Bert Amend & the One-Armed Musicians

Photos ca. 1913-1915
(images copyright and courtesy Robin Amend)

Without any doubt, these are the most fascinating Knutsen instrument photographs ever discovered! Even more fascinating is the story behind it, and we have the grandson himself, Robin Amend, to tell it.
The man on the right in all four images is Bert Amend, who, as a shake mill worker, lost an arm at the turn of the twentieth century. Determined not to give up music, he ultimately invented several attachments and devices to enable himself and similarly handicapped players to play many different instruments (he was granted a patent for a chord-fingering device for the piano). During the early 'teens his trio was billed as "The Greatest Novelty Musical Act in Vaudeville."
Eventually adding more players - all one-armed individuals - the group played violins, cellos, guitars, piano and drums. What has so far been missing from both Robin's story, and the period articles he quotes, is the unique nature of the guitars! While one appears to be some type of unusual six-string (presumably non-Knutsen, but who knows?), there are two very fancy Knutsen 18-course harp guitars discernible in these photographs, with a third 11-course in the possession of Robin.
The two known Knutsen harp guitars are both mid-Seattle-era "Lower Bass Point" models, and are clearly smaller scale instruments (somewhere around 3/4 size). One is right-handed, one is left-handed. Notice that Bert (and his main partner) can either fret or pluck either instrument with their single hand! Robin says that the instrument in his possession has no treble string bank (therefore is not one of these), is "small" also, and has either label SE1 (early Seattle) or SE2 (mid-Seattle). The left-handed instrument in the first photo also appears to have label SE1 (possibly SE2) barely resolvable when magnified. The glare and angle of the face when the photo was taken disguises the black color - this instrument (Inv #HGS43) is the same one that appears in the second and third photos. The pointed lower bout can only be seen on the table in the last photo at far left. Note that after the first photo was taken, the group has omitted every other bass string, leaving three (they also added an extra screw "nut-post" on the bass arm, which tells us the photo chronology). In the images below, The third photo shows the first two instruments side-by-side in scale, suggesting that their scale lengths and other dimensions may be slightly different. I was delighted to notice that the second floating "bridge" rests for the trebles appear to be the same curved, thin bone pieces that were found on the "zither harp guitar" (HGS40)!

The missing part of the story is: Why Knutsens? Why harp guitars at all, and especially Knutsen's 18-course version with the doubled third string and super-trebles? One might expect that standard six-string guitars would have been difficult enough to learn the "two-player" techniques on, but clearly these gentlemen were more than up to the challenge! Not only does Bert "switch hit" on each side of the guitar, but he does so while bowing the cello with his special bow attachment!

HGS43

HGS44

HGS43, HGS44

Here are the two harp guitars taken from the first photo - as they are in scale, they seem to show variations in scale length and proportions.

These instruments have the look of a custom set made specially by Knutsen for this group - all are small, with possibly custom scale lengths, all have very fancy trim and inlay, and they are a right- and left-handed pair - presumably to accommodate the specific needs of the player combinations. Interesting also is that both have the doubled G-string, seen only twice on previous Knutsens. Could it be that Amend desired this double-G for some specific reason and Knutsen obliged? Interesting how these compare with the similarly fancy, left-handed, small-scale, double-G-string HGS25.
Click on each photo to see the full Instrument page.

*3/15/2005 UPDATE:* I just discovered another rare series of postcards that relate to Bert Amend and tie him again to Knutsen, via a different group of musicians!

The first photo shows Bert - in about the same time frame as the above photos. The card at right has a pencil inscription of "1917" but the photo may be somewhat earlier. My suspicion is that these photos are from before the series above, Bert not yet having put together his band of fellow one-armed players, nor acquired the fancy Knutsen harp guitars.	In the second photo, we see the same Autoharp player, with an early Knutsen harp mandolin made at the end of or after 1910.	The final postcard depicts the same Autoharp player with a violinist. Clearly, this was a series of postcards / photographs taken for use by this group of musicians.

Bert Amend & the One-Armed Musicians
	by Gregg Miner, as part of


Close-up of Amend shows three standard bowlback mandolins.	I had my suspicions, and when I received the original postcard, I confirmed it - this harp mandolin survived and is in the Archives! See #HM19.
(left images from eBay - I was unable to obtain the original postcard. Two images at right copyright Gregg Miner)