Welcome to the wonderful world of the mysterious and unusual TENOR GUITAR. You have ventured upon the first independent website that is dedicated to providing answers to any questions you may have about this unique instrument.
Mark Josephs
The first person I ever met who played a four string tenor guitar was John Gordon Taylor, from upstate, New York. This was around 1971. I was facinated by the interesting chord voicings he was getting. John played a lot of Kingston Trio type stuff and was self taught.
I grew up in the Atlantic City, New Jersey area and used to watch the Philadelphia Mummers. Seeing an entire string band of tenor banjos walking down the boardwalk during the Miss America pagent...and hearing them playing chord melodies in unison made me want to go out and buy myself a tenor banjo and tenor banjo chord book. I learned a few chords and let the banjo sit for a few years. Later I started to play the mandolin, using the chords I learned from my old tenor banjo book.
Around 1975 I met a great tenor guitar player right in my hometown, John Lawlor. John could play swing, rock, blues....anything on the tenor guitar. I was hooked on his cool sound.
My primary instrument has been the six string guitar, and my secondary instrument has been the harmonica. After that I include the mandolin, ukulele, and now the tenor guitar.
About a year and a half ago I started searching the web for tenor guitar information and was astounded to find very little. That is when I decided to start the Tenor Guitar Registry, a Yahoo! club. In the beginning there were just two members. Now there are seventy, from all over the world....and the number is growing.
Four of the members from that club and myself have gotten together to launch the first web site dedicated to the tenor guitar.
I also have a personal web site where you can go and learn more about my musical background.
Welcome to tenorguitar.com!
Mark Josephs
Click below for the other members of the Five Tenors