![]() They also all have the airplane shaped bridge, which may have been a nod to Lindbergh’s famous 1927 flight across the Atlantic. ![]() (The ukes are far and away the most common.) All of the Vita instruments feature the same pear body shape and seal-shaped soundholes. The guitar pictured here is one of the scarcer models in the Vita line. The line was dubbed the Vita series, in honor of his work with Vitaphone, and featured a ukulele, a mandolin, a tenor guitar and both Spanish and Hawaiian-style guitars. Roy Smeck was so popular in the 1920s that Harmony introduced a whole line of signature models bearing his name. Which brings us to today’s Catch of the Day. (Here’s a great clip of Smeck showing off his formidable chops in the 1926 Vitaphone short His Pastimes.) He was so well-known at the time that when the Vitaphone company first started experimenting with sound movies in the mid-1920s, they turned to Smeck as the natural choice to demonstrate the new technology. His act featured him switching between tenor banjo, ukulele, Hawaiian guitar, Spanish guitar and mandolin. In the 1920s, Roy Smeck was a popular vaudeville performer who was billed as the Wizard of the Strings. Here’s one that’s both a rare bird and an odd duck.
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