Word: lutes
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...rare, melodious twang was heard this week on U.S. airwaves. The twangs came from an instrument which legend says was invented by a son of Methuselah-the lute, an instrument resembling an archaic mandolin. Rare too was the young lutanist who plunk-a-plunked and sang ballads on an NBC Sunday sustainer. Richard Dyer-Bennet, 28-year-old minstrel, is probably the only U.S. radio entertainer listed in Burke's Peerage...
Richard Dyer-Bennet got into Burke's by being related to a British baronet, Sir John Dyer. He got into lute-playing less simply. Although born in England, he had a U.S. mother, chose to become a U.S. citizen on his 21st birthday, went to the University of California. There he met a voice teacher who remodeled his youthful tenor and told him of a great Swedish minstrel named Sven Scholander. When Dyer-Bennet inherited $500, he hotfooted to Sweden, learned the Swedish lute and some balladeering tricks. He was just in time: within a year, Scholander...