The Steel Guitar Forum

I wonder if any of you folks on the Forum can recall a guy named Bert Lynn? I have an old very yellowed 1945 newspaper article/photo showing him in a flashy tuxedo playing what is obviously a Rickenbacker 6 string (horseshoe pickup) all metal guitar but with a DIAMOND shaped body where the round frypan body would normally be. The article reads as follows:

"Fourteen years ago, Bert Lynn revolutionized the steel guitar by creating the electric Hawaiian guitar. Today, most steel guitarists have forsaken the conventional instrument for Lynn's development. Since that time he has created electric violins, cellos and other electronic musical instruments. Mr. Lynn is shown playing his Vibrolynn steel guitar and can be heard this evening in concert."

As I recall, (56 years ago!!) at that concert he played a lot of novelty stuff. The photo was taken by the famed photographer, "Norman of NYC". At the time, Lynn seemed to be making the claim of being the "inventor" of the electric Hawaiian guitar plus other instruments. !!! (Quite a claim!)

Anyone know where he is today ? (probably very old or most likely deceased by now), but moreso, has anyone come across a DIAMOND shaped metal body Rickenbacker at any local flea market? It's probably a rare custom made one-of-a-kind!

Anyone know anything about Bert Lynn who seemed to hail from the New York area? Just curious.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by George Keoki Lake on 22 February 2002 at 12:02 PM.]</p></FONT>

Hi Keoki, I have a foto of Lynn in a tux holding that guitar. It is in a folio of Bernie Kaai songs published by Ray Meaney in Frisco in 1941. When I was on the west coast in the40s alot of the people I played with had heard and seen him. From what they said his playing was a burlesque of steel guitar making all kinds of stuff like barking dogs etc. and never played anything serious. He may have been a geat musician in order to do this and book the best hotels on the coast; after all Clel Summey, Roy Acuffs orig dobro player, later went to a 6 strg lap that that heheld with a rope over his shoulder and billed himdelf as Cousin Jody. He made all the wierd sounds as Lynn did but when he wanted to he could pplay the most beautiful stuff. CC

I omitted a few more lines in another article which confirms what you are saying CC...
"A well received novelty was Bert Lynn and his electric guitar, on which he imitated a train, ship, fog horn, hurricane and the realistic 'Air Raid over Berlin' with ack-ack fire, machine gun dual and a crashing plane. His finale was '30 seconds over Tokyo' "
My questions are: What ever happened to him, and what happened to his one-of-a kind Rickenbacker? It must be out there somewhere. Probably in someone's attic gathering dust.

I once worked part-time for Bert Lynn here in Houston. He owned Bert Lynn Music Store and I taught guitar for him. This would have been in '68 it '69. Paul Buskirk (spelling?)also worked there and we were selling the Baldwin guitars and amps. I heard Bert bragging about being the inventor of the electric guitar and we kidded him that it was Les Paul's invention.
I don't know what happened to Bert, but I'll ask around. The store is long gone.

I have a slide bar with his name on it. It's exactly like the old Nick Manoloff slides.

Cool stuff! I would bet, by looking at those pictures, that the diamond shape body is built over a standard Frypan. Somewhat like the Alvino Rey guitar that someone posted a while back.

Yes, it was a Rickenbacher with a diamond shaped body that he called his "Vibrolynn". There are a couple of old threads about him on the forum, one on the old steel forum. Apparently he was quite a character. He claimed to have invented the electric steel guitar and he played a lot of novelty songs, similar to Roy Smeck, from what I can tell... a lot of goofy hokum!

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