The Public does NOT buy Steel Guitar music!

Zane King · From: Nashville, TN

In another thread a very interesting idea came up and I thought it worthy to start a new topic. I think you all will enjoy this possible debate. Winking

I have spent all of my career in Nashville (almost 20 years now) producing, promoting and distributing music. I have been very blessed to have worked with great people through the years. That all said, I likely have more insight on marketing music than I do playing steel guitar. Gotta making living, right? Very Happy

Candidly, it had nothing to do with that. It was more about fulfilling my purpose.

Okay so I'm NOT declaring myself as THE authority on this subject but I do have years of experience studying the buying public. For this conversation, we are going to keep it strictly to instrumental music. Different rules apply to this game when singers and words/stories are involved. Here are couple of conversation starters....

1) Does the "general" public buy instrumental music? Furthermore, do they buy steel guitar music?

2) Regardless of your opinion on question #1, who does buy steel guitar music?

3) Do you believe if non-musicians (I guess we'll call that "general public") were more exposed to steel guitar instrumentals would they buy it?

Here are my answers...

1) If you are talking about distributed pieces and digital downloads then my answer is very little. Especially considering how much music is consumed.! In concert settings however audiences will usually buy instrumental music almost 2 to 1 over other music cds when that is applicable. Interesting, huh? I have even seen in some cases 5 to 1. Yet, it's almost impossible for instrumental music to compete in stores both physical and digital. As for part "B" of the question, all of this applies but at lower numbers.

2) The largest market for steel guitar music is easily those who play the instrument or even those who see themselves at some point giving it a try. Meaning, in most cases, other musicians. Good for all of us that there are a lot of those! In my unscientific studies of this dynamic I will state that it is likely a 10 to 1 ratio. Meaning for every 10 cds sold of steel guitar only 1 of those would be a "general" public consumer.

3) ABSOLUTELY! Actually the truth is the "buying" public rarely gets an opportunity to buy anything of real artistic value! Surprised

The music industry is still undergoing a transformation. Already the day is here where the independent artist can find equal access in many cases as signed artists. This means we are moving more and more toward a day where "general" public will be able to support talented, insightful, creative, and meaningful music. There are good days ahead! So get keep making that steel guitar music!!!!!!

RESPECTFULLY, Zane
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Zane King · From: Nashville, TN

It just occurred to me that I may have put this topic in the wrong place. Bob, if you catch this early enough feel free to move to this to Steel Players. I post mostly in Pedal Steel so I did that just out of habit. THANKS!
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Zane King · From: Nashville, TN

Okay I changed the title to approach this a bit like Paul Franklin's "Pedal Steel IS Dead" thread. I hope to see some feedback on the above. Perhaps, it is a foregone conclusion and thus does not need any input. Mmm.... Confused

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Alan Tanner · From: Near Dayton, Ohio

I don't think the general public knows or cares much about steel guitar music, or much of any other instrumental music. I believe that a lot of this has been caused by entertainment media. When I was growing up in the late 40's 50's and then into the 60's when I left home for service, music was waaay different. I came from a home that was full of music all the time. My dad played fiddle and guitar and had a band that played a lot of swing, country, and big band stuff. My mother played piano too. Some of my earliest memories are the music in the house when my dads band was over rehearsing. All that said, on the radio there was Chet Atkins, Sugerfoot Garland, Hardrock Gunter, Pete Drake, Bob Wills, Spade Cooley, Alvino Rey, Les Paul, Merle Travis, and on and on. EVERONE knew who these guitar players or bands were. I would venture to say that today you would be lucky to find a "man on the street" who could tell you who Buddy Emmons is, or John Hughey. If you go to a Guitar Center on Saturday, you will hear 25 young'uns all playing the lead in to Smoke on the Water, nothin more, just the lead in......wide open. I think most of the country bands during those years also had records that featured the band only. I remember that most of these albums were also available at K-Marts when they opened, and so forth. I have had pretty good luck over the years just selling a few instrumental tapes, and now CD's, at the places I play. I would not be able to sell a single one anywhere else. Even the so called "country radio" stations play NO instrumentals. Often, the bands that call me to work, make no offer of playing an instrumental during the evening, unless someone who knows me asks for one. It's just a changed world, and I have no idea where we are headed, but I think music sales in it's current form and venue is definitely headed OUT.

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

I tend to agree with you........ A vast majority of folks have no idea what a steel guitar looks like, let alone sounds like.

Just returned from an out of state Western Swing gathering near Seattle and there was quite a collection of fine musicians from all over the country......

however to be quite frank, nothing was selling quite like the 'eye-candy' the cocktail server was offering. An abundance of cleveage will vastly outsell anything a steel guitar/player can offer.

Joe Casey · From: Weeki Wachee .Springs FL (population.9)

One answer to that question can be judged by who attends major steel shows?..There are a few that show up for the music.But I would say it's a 90% to 10% ratio...In the smaller shows they feature a lot of Singers and a chance for local participation and that brings in fans of the music...Larger shows have to rely on the popularity of the players and of course the display of new products..Some shows have built a faithful traditional following..Since the Shows have become popular most players now have their own recordings to sell and that has given them more popularity or at least a renewed spotlight, but mostly to the owners of the instrument..However if one looks through all the CD products that wind up in Steel shows it's usually a version of a song that every other steeler has recorded time and time again..There are a few like Russ Hicks who go beyond the same old same old and his latest with him on Horns,Steels as well as other instruments shows creativity and solid performance..But not much chance for this to hit the Wal-Mart shelves..The General Public is brainwashed by those that know what sells...

Bill McCloskey · Posted 15 Aug 2010 7:43 am

It is as any niche thing.

Years ago I was heavily into magic, specifically card magic. Many of the most successful magicians performed and sold products, almost exclusively, to other amateur magicians. Some of the most famous (Dai Vernon, Slydini) never or almost never performed for the a lay audience, but their work is still bought and charished by other magicians to this day.

Same with Steel or any other non traditional instrument. Most sales are sold to those who aspire to do the thing they are purchasing.

Bo Borland · From: South Jersey -

I don't think the public buys instrumental music in general.
I can only think of a few instrumental tunes that became hits or even got radio play.

Chris Schlotzhauer · From: Colleyville, Tx. USA

I don't buy steel guitar instrumental music.
I don't like playing with tracks. I can't sit at a steel show performance longer than ten minutes. I don't make instrumental recordings.
Does that make me a steel guitar heretic? I don't know.
I do love to play with songwriters and killer bands where the overall performance is the key. A great show is where people take notice of how the instrument shines.
What ticks me off is, of all the artists out there that use steel guitar on their recordings, most don't hire steel guitarists for their live shows.

Bill McCloskey · Posted 15 Aug 2010 9:57 am

Well, it is not true that the public doesn't buy instrument music. Certainly in new york, there are a lot of jazz fans, consuming instrumental music everyday. But, correct in that it is not mainstream or mass market.

There actually have been a number of instrumental hits over the years. Frankenstein by Edger Winter, Sleepwalk, The In Crowd. but they are few and far between.

Les Anderson · From: The Great White North

I don’t think the general public would bother to buy a steel guitar solo CD just for the enjoyment of listening to the steel guitar sound. It becomes boring as all get out for most unless the solos are broken down to a good mix with other instruments.

When we do our mall theme gigs, people will stop and listen; however, most sit for no more than three or four tunes then they move on. We did some experimenting last winter and found that if I play Hawaiian tunes on the steel with the other three and sometimes four instruments at almost the same volume or the steel playing going from solo to background and back to up front solo, people would hang around a bit longer. (it couldn't be my steel playing Shocked

)

I have also had people tell me that the high pitched sound of the steel and the way some players slide the bar too much turns them off.

My suggestion would be, if you want to play several consecutive steel guitar solos, stay below the 12th fret for the most part and stay on the more mellow strings (2 - 3 – 4 - 5 - 6) . People also like the signature licks of hit songs. People still tend to connect Hawaiian steel tunes with the echo and reverb sound effect. The popular, non-country standards still grab the audience attention with steel guitar solos; such as Marie Elena, Laura’s Theme, Vios con Dios & Three O’clock In The Morning; etc. As I mentioned however, stay on the more mellow tone when playing consecutive solos.

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

People think of the steel guitar as a backing instrument. They like the way it sounds in the background, and they like to hear the odd steel guitar break, but they won't listen to much steel guitar instrumental work.

That's not too bad. I like to hear a fiddle, a bass, etc., in the background, but I don't listen to fiddle-only albums or bass-only albums. In fact, I have to say, that I have about 3,000 LPs, of which about six of them are concentrated on the steel guitar; and that comes from someone who actually plays the instrument ...imagine if you didn't.

If I don't recognise the name on an album, I look to see what instruments are in the band. If I see "steel guitar," "dobro," "fiddle," etc. I'll probably like the album. I rarely buy albums without a steel guitar.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

To me, an ideal musical world would be a wide variety of great and 'reasonably mainstream' music that included plenty of good steel guitar playing as an important element. I enjoy an occasional foray into instrumental music that focuses heavily on one instrument only, but in general I prefer a fairly wide mix of featured instrumentation.

So I basically agree with your answers, but I think that to move steel guitar forward in a commercial sense, it will be important to mainstream with other non-steel instrumentalists of like mind. I'm not suggesting that this would be likely to become 'rock star' mainstream, but then again, who wants or needs that? How many records do you have to sell and good live gigs do you have to play each year to make a good living? I think that insisting that 'success' depends on an audience of millions or even hundreds of thousands is overly restrictive. So I definitely agree that 'good days are ahead' for someone who is really dedicated and can find their niche.

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Most sales of instrumental music are jazz, new age or classical. Until steel guitar players dedicate themselves exclusively to those styles, sales of steel guitar instrumental music will continue to be dismal.

Country instrumental music doesn't sell. It's nothing against steel guitar. It's just a fact that country music is dominated by vocalists. Most people listen to the singers and the words, not to the music. Expose them to country steel instrumentals, and they'll say it's boring because there are no words.
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Alan Miller · From: , England, UK.

Several decades ago things were different, lloyd green had several instrumental albums,they sold well here in UK and we dont get many releases like that over here if the record company feels it will only sell to steel players.
Lloyds popularity was by way of the popularity of Don Williams and Charley Pride releases over here.

There was one steel player who sold a million copies of an "instrumental" of sorts in 1964, he grabbed the U.S. public's attention with "Forever" and to sell a million records more folks than just steel players will had to have bought a copy......yup Pete Drake was very popular back then more so with the non musician public than his peers and through several instrumental albums and that Million seller he probably popularized the pedal steel to countless millions of non players.

Could it be we need another player with his vision to again make steel guitar more popular with the general public these days ???

Ken Byng · From: Southampton, England

The player who has sold the most steel albums is Basil Henriques from the UK. Back in the 1960's he sold several million Hawaiian style albums world wide. Easy listening with exotic palm beach type covers. He was lucky to have a record deal with a major global company, EMI. Record companies of that stature would not even consider recording steel players these days.

The days of selling those sort of quantities are long gone sadly, but there was a generation of people who loved it.
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Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

Well, Robert Randolph has definitely changed the equation, being a huge seller of 'steel guitar' CDs (and downloads? I dunno, but probably). But it sure ain't country music. He has a large audience and has taken steel guitar to places it has never before gone, very successfully.
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David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

There was a historical anomaly with the Big Studly Guitar Hero that still continues to a large extent - in his movie, Spongebob vanquished his enemies with a rock guitar solo, if I remember right. Jeff Beck sold a pile of instrumental albums in the 1970's, and there are a fair number of guitar fans who still buy them even though they don't play. But steel guitar is a niche item, especially country steel instrumentals. I only buy the jazz,or new age-y stuff myself, I own Buddy playing "A Way To Survive" already, and I don't need another version of "Steel Guitar Rag" or "Bud's Bounce."

The best-selling instrumental music is "Adult Contemporary", what we used to call elevator music or mood music. Six-stringers like Lee Ritenour and Craig Chaquico do pretty well, and it would be entirely possible for a steel guitarist to be a hit in that genre. I'm sort of surprised that The Vanduras or others haven't been picked up that way - there's a radio station in every town catering to this. However, with the internet all the old models are invalid and I think it's quite impossible to predict where it's going.

Joachim Kettner · From: Germany

Another opinion on what went on years ago. Take "Suite Steel" on Electra Records. From what I heard the label owner Jac Holzman was a very idealistic (?) person, he always took risks with his rooster of artists (Paul Siebel, Love and many more).To include this album in their output was only natural for them, because it was good!
But the money came in from the Doors records.
Those who buy intrumental records are certainly a minority.

Ken Byng · From: Southampton, England

Zane King · From: Nashville, TN

Here are few names that have sold a lot of recordings that also play steel...I'm sure there are others.

Barbara Mandrell
Johnny Paycheck
Steve Wariner
Hank Williams, Jr.

The Robert Randolph phenomena requires a disclaimer. I totally appreciate what he is doing. I truly believe he is cultivating an entire new audience. However, he is truly an artist before he is steel guitarist. That's quite alright. I just think what he contributes is similar to what those listed above have done. JMO.

Lastly, it would seem clear with the opinions expressed thus far in this thread that the General public indeed does not buy steel guitar music. Furthermore, it is suggested that they also do not buy instrumental music in general. I would not go that far. While it is a small percentage there is still a decent market for instrumentalist especially when combining the occasionally work of a vocalist. AKA/Santana, Jim Brickman, etc. Also, I can tell you affirmatively that instrumentalist many times can sell more cds than vocalist in a concert setting. Just go to Branson, Missouri and witness this. Start out with say....DINO! Very Happy

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Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

Zane King · From: Nashville, TN

I would add that steel guitar does indeed sell to the public. I think there are a many a fan of country music that just totally loves those fiddles and steel guitars. They just long the stories too!
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Theresa Galbraith · From: Goodlettsville,Tn. USA

Pete Drake was an artist on a major label.
Robert Randolf the samething.
Until more pedal steel guitarist are on a major label will it be more noticed by the public.
JMO
But,I do think alot of music is sold because of pedal steel on records.....

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

It would help if guys on the forum actually bought some of the CDs that the Forum sells ! Bob payed cash to the steel players for the CDs so all the money spent directly benefits the forum.

http://steelguitarmusic.com/music.html

There is a bunch of must have Emmons stuff along with many other very important recordings. You can even buy my "what the heck is that guy doing" solo CD.

http://steelguitarmusic.com/music/bobhoffnar.html#cd2
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