but with his state of Parkinson's where it was, that wasn't going to happen. He had pre-printed cards with a facsimile of his autograph on them that he handed out. This counts as authentic enough in my book. Same goes for the old promo material from musical artists.

On the Sam Ku signature on the National, the m's and the u's sure look similar, as does the a to m transition.

But whatever--I always think it's cool to find hidden messages inside old instruments, whatever the provenance might be. I think my favorites are luthiers' marks inside the instruments from anonymous folks long gone indicating how pieces are supposed to fit together, etc. The guitar obviously meant a lot to somebody along the line, and that's probably the most important thing!

Just my .02

Dave