Pedal steel is a dying art?

Bill Moran · From: Virginia, USA

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Bill

Bill Moran · From: Virginia, USA

I really didn't notice the author of the post . If Dave can't make it happen, Who am I ! I couldn't carry his case. Sorry Folks. I guess everyone has a dream.
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Bill

Mark van Allen · From: Watkinsville, Ga. USA

I often hear this when I arrive to set up for a recording session. "Oh, a steel on the session, cool! You don't see those much anymore". I answer that there are more of us than they think, and in more kinds of music. I think at least here in the SE that it's related to people who may have grown up seeing steel on TV and with live bands more than they do now.

It's obvious from Forum posts that some areas of the country have much stronger steel guitar presence than others, perhaps because there's more support for traditional country music in those areas. I've played a lot on the "jam band" circuit, simply because I'll do it! I just saw a very young player with a ShoBud on Craig Fergusson with Jason Aldean. It was a rocking track, and he wasn't doing much, but I bet a few kids saw him and thought it was cool.
We can hope!

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

I think it was back in the late 1970s or early 1980s there was an article in Guitar Player magazine titled 'The Future of Pedal Steel Guitar'. It was like a roundtable discussion among a few professional steel players, and the introduction to the article raised the same concerns as in this thread. I wish I could remember which issue it was. I threw out my Guitar Player magazines years ago.
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Sho-Bud Pro III + Marshall JMP 2204 half stack = good grind!

Herby Wallace · From: Sevierville, TN, R.I.P.

I wasn't going to say anymore, but I do want to add two more comments about this area where I live. If I played about 6 instruments I could work all the time and it wouldn't matter how well I played them as touch, tone, taste and things like that don't seem to matter in this area anymore. Also, pay scales around here have either gone down or some have stayed the same, but most have gone down. I made more locally about 12 to 15 years ago than most shows are paying now. Again, I am not talking about clubs but music theaters that usually seat from 1000 to 1500 people. I just have a bad attitude I guess. Unfortunately I didn't learn to play a lot of instruments years ago, but when I was learning, how you played was important and not how many instruments I played. I worked on the road for 12 years in the sixties and seventies with many name singers out of Nashville and not one time was I ever asked to play more instruments. I did play dobro on one song in her show when I worked with Donna Fargo and that was it. Again, I promise to shut up, as I get carried away. The good part about all this is that I don't depend on playing music for a living anymore as I once did or I would have starved to death a long time ago.

Herby Wallace

CrowBear Schmitt · From: Ariege, - PairO'knees, - France

what Barry B wrote

Theresa Galbraith · From: Goodlettsville,Tn. USA

David,
Good thread, love reading the positive! I agree with steel being more diverse and interesting in all aspects of music! It does depend on the musician to make their own way and evolve if you want to make a living at it!
I'll always be a cheer leader for pedal steel guitar! Smile

I love the sound......

Twayn Williams · From: Portland, OR

There's no doubt about it but that PSG is an expensive instrument to get into. That puts up a barrier to potential young players. There are some decent starter instruments being made today like the Carter Starter and the GFI Student and others, but it's not like you can stop in to your local Guitar Center and try out a few PSG's. And even then, those starter instruments cost as much as a top of the line solid body electric guitar. Laps steel OTOH, seem to be about everywhere these days.
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Primitive Utility Steel

Dave Hopping · From: Aurora, Colorado

PSG does not have to be mainstream to flourish.I think we're better off in our own little community playing and creating according to our own little muse,and I hope it stays that way.

One could argue that Herby's (and just about everyone else's) gig predicament is the direct result of mainstream attention focusing on the musical community,and discovering that live music,especially live country music,was flourishing beautifully,and generating income that could and should be put to far better use by public agencies than by musicians who work with their hands.

Bill Howard · From: Indiana, USA

If you count the pop music coming out of Trashville as keeping steel alive then OK REAl Country has gone the way of the Buggy whip the young generations idea of country music and The stuff that made steel guitars famous are 2 different things.
if you like little stud muffin boys and cutsy little girls in what amounts to a beauty pagents have at it.
To all of us who grew up playing Jim and Jesse, Jack Greene and David Houston it is NOT country.
I like most country music lovers don't bother turning on the radio anymore nothing to listen to.
They have even taken most of the 50's music off radio
Face it if your over 40 you considered OLD by todays modern society they THINK their not going to get Old....THEY WILL!!!. Then they'll be Old and in the way and people won't like Tim Mc Graw and Carrie Underwood , Remember Your times comin". Some other form of "Country will take those Old fogies place.
maybe it will be a little old fashioned Karma coming down for them huh? Smile

Brad Malone · From: Pennsylvania, USA

THe Steel Guitar is alive and well, it is the local club scene that has changed and gone to other forms of entertainment thereby eliminating most live band work. Most of these clubs that use to hire live bands now hire exotic dancers, disc jockies, karaoke and the such..when you eliminate places to play, you eliminate much of the work that existed for local musicians. Also tougher rules regarding drinking and driving help to discourage people from the bar, club scene...remember, things may be different in TEXAS.

Theresa Galbraith · From: Goodlettsville,Tn. USA

With all due respect it's Nashville. Recordings are happening here everyday, hiphop, traditional country, contemporary, gospel, rock, whatever. If steel is hired more power to the player and instrument!
Steels are expensive just like everything else. You have no idea what goes into building one.

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

There are at least three different worlds that are interacting, here. If the only way pedal steel can remain "alive" in one's mind is if all the old roadhouses re-open, the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers close up shop, and all the kids dump their computers and switch to live music-only entertainment - well, steel is dead as a doornail. But pedal steel guitar is all over a wide variety of studio projects, and it's showing up in a lot of "rock" bands - Dean Parks just went out on tour with Crosby, Stills and Nash, and he'd only been playing a few years - pedal steel guitar, of course. Mr. Green

What's "dead" here, irrevocably, is hard country - Ernest Tubbs is dead, Buck Owens is dead, nobody is paying to hear that anymore. Now to me, it seemed as though there is an uncomfortable, almost-mocking air to some of the "revivalist" throwback country - "psychobilly"; even Junior Brown seems to ham it up, though of course he's a great player. Maybe Ray Price is the only one left - but that steel spot is all sewn up.

The steel guitarists who are turning down work both play and genuinely LOVE other styles of music. If the only thing you can play is old-fashioned hard country but you think you're just a fuzztone and a toupee away from being a "rock musician" it's not gonna happen. However, just about every young, working rock guitarist has a lap steel, and they would love to both have a pedal steel and have the time to learn how - it remains to be seen what percentage of that works out. It's unfortunate, but another type of music that is quite unmarketable right now is twenty-three-chord jazz - as many of us steelers have spent a long time and lots of effort to get good at something that nobody wants to buy right now - oh well!

The closed minds aren't among the musicians, at least what I encounter. But the overlords of we baby boomers - whoever those nameless autocrats are - the "tastemakers" at Clear Channel, Disney, Fox, Sony etc., and their totalitarian seizure of radio and TV content, and the subsequent insistence that our "classic" music from 1955-1980 is the only thing worth emulating... well, nothing lasts forever. It's an unfortunate fact that great music (and the revolutions necessary to create great music) are forged out of pain and poverty.

I really suspect that one big, hit Hollywood movie - scored by Daniel Lanois or T-Bone Burnette perhaps, featuring Greg Leisz, Dave Easley, Ernest Bovine, Mike Perlowin or anyone else who could actually handle the charts.... playing atmosphere, not 40-year-old country licks - well, I'm kinda surprised it hasn't happened. Pedal steel is fantastic at atmospherics. It could blow the roof off (or at least peel open a window).

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

David Hartley · Posted 14 Jun 2011 11:32 pm

Keith DeLong · From: Dartmouth NS Canada

Interesting comments by all- Herby is right about the multi-intrumental players--it's kind of like insurance. In his case, he stuck to the one instrument, and it paid off in this way--he's one of the great ones. Hats off to ya, Herby. The music business is having a rough time along with everyone else, scaled down bands, less money. It seems that steel players are last hired , first fired, which is a sad thing, when you think of the tremendous contribution they've made to country music

Bo Legg · Posted 15 Jun 2011 7:12 am

It's not the Steel Guitar.
The live pickin' venues are dying.
It's simply a matter of supply and demand.
We have twice as many Steel Players, half as many places to play and as a consequence when we do play we will play for half as much.
I'm speaking in general horseshoe pitching terms so no need to nitpick my Twice and Half's. It might be a ringer, a leaner or it might have rolled past the Stake a little.

Dave Hopping · From: Aurora, Colorado

Twayn Williams · From: Portland, OR

Joe Miraglia · From: Jamestown N.Y.

Change can be a good thing.So what if someday there are more rock steelers than country steelers.

Some of you player that sell steels and steel guitar lessons can now start to sell them to young rockers.

As far as cost ,50 years ago I paid a pretty penny for my steels. My first Pedal Steel Guitar, the Fender 400 cost $400,a lot of money back then.

Some of you great steel players,who can out play me a hundred times can find work if you really wanted to. You might have to change your approach and attitude in order to be hired. Joe

Theresa Galbraith · From: Goodlettsville,Tn. USA

Twayn,
I'm glad we're on the same page. As far as lap steel with a line 6, it's not quite the same as playing a steel. It works for awhile but you can out grow it, really depends on the player. If a player has the yearning he or she will find away to buy a pedal steel guitar. Best wishes to all players out there! Smile

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Allan Jirik · From: Wichita Falls TX

Having recently got back into steel after nearly 30 years of acoustic playing I can honestly say that the "man on the street" knows no more about pedal steel guitar now than he did then, at least in my neighborhood. However, I was shocked and then pleased when I joined Steel Guitar Forum and discovered a world wide network of steel players. And YouTube is a god send! But even in the 70s, a steel player was "extra baggage" and could be cut from a project if necessary. There is currently a groundswell of support for traditional country music and I hope that includes the steel guitar. We can only hope.

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