More specifically, a Dobro is a
brand name for a
resonator guitar with a
wooden body and one resonator cone.
When Los Angeles guitarist George Beauchamp took his idea for a mechanically amplified guitar to Slovakian immigrants John Dopyera and his brother Rudy, they created the National tricone resonator guitar in 1927. John Dopyera left National in 1928 and began developing a more affordable wood body guitar with a single cone and a spiderlike bridge base. His new invention he called the DOBRO® -- a combination of Dopyera and Brothers (brothers John, Rudy, Emile, Robert and Louis all took part in the company). National and Dobro would merge in 1932. After World War II, musicians wanted electric guitars, and National stopped production. The Dopyera family business, the Original Music Instrument Company, got the name Dobro back in 1970. Gibson Guitar acquired OMI in 1993.