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Topic: What Was Your Steel Guitar Epiphany? |
Chris Bauer
From:
Nashville, TN USA
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Posted 14 Jun 2009 6:35 pm |
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Tony Prior's thread on the Youngbloods got me thinking about how often I must have heard steel guitar before I even realized what it was, let alone really got it. That brought me back to the first time I actually got slammed over the head with how amazing steel guitar sounds.
For me, that epiphany came via the playing of forumite Bill Bassett one evening in the dorms at Fairhaven College and subsequently listening to a couple of his rehearsals with Jack Hansen, the local musical godfather in Bellingham, WA at the time. If I recall correctly, Bill had just recently started playing and was taking lessons with Chubby Howard. (Bill, am I recalling that part correctly???)
Within a few weeks of that, I heard Bobby Black with Commander Cody and was totally floored. Been hooked ever since.
Epiphany number two was hearing Rusty Young with Poco but that's another story...
What was your original steel guitar epiphany? |
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Eddie Cunningham
From:
Massachusetts, USA
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Posted 14 Jun 2009 7:03 pm David Kelii of " Hawaii Calls "
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| As best I can recall in the far distant past I used to listen to David Kelii play his beautiful Rickenbacher steel on "Hawaii Calls" radio in the late 30s & 40s and fell in love with that sound !! They also played a lot of Hawaiian music on the radio back in those days !! I still listen to the oldies on my "78s" !! Wish those days were still here !! Eddie "C" |
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John Bechtel
From:
Nashville, Tennessee, R.I.P.
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Posted 14 Jun 2009 7:38 pm
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If you have Dish Network TV, you can listen to Hawai'ian Music 24/7 on CH-981. I do, even now while on the Forum via. PiP and my WebTv!
_________________
<marquee> Go~Daddy~Go, (No), Go, It's your Break Time</marquee> L8R, jb
My T-10 Remington Steelmaster |
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Michael Douchette
From:
Gallatin, TN (deceased)
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Calvin Walley
From:
colorado city colorado, USA
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Posted 14 Jun 2009 9:34 pm
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kitty wells ...singing "honky tonk angel"
_________________
proud parent of a sailor
Mullen SD-10 /nashville 400
gotta love a Mullen!!!
Guitars that i have owned in order are :
Mullen SD-10,Simmons SD-10,Mullen SD-10,Zum stage one,Carter starter,
Sho-Bud Mavrick |
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Brint Hannay
From:
Maryland, USA
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Posted 14 Jun 2009 10:02 pm
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| Ricky Skaggs's Highways and Heartaches album. Especially the two cuts with Lloyd Green: "You've Got a Lover" and "No One Can Hurt You". |
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Ned McIntosh
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 2:48 am
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When I realised what I was hearing in Leo Kottke's "Short Stories" on the Ice Water LP wasn't Leo on an open-tuned 12-string but Cal Hand on pedal steel, doing a "walk-down-the-neck" sort of lick that just got my spine tingling.
It's been downhill ever since!
_________________
The steel guitar is a hard mistress. She will obsess you, bemuse and bewitch you. She will dash your hopes on what seems to be whim, only to tease you into renewing the relationship once more so she can do it to you all over again...and yet, if you somehow manage to touch her in that certain magic way, she will yield up a sound which has so much soul, raw emotion and heartfelt depth to it that she will pierce you to the very core of your being. |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 4:07 am
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| Little Roy Wiggins' steel on the Eddy Arnold records is what got me hooked on steel. |
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Bill Bassett
From:
Papamoa New Zealand
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 4:32 am Knock Me Over With A Feather
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I'm floored. Thank you Chris for that memory. Who knew I was a person of influence.
I clearly remember those days starting out. I wanted to take lessons from Chubby Howard but never seemed to connect with him. I did however learn some basics from Lee Gillespie down in Tacoma. I have seen Lee pop up in the Forum from time to time.
He got me started with a few important tunes and techniques. Showed me that I could swap the A and C pedals around to what we now know as the "Day" setup.
My left ankle works better that way due to an old skiing injury.
Speaking of memories, Chris. How about the time you managed to bring Robben Ford and The Charles Ford Blues Band to Fairhaven? Or sitting around [someone's] living room listening to you play along with Chuck Berry records? Good times at Fairhaven.
I don't recall one single epiphany. For me it was the culmination of watching Chubby Howard on Evergreen Jubilee every Saturday night, listneing to Buddy Emmons, Sneaky Pete and John David Call (PPL)and playing with a bunch of guys who really, really wanted to have a steel player in the band. I was very lucky in that regard.
I guess the moral is: Be careful who you associate with, he might turn out to be a psychologist.
BDBassett
Last edited by Bill Bassett on 15 Jun 2009 9:19 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Cameron Tilbury
From:
Peterborough, England, UK
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 4:33 am
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I was about 7 years old. I had just started taking Hawaiian guitar lessons at the Ontario Conservatory of Music. My mentor, Bob Wingrove, took me to see Gordie Tapp (Bob was playing steel with him).
I saw Bob on stage and new that's what I would be playing. That moment has stuck with me--remember it like it was yesterday.
_________________
Sho Bud Super Pro D10 |
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Don Sulesky
From:
Citrus County, FL, Orig. from MA & NH
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 4:37 am
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It was seeing and meeting Santo & Johnny in 1960 play Sleepwalk live in NH.
Then it was Rusty Young with Poco and then I bought LLoyd Green's "Shades of Steel".
I went out and bought my 1st pedal steel right after that and have been hooked on it ever since.
Don |
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Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 5:24 am
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It was the first time I heard Jim Reeves' "Bottle Take Effect" with Pete Drake on steel. I thought it was some sort of violin when Pete played the chimes. Then someone told me no, that's the steel guitar. Then, when I discovered that you had pedals to make new notes with, I was just torn apart by the idea and had to have one. A few years later, 1972, I ordered my first steel..a Sho-Bud 6139 from Nashville. I think it was the first of its kind in Norway.
_________________
BenRom Pedal Steel Guitars
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212050572323614/ |
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Michael Johnstone
From:
Sylmar,Ca. USA
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 5:28 am
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| Seeing a one-handed lap steel player on the boardwalk at Ino Shima Japan in about 1952 at age 6 while my dad was stationed at Yokohama. He played with some kind of prosthetic gadget to hold the bar.It freaked me out but was hauntingly beautiful at the same time. I remember watching thru the crowd for a few minutes before my parents hustled me away. |
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John Macy
From:
Rockport TX/Denver CO
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 5:29 am
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Sneaky and Buddy on the brown Linda Ronstadt record and Red Rhodes on the first solo Michael Nesmith record sent me on the search for my first steel...
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John Macy
Rockport, TX
Engineer/Producer/Steel Guitar |
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Jerry Overstreet
From:
Louisville Ky
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 5:32 am
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I've loved the sound of steel guitar of all designs since I can remember. I never had the means to buy one and didn't know much about them. I just figured the cost of a pedal steel was beyond my reach what with trying to get through life in a solvent fashion. I was in my 30's and pretty much resigned to just beating around a little bit on a standard 6 string and focus on trying to make it in the retail management jungle.
I was listening to a lot of the new so-called country rock. Around '74, I came home with 2 albums. Pure Prairie League's 2 Lane Highway and Asleep at the Wheel's self titled lp. I don't know if the time was just right or what, but that music and the steel guitar on those works are what pushed me to actually start thinking about buying and learning to play one of the things.
I would put those lps on and listen to them over and over. The steel rides on PPL's "I'll Fix your Flat Tire Merle" and AATW's "Dead Man" put me over the edge.
So, I guess that was it. I blame John David Call and Lucky Oceans for my addiction along with Sneaky Pete's work with FBB et al. Rusty, Al, Lloyd, Hank D, Fish, "Byrd" and on and on.
About 3 years later, I found a Red Baron while working in Waterloo Iowa, took it home, quit my job, moved back home to KY and ain't been worth shootin' since. 
The steel guitar changed my direction in life. |
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Chris LeDrew
From:
Canada
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 6:08 am
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| I remember being in my late teens watching the Opry on TV, and they panned over the steel player while he was doing a solo, you know one of those crane cameras that swoop down from above. All these notes were going everywhere and his bar hand was hardly moving. "How is he doing that??" It looked like magic to me. From that day on, I swore to one day learn how to play. It took over ten years to get around to it, but I'm glad I did. I wish I knew who was playing steel that night on the Opry. It was about 1988. |
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Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 7:25 am
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Buddy Cage, playing with the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Then, Bobby Black with Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen.
Lee, from South Texas |
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Mike Perlowin
From:
Los Angeles CA
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 9:20 am
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It was a local player named Al Parrett. I got a call to play lead guitar on a pick up gig, and he was in the band with me, and blew me away with his virtuosity. That was 35 years ago, before I started playing steel myself. Al is one the the people who inspired me to take it up.
Al joined us this year at the L.A. Jim and showed us all that he can still pick his butt off despite his advanced age. If anything, he just got better as he got older.
_________________
Please visit my web site and Soundcloud page and listen to the music posted there.
http://www.mikeperlowin.com http://soundcloud.com/mike-perlowin |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Dave Harmonson
From:
Seattle, Wa
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 9:45 am
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I don't know if I can pinpoint one magic moment, but I got enthused by several around the same time, Red Rhodes on Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man from the Dr. Byrds and Mr Hyde, Buddy and Sneaky on Ronstadt's Brown album, Tom Brumley and Ralph Mooney with Buck, and Norm Hamlet on Merle's live in Meskogie album. Then seeing Chubby Howard put me over the top.
Chris and Bill, sadly Jack Hansen just passed away a couple of weeks ago. He had played at the Foklife Festival the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. I watched part of his set, he had played guitar with a Beatle sing along group called the Seatles. Apparently after the show he told friends he didn't feel well, then went home and died in his sleep. Jack was a great player on many instruments, acou. and elec, guitar, mandolin, banjo, dobro and lap steel. We miss him.
Dave |
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Chris Bauer
From:
Nashville, TN USA
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 10:34 am
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Bill - No recollection of the Chuck Berry thing but I don't doubt it  especially as that woulda been the period where I was playing guitar with Paul Goodman's neo-quasi-kinda soul/R&B revue band. As for the Robben Ford concert/clinic, that was one of the best musical memories I have. Certainly among the most educational. Why one of us there didn't tape it I now have no idea. (And, since Paul Anastasio was mentioned here on the forum a few weeks ago, I think that may now make Fairhaven the the most disproportionately over-represented college-that-no-one-else-has-heard-of on the forum.)
Jimbeaux - Does that mean you'll always feel like the second chair player to Rusty? 
Dave - I hate to hear that about Jack. Even though I lost track of him somewhere in the 80's, I'll always have fond memories of waaaaaaay too many days and nights listening to any number of his many bands. Plus, he was always extremely kind and encouraging despite my minimal musical abilities next to his. He was a great guy and a major influence.
As for all the rest of you - keep 'em coming. This is interesting! |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Kevin Hatton
From:
Buffalo, N.Y.
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 12:06 pm
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| Tom Brumley playing a ZB Custom in the Buckaroos. |
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Ken Byng
From:
Southampton, England
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 12:17 pm
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As a boy seeing Hawaiian guitarist Kealoha Life playing lap steel in my Dad's band. Then later on it was hearing Ralph Mooney and then Norm Hamlet on Merle's early stuff. I found out that Norm played a ZB D10 and I had to have one. And I did!
_________________
Show Pro D10 - amber (8+6), MSA D10 Legend XL Signature - redburst (9+6), Sho-Bud Pro 111 Custom (8+6), Emmons black Push-Pull D10 (8+5), Zum D10 (8x8), Hudson pedal resonator. Telonics TCA-500, Webb 614-E, |
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Billy Tonnesen
From:
R.I.P., Buena Park, California
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Posted 15 Jun 2009 12:42 pm
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When I was ten years old my Mom signed me up with a school teaching Steel Guitar (NIOMA). For the first year it was on a Acoustic guitar and I could take it or leave it. The second year they moved me into a 6-string electric lap steel. Thats when I started hearing Hawaiian music on the Radio and it really sparked my interest. In 1943 I got a chance to play with about a 7-piece dance band who played what we now call Country and Pop Standards. I really didn't know what the Heck I was doing but somehow survived and improved with time. Then I really got hooked on the Bob Wills recordings and never looked back.
I was a tall kid and got away playing underage for years before turning 21. |
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