Johnny Siebert

Tommy Auldridge · From: Maryland, USA

Anybody have any insight on Johnny's tuning and some of the things he played with Carl Smith. Maybe we could get a thread started on the tabliture section.
Please share whatever ideas you can. It is a great style and very efective. Thanks, Tommy.......

S.M. Johnson · From: Oregon, USA

Hanging around with musicians most of my life....one is bound to pick up little tid bits of information about this and that.

Thusly, I've always heard he preferred playing in A6th, high bass tuning. Right or Wrong?

Chris Scruggs · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Firstly, it's Johnny SIBERT (not Siebert, though it's commonly spelled this way by folks). Johnny's main tuning was A6. This is the tuning for Are You Teasing Me, Hey Joe, Loose Talk, and It's A Lovely Lovely World.His secondary tuning was C6 with a high E, which he played on There She Goes and a few others. When he switched from his non-pedal D-8 Bigsby to his iconic walnut finish triple neck Fender (with his name on the front in white cursive), he added E13 (Leon style, with a high E and an F# instead of a middle root note) and used this tuning for the second solo on Go Boy Go and his hot arrangement of Steel Guitar Rag (availabe on the Bear Family Carl Smith box set, disc four, I believe).

Johnny quit playing professionally in the late seventies and is now retired from his job as a security guard for the Tennessean newspaper here in town. We have lunch sometimes at a Piccadilly Cafeteria where he'll talk to me about the old days (something he's famously reluctant to do).

Don't forget Billy Robinson played on Carl's first two sessions (which included I Overlooked An Orchid) and Bob Foster played on a number of early hits (two of which were If Teardrops Were Pennies and Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way).

Johnny is in a very elite group of "lap" steel players. He was a road musician who also appeared on all the hits recorded while he was in the band, with a signature style that became practically the sole stylistic property of the artist he played behind. In short, you knew it was Carl Smith before Carl ever sang. Maybe only Roy Wiggins and Don Helms share this same place in the non pedal world. Eddy Arnold, Hank Willams and Carl Smith had the "voice", but Don Helms, Roy Wiggins and Johnny Sibert had the "sound".

-Chris

Ben Rubright · From: Punta Gorda, Florida, USA

Thank you Chris. You are so right. I certainly remember Johnny for his unique sound. To me, it is one of the things that is missing from today's country music. I have heard that Johnny is somewhat bitter about some of his time with Carl Smith, but please let him know that there are those of us that remember and still recognize after a few notes that it is he who is playing. His induction into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame is so well deserved. Like Don Helms and Roy Wiggins, he has given us something that after 50 years still resonates with our souls. Long live Johnny Sibert.

Gere Mullican · From: LaVergne, Tennessee, USA (deceased)

Chris, next time you see or talk to Johnny please tell him I said "hi" and think of him all the time. I went to Hume Fogg high school with him and played on WLAC with Bob Williams when he was with Big Jeff. I hope he got his back problems straightened out. Give him my best.

Gere Mullican

Rick Collins · From: Claremont , CA USA

You are so right, Chris __ Johnny was to Carl Smith, what Luther was to Cash.
As I recall, Johnny played a Fender Dual Pro. (eight) for a while, between the Bigsby and the T-8 Stringmaster.
This was about the time "Dog Gone It, Baby I'm in Love" and "Satisfaction Guaranteed" were recorded.

Chris Scruggs · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Rick,

Yes, Johnny very briefly played a Dual Professional. He didn't like the short scale (a feature I LOVE and can't live without) and doesn't recall ever recording with it, though. Then again, he didn't remember playing the Stringmaster on "Loose Talk" until he heard it for the first time in probably 50 years.

It would be interesting if he did use the Dual Pro, as his pre-Stringmaster tone is so consistant from record to record. That would make an $850 Fender (in today's market) tonally comparable to a $10,000 Bigsby (again, today's market, and with no name artist/guitar connection).

Don Helms found it funny how close his Fender (from the first two sessions of Helms with Hank) sounded to the Gibson. I think with Helms a TON of his tone was in his tuning (which not that many other players used at the time), but it's amazing how much a master stylist's hands play into the mix.

Who knows? Sadly, Johnny even doesn't anymore. But I wish he'd remember!

-Chris

Rick Collins · From: Claremont , CA USA

Chris,

I knew Harold Morgan who was a friend of Johnny Sibert __ he also played a Fender Dual Pro.
I met Johnny Sibert once, when I was very young. This was many years after the tune, "Hey Joe" was recorded; but still, it's the first tune I learned to play (A6th).

My Fender collection:

I have a refinished (blond) Dual Pro.
And, a T-8, 26" scale, Stringmaster (early '54), but mine is blond.
It's original and in great condition, except for the added leg socket to set-up with only three legs (like Johnny's Stringmaster).
The leg sockets are the later Stringmaster type, to make a wider stance (18 degree).

Too, I have a blond (refinished) Fender 1000 with nine pedals (polished frame). It has a custom made device (on the pedal board) to accommodate my Emmons volume pedal.

Chris Scruggs · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Rick, if only you had a D-8 Bigsby and an early Emmons, you'd have the entire Johnny Sibert guitar collection! Smile

I envy anyone with a 26" T-8 Stringmaster (for the obvious Johnny Sibert connection)!

Very, very cool.
-Chris

Clyde Mattocks · From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA

Johnny Sibert is what lit a fire under me to learn steel. I saw him maybe '54 or '55 and he was playing the Dual Professional. I didn't rest till I had one. We had a band on the radio that did all the Carl Smith songs. Great times. I finally got to meet him when he was playing with Johnny & Jack and Kitty Wells. He was most gracious and down to earth. Still a big hero.
_________________
LeGrande II, Nash. 112, Fender Twin Tone Master, Session 400, Harlow Dobro, R.Q.Jones Dobro

Tommy Auldridge · From: Maryland, USA

I now own 2 of the Dual 8 Pro's.(1952) and a (1954)Strimgmaster, 26" scale. I'm trying to learn how to play A6th. C6th. and E13th. The only slight advantage I might have is, the fact that I've been playing pedal steel for more than 40 years. Therefore, I know How to find most things I hear, but I'm real new when it comes to bar slants. Can you recomend some instructional material that would speed up my learning progress? It seems like there's not enough hours in the day to really get good at this. I think once I retire, my wife will probably have herself commited to the Looney Bin, because I'll be spending all my time practicing. Tommy.......

Rick Collins · From: Claremont , CA USA

Chris,

Yes, a two-neck Bigsby would be a great acquisition and a good investment, at the right price.
Keep watching EBay for a 26" T-8. They have a "killer" tone, as you know.

Clyde,

This is the way I feel about steel guitar:
What one delivers to the audience is most important.
Being able to impress other steel players is a noble trait, but very, very few in the audience play.
Johnny Sibert always had an impressive delivery.

Tommy,

I play about 15 Hawaiian tunes on my Dual Pro.
On the subject of slants, this is the best advice I could give anyone:
Playing in the lower register, when you think you have the angle of the slant just about right,
increase the angle a tad more and you'll be closer to being on fret.
Practice this slowly until you have it right (to your ear, of course) and then speed up to the proper tempo of the tune.
After a while, this will become "second nature".
...seems the correct angle of the slant is always more extreme than one first expects.

It's just the opposite on the upper frets (above 12).
Make the slant angle a bit less than what would seem correct.

Chris Scruggs · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Something else concerning slants and 26" Stringmasters:

If you play C6 on a 22.5" guitar (like a Dual Pro), tune a 26" Stringmaster to A6 tuning and your third fret, the C chord fret, will be EXACTLY 22.5" inches.

So, if you play A6 on a 26" scale guitar, you are playing the same slants as 22.5" C6 but with three extended lower frets.

-Chris

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