Kay Musical Instrument Company Kay Musical Instrument Company Kay Musical Instrument Company was a musical instrument manufacturer of the United States, in operation from the 1930s until the 1960s. Kay was established in 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, by Henry Kay Kuhrmeyer, from the assets of the former Stromberg-Voisinet (founded as Groeschel Mandolin Company in 1890). Kay offered their first electric guitar in 1936 — five years after the Rickenbacker "Frying pan", and the same year as the Gibson ES-150. However, the Kuhrmeyer-owned Stromberg-Voisinet brand had produced the Stromberg Electro even earlier, in 1928, making the short-lived model arguably the first commercial electric guitar. The
The Knickerbocker Buckaroo The Knickerbocker Buckaroo The Knickerbocker Buckaroo was a 1919 American silent Western/romantic comedy film directed by Albert Parker and starring Douglas Fairbanks, who also wrote (under the pseudonym Elton Thomas) and produced the film. "The Knickerbocker Buckaroo" is now considered lost. Fairbanks plays a hedonistic New York City aristocrat who tries to change his selfish ways by heading to Sonora, Texas to carry out a campaign of altruism. Along the way, he is mistaken for a Mexican bandit and is pursued by a corrupt sheriff who is in pursuit of the bandit's hidden fortune. "The Knickerbocker Buckaroo" was Fairbanks' last