Around 1928, a musician named George Beauchamp approached luthier John Dopyera with a proposal to make a louder steel guitar. After a few failed experiments, Dopyera came up with a guitar with a body made of nickel-plated brass and a bridge that rested on three cones of very thin aluminum. These cones, or resonators, acted just the same way as the speakers in a stereo: they did indeed make the instrument significantly louder. They also gave it a distinctive tone, which I think of as “the resonator honk”. Resonator guitars became popular with early blues musicians because they were loud enough to be heard even over a noisy audience.

National, the company formed by Beauchamp, Dopyera and some other investors, soon broadened their production to include mandolins and, yes, ukuleles. Even though in the early thirties electric amplification was invented and meant that even ordinary instruments could be made as loud as you want, the resonator continued because of its unique tone. One of today’s best-known performers who uses a reso uke is Del Rey, and Manitoba Hal has also been known to use one on occasion. You can find reso ukes with bodies made from metal, wood, and fibreglass, although the resonator itself is always made of aluminum.