Bob Dunn (musician)

Infobox musical artist
Name = Bob Dunn


Img_capt =
Img_size =
Landscape =
Background = solo_singer
Birth_name = Robert Lee Dunn
Alias =
Born = birth date|1908|2|5|mf=y [Ginell, "Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing", p: 108: "Robert Lee Dunn was born near the town of Braggs, Oklahoma on February 5, 1908." NOTE: Birth date confirmed by Social Security Death Index.] Braggs, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died = Death date and age|1971|5|27|1908|2|5 Houston, Texas, U.S.
Instrument = Steel guitar, Trombone
Genre = Western swing - Jazz
Occupation = Musician

Years_active = 1930s-1940s
Label =
Associated_acts = Panhandle Cowboys and Indians - Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies - Cliff Bruner's Texas Wanderers - Bill Mounce and the Sons of the South
URL =

Robert Lee "Bob" Dunn was a jazz trombonist and a pioneer Western swing steel guitarist. [DeCurtis, "Present Tense", p. 17-18: In "San Antonio Rose", his exhaustive study of life and music of western-swing kingpin Bob wills and his Texas Playboys, Charles Townshend [sic] offers fragmentary but suggestive evidence that T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian, the front-runners in the first generation of black electric guitarists, were inspired, at least in part, by the early amplified playing of white musicians such as Dunn and McAuliffe. ... Western-swing and jazz present a similar continuum on the white side of the tracks, with men like McAuliffe a jazzy but heavily country-inflected style, while mavericks like Dunn played a kind of pure, futuristic jazz all their own. And every one of these player, black and white, was solidly grounded in the blues."]

He is noted as the first musician to record an electrically amplified instrument—January, 1935, with Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies. [Oliphant, "Texas Jazz", p. 23: "Prior to Durham's first recorded performance, Bob Dunn had recorded with the Texas Western Swing unit of Milton Brown and His Music Brownies on January 27 and 28, 1935. On this date, dunn played an amplified steel guitar, which primarily was utilized for Hawaiian music."]

Dunn was elected to the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1992.

References

Bibliography

*DeCurtis, Anthony. "Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Culture". Duke University Press, 1992) ISBN 0-8223-1265-4
*Ginell, Cary. "Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing". Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994. ISBN 0-252-02041-3
*Oliphant, Dave. "Texas Jazz: 1920-50". "The Roots of Texas Music" edited by Lawrence Clayton, Joe W. Specht, pp. 37-65. Texas A&M University Press, 2005. ISBN 1-58544-492-8

External links

* [http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/D/DU009.html DUNN, ROBERT LEE (1908-1971)] —Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture.
* [http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/DD/fdu66.html Dunn, Robert Lee (Bob)] —Handbook of Texas Online.