More ShoBud factory pictures

Walter Bowden · From: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

Hi y'all. I saw another thread here that had some great pictures of the ShoBud shop from the late 70's and I thought I might post some I took while in Nashville at Jeff Newman's school.

I honestly can't remember which year it was but I'm thinking around 78 or 79? I do know it was a week long seminar done right after Scotty's convention because there were some guys from Australia, New Zeland, Canada, etc. and some had ridden from St. Louis to Nashville with Jeff after the convention was over.

Anyhow, one day Jeff took us on a trip to the ShoBud store and steel guitar shop and he told us beforehand that Shot said it was OK to take pictures EXCEPT where the pickup winding machine was so we didn't take any pictures there.

Other than that, the place was open to cameras so I took these of some of the guys in my group, people assembling steels, shelves of parts and bodies stacked up and one of Jeff holding a ShoBud changer casting before and after finishing.

There is a good picture of Shot holding forth and a fellow at the ShoBud shop leaning on a bench, but I don't remember his name.

One lone picture was one I took of a Martin guitar hanging on a rack being refinished and when I looked closely at the masking tape on the fingerboard I saw George Jones written on the tape. I don't know if you can make out the name from the picture, but I understand Shot's shop did a lot of custom repairs for the big names.

Any help filling in "who's who in what picture" or would be great.

Best wishes, Walter

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Emmons S10, p/p, Nashville 112, Zion 50 tele style guitar, Gibson LP Classic w/Vox AC30, Fender Deluxe De Ville and a Rawdon-Hall classical

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Looks like they are building Super Pros.
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Sho-Bud Pro III + Marshall JMP 2204 half stack = good grind!

Andrew Roblin · From: Various places

Thanks for the photos, Walter.

I'm pretty sure that's me in the second picture.

Andrew

Walter Bowden · From: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

Hi Andrew. Do you know the time period you were there? I used to have the seminar stuff and some dated receipts from my stay, but they were lost somewhere between 2 house moves and I wold love to nail down the year at least.

BTW, do you know who the older fellow is leaning on a workbench?
Thanks for the reply and best wishes.
Walter
_________________
Emmons S10, p/p, Nashville 112, Zion 50 tele style guitar, Gibson LP Classic w/Vox AC30, Fender Deluxe De Ville and a Rawdon-Hall classical

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Walter, would you happen to have the diploma that Jeff gave everybody for completing the course? Then you'd get the date nailed down to the exact day.

I glued mine to a piece of plywood. It's sitting in my basement...Feb 1978
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BenRom Pedal Steel Guitars
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212050572323614/

Andrew Roblin · From: Various places

Hi, Walter. Thanks again for the photos. It means a lot to me to see a picture of myself back then.

I started work as janitor at the Sho-Bud store when I was 19 in roughly June 1979. I surely was glad--and lucky--to get that job. I arrived in Nashville by bus with no friends and little money on April Fool's Day 1979. Prior to that, I had played electric guitar and banjo in bars in Canada since I was 16. I was sometimes homeless and often hungry. You can see how skinny I was in the photo.

I met Gene "Slyde" Wooten, dobro master and longtime instrument repairman for the Sho-Bud store, at the Station Inn. I came to Nashville to study bluegrass banjo, and the Station Inn was my academy.

Gene gave me some tapes of Flatt & Scruggs. He also told me that the Sho-Bud store needed a janitor and recommended me to the manager, Harry Jackson, who hired me. My job at the store made it possible for me to get a decent apartment. I loved working with good role models like Gene, Mike Voltz, Kathy Sacra, AJ Nelson and Harry. Shot Jackson was every bit as generous and fun as his legend. To work for Shot was to be part of his extended family.

My first day on the job, about 7:15 AM, as I nervously mopped the long, dim corridor between the showroom and lounge, Shot snuck up behind me and goosed me. I just about jumped out of my skin. That was how I met Shot.

After I'd been cleaning the store and sometimes working on instruments for a few months, Harry told me I could make better money at the Sho-Bud factory, so I applied and got hired there in--I think--August or September 1979.

My job was attaching necks, endplates and changers to bodies.

I'm not doing any of those things in the photo, so I guess it was taken during my training soon after I started at the Sho-Bud factory.

The older fellow leaning on the workbench is Doyle Nelson, brother of the longtime chief instrument repairman at the Sho-Bud store, AJ Nelson. AJ and Doyle performed out of Nashville as the Nelson Brothers in the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes with Onie Wheeler. At the factory, Doyle buffed instruments up on the third floor.

Unfortunately, I'd picked up a substance problem when I was in Canada. While working at the factory, I drank and smoked in a secluded part of the third floor.

The Baldwin Piano Company then owned the factory and Sho-Bud name. There was a management shake-up soon after I arrived, followed by the appearance of an efficiency expert and layoffs. I was laid off in December 1979.

I remember sitting in the bathtub after I got laid off, wondering how I would pay the rent and feed myself. Around Christmas, Harry--bless him!--hired me back at the Sho-Bud store where I worked until 1983, when it closed.

By then, I'd gone to Belmont College and begun writing about country music and country music videos for Cash Box, Music Row and Billboard. One of my songs was performed on "Hee Haw," and I appeared as a country music video critic--a profession I dreamed up--on two national tv shows, "Music City USA" and "This Week in Country Music." I led a rock band, Andrew & the Upstarts, that played in the South and Midwest.

My career in Nashville flamed out in 1988 after I wrote an article titled "Who Killed Country Music?" Charley Pride had been dropped by RCA and sent out a press release calling attention to his fate and the rise of crossover and non-country acts. I wrote about it, including comments from label heads Joe Galante and Rick Blackburn saying that they were in business to sell records, not preserve traditional country. Jo Walker-Meador, head of the CMA, wrote a letter to Billboard demanding my head. It didn't help that my article came out in Genesis, an adult magazine. People in the music business stopped taking my calls.

I moved to Pennsylvania, where I am today, and where it was easier for me to make a living playing music.

I had a great adventure in Nashville. I learned a lot about music, especially bluegrass banjo, and the music business. It was a privilege to work with my friends and role models at Sho-Bud, and its inspiring today to play their beautiful instruments and remember their kindness.

Thanks again, Walter.

Andrew Roblin
International Sho-Bud Brotherhood
Member #79

Frank Freniere · From: The First Coast

Hey Andrew -

Thanks for sharing your story and adding to the Sho-Bud narrative.

Jack Harper · From: Mississippi, USA

andrew....what a life...what a story!
i remember that artical...about the same time that i quit listening to country radio and switched to rush limbaugh on this new format called talk radio.
the statement about selling product and not preserving is still ringing........
i am just glad that you made it out all in one piece.
thamxxx for the rest of the story...
country....
jack

Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Wow, thanks for sharing, Walter and Andrew!

This is the 21st Century version of "Oral History".

Rick Johnson · From: Wheelwright, Ky USA

Andrew
Thanks for sharing this with us.
I've read it over and over, along with
the great pics Walter shared, it was like
reading a history book.

Rick

www.rickjohnsoncabs.com

Andrew Roblin · From: Various places

You're welcome Rick, Joey, Frank and Jack.

After thinking about it and looking at the photos, I can add more info about the people.

The fellow holding up the unfinished steel guitar body is, I think, Gene Martin's son. Gene was an acoustic guitarist with Roy Acuff who also worked at the Sho-Bud store. His son--I'm sorry, but his first name escapes me--worked on the third floor of the factory with Doyle Nelson. It looks like--and my memories dimly support this--he did cabinet work assembling the unfinished bodies.

Doyle Nelson has a sanding block on his workbench, so it seems he sanded the unfinished bodies. I think he also finished them.

There's much more to the jobs these two gentlemen did. They had many years of experience at Sho-Bud. Anything I've left out about their jobs comes from the short time I spent at the factory and my own lack of experience.

Theresa Galbraith, a forum contributor, spent much more time working at the Sho-Bud factory than I did and may be able to give you a lot more detail and background.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Gene Martin was working at the Grammer Guitar co factory when I went to work at Little Roy's Store, across the street from Sho-Bud. When Shot started making ShoBro's he hired Gene away from Grammer to work on the ShoBro's.

Walter Bowden · From: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

Hey Andrew. Thanks for filling in some mental blanks for me. It very well could be the 1979 post Scotty's convention class I attended.

A couple of other details that I do remember that would nail the year was on the session at Bradley's Barn when the students would play over their choice of backing tracks, we had to wait 15-30 minutes before loading in to allow Lloyd Green some time to finish an overdub session he was booked to do. I remember he stayed around a bit and talked to us and played his parts he cut on "Farewell Party" to our amazement and good fortune.

At the Saturday night Jeffran graduation party concert, Buddy Emmons played and I'm pretty sure Lenny Breau was on guitar and Bill Lawrence (Willy Lorenzo Stich) was hanging around the kitchen area telling stories and signing autographs.

Brent, I'm afraid my diploma and all the course materials and tabs are long gone. All I have left are a few old cassette tapes of backing tracks and my Bradley Barn rendition of "Crazy Arms."

Oh, and I have some pictures that somehow made it through the years I will try to post later of my classmates and Jeff, Fran, Loretta the Buddy Emmons band, Bill Lawrence and a few shots from Bradley's Barn.

It does seem apparent from reading Andrew's reply's and the personal testimony from others here on the forum, ShoBud Music meant a lot of things to a lot of people over the years and many lives were touched by the association with Shot and the many individuals who worked or passed through there.

I do hope some type of ShoBud "oral history" and pictures/letters, etc. can be gathered and recorded somewhere before the live witnesses are all gone. I believe it was an integral part of Nashville history and American music in a pivotal period of change. It needs to be saved and remembered while the stories can be told.
Thanks for all of the great input y'all. Best wishes, Walter
_________________
Emmons S10, p/p, Nashville 112, Zion 50 tele style guitar, Gibson LP Classic w/Vox AC30, Fender Deluxe De Ville and a Rawdon-Hall classical

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Although this is before the time the posted pictures and comments. My first encounter with the Sho-Bud store was in October 1969 when George Lewis (George L's) was managing the store. I had just bought a pedal steel (the Fender 2000 that was the Fender demo at the DJ convention that year) and bought the Sho-Bud instruction book - the original 1 volume book with Jeff Newman and a D-12 on the cover.

My second encounter was in June of 1970 and I stopped in the store to pick up a knee lever kit that they made for the Fender 2000 (and it worked great). George asked how I was coming and I told him I was having a problem trying to palm block. George showed me how to do it and as it happened Hal Rugg was in the store and agreed with George on how to palm block.

In September 1971 when I went to work at Liitle Roy's store, George was gone and involved with GHS Strings. Apparently there were some "issues" between George and Shot as Sho-Bud stopped using GHS as their string supplier when George went to work for GHS. I think Sho-Bud started using Squier for their strings, as Bob Browning contacted Squier about getting "Little Roy Wiggins" branded strings and they were supposed to be the same strings that they were supplying to "another steel guitar company". Personal opinion, the GHS supplied "Sho-Bud" strings were much better than the new supplier's. I used Sho-Bud on my Fender 2000 and they sounded great - the "new" Sho-Bud's didn't have the sound or last like the older strings.

KENNY KRUPNICK · From: Columbus, Ohio

It sure would be great if someone would pick up the torch, and carry on the legacy of Sho~Bud. Very Happy

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

KENNY KRUPNICK · From: Columbus, Ohio

I believe you're right. I was thinking of resurecting Sho~Bud as it was with newer improvements, such as Coop-parts, and such. By the way, would that be Paul Franklin Sr. in the 7th photo down?

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

That's not Paul Franklin. He is in the other thread about the Sho-Bud factory (in the picture with the wood stack that was used for cabinets).

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

KENNY KRUPNICK · From: Columbus, Ohio

I heard a few years ago that Jeff Newman had a percentage of ownership in Sho~Bud at one time.

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