mosriteforum.com

semi/semie....anyone know if this is a shortening of some other, longer name?

i know it's trivial, but it is curious....i don't think i've ever heard that name before.....

That's a really good question. Maybe his daughter knows. Hopefully she'll be along soon.

I can't seem to find the other thread on this but from what I've gathered is that Semie is not short for anything.

I brought up the question of the pronunciation and the origin of his name a while back and someone said it referred to a Seminole indian settlement which was located nearby or something to that effect.
And if I remember correctly it's pronounced 'Simmy'.
Bill.

In the Ventures Book [page 85] Semie's brother Andy offers: "Semie's first name was in honor of a far-removed relative that was the first Governor of Oklahoma, a Chickasaw Indian by the name of Semion Moseley. My brother was named Semie Arbin Moseley…"

I think it is pronounced "Semi" as in "semi circle"...see also:

http://books.google.nl/books?id=8KsyZ0W ... ey&f=false

I knew it had something to do with Indians.
Bill.

thanks guys,
that was pretty quick. one of the reasons i love the internet. i wouldn't have been able to find any of this stuff out when i owned that first 88' mark I.

as a side note, the last four digits of my phone # spell S E M I......

ok, i'm replying to myself...but i found this topic interesting and tried to dig further.

i could not find any documentation of the choctaw indian by the name of simion moseley. there was no one by that name listed as either the governor of the state nor of the territory before statehood. sounds like one of those stories passed down in a family where someone got one small part wrong and it just kept going....i've got some of that in my family too.....i would be interested in knowing more about who ever this person was, but as it is, the famous semi moseley is forever linked to search engines as the father of this guitar thing of ours.....

an interesting side note here that i got from reading through a bit of that ventures book online provided by veenture mentions that before joining the ventures, mel taylor and his brother did instrumental recordings under the "original sound" label as a group called "the teen beats". it just so happens that i had been converting one of my vinyl disks to audio file on my computer and had just recorded a few of these singles by the teen beats. now, just for trivia here, i was wondering if the new straitjackets drummer might have been named that for this reason or if it was just a coincidence....any body know?

"Teen Beat" was a hit instrumental in 1960 by Sandy Nelson, a session drummer in Los Angeles. Mel Taylor's group "The Teen Beats" was a cash-in name on the Sandy Nelson song.

Jason, the drummer of Los Straitjackets, is nicknamed "Teen Beat" because he's so much younger than the rest of the guys in the band, and also because of his "teenage" eating habits (the boy loves his cheeseburgers!)....with a nod to the Sandy Nelson song, of course....

Deke

BTW, Teen Beat is a phenominal drummer, anyone who has seen Los Straitjackets over the years will tell you that they are a much louder band with him pounding the skins. I think he keeps them young.

Rocco