Wally Taylor
From:
Hardin, Kentucky, USA
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Posted 8 Dec 2012 5:05 pm |
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I do hope you and the little lady, get the time to get in the studio and give us some more of this! I do love traditional country, but I also love and appreciate the little King spin you put on songs. As always with your music, well done and it sure never hurts to have a lady that is easy on the eyes and the ears. 
Although the comments have not been rolling in, I am sure that those that really love the steel and a good country tune, do appreciate your music. After all, what's not to like about it? |
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Zane King
From:
Nashville, TN
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Posted 8 Dec 2012 8:00 pm
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Thanks, Wally for your comments. I don't know why there is so little interest these days. In 2010, I started posting a lot of threads and the comments were very engaging. It was a fun process to say the least. However, I have noticed this year that it seems to be a futile process to keep the threads going. All in all, this website is still a great service to the instrument. I will continue to support it and will do my best to offer my insights and knowledge. I'm at 35 years now sitting behind these musical bicycles so surely I have something to offer.
I will take this chance here to say something that is on my mind. However, at this rate of replies and comments that will be limited to you and I, Wally. 
The real tragedy here is that this community (by that I mean all that play, build and promote steel guitar) is really made up of those that either play the instrument as a hobby or make some portion of their income from it. The difficulty with that is there really are very few to actually support the artistry of new and upcoming players. Thus, it might be possible that we are seeing fewer and fewer steel guitarist that are stylists. I know I definitely don't see as many unique styles accompanied with original compositions that I did when I grew up in the late 70s and through the early 90s. Even those that I grew up idolizing as players now are either retired or have slowed in their creativity. Now, my thought on this is simple. It all comes down to an audience. I can't expect my audience to be other players. Some of them may respect my contributions. I know some do because they have encouraged me a great deal. I really can't even expect my audience to be those who own a steel guitar. That crowd is more about learning what I am playing. That is a teacher / student relationship. While that can be a very rewarding career it is not one that I have been passionate about. Thus, we come to what I would term as a Steel Guitar Artist. That performer needs an audience. My guess is that audience basically does not exist. Not for me. Not for dozens of players I can mention here that deserve it. And sadly and worst of all, not for the young would be great players/artist we will likely never really hear. Even now, I know of an enormously talented young player who struggles finding his way as a player. His options are tragically limited.
I would add that it might very well be possible this audience I speak of above has never existed. In the 60s, 70s and 80s the pedal steel guitar was basically being developed. It was a crazy great day for the pedal steeler in the Country Music world. That intriguing sound that everyone who dialed in a Country music radio station drove so many would be musicians wild. What is that instrument? Got to have that! Look at the history of the Sho-Bud Guitar Company (and even Emmons to some degree) and you will see this was a budding industry. Later of course, to be replaced by the "Mom/Pop" model. That alone is not necessarily a bad thing but it is revealing to say the least to where we are today. I'm getting off track here but that is an important point to my argument here that no audience exists for the "steel guitar artist". So my point, even in those days when Jimmy Day, Lloyd Green, Buddy Emmons, Pete Drake, Paul Franklin, Zane Beck, Julian Tharpe, Maurice Anderson, Hal Rugg....and the list goes on and on..(.because I have tons of the records hanging on my walls) were recording regularly. Do you think they made these records because they wanted to see if they could do it or not? Of course, not. They did it because people bought them. Thus, they made more. And people bought more. Now...what ended up happening is that all of those people who bought those records just like me became players or at the very least making some income from the instrument. Now, none of this means that it does not happen at all today. Players do still make recordings. However, just look at iTunes for all of those steel guitar recordings that have been made in the past 5 years!!!! (And just so you all know it is so easy to get a recording on iTunes). Essentially, there are VERY few! You know why that is? Because there are VERY few. Would this be the case if it were 1978 and iTunes existed then? Nope. Buddy, Lloyd, Hal, Bobbe, Speedy, Leon, Jerry, and on and on would be on the top 100 of sales in their respective categories. Those guys at least for that limited period of time did seem to have an audience. But not to contradict my above statement, I still think that audience eventually evolved into what we now know as the steel guitar community.
I would make one final point to my case. I know many many great instrumentalist in Gospel Music. I am privy to a lot of their business and success. I won't name names here but for example. A great pianist in Gospel Music can sell as many as 12,000 to 15,000 CDs of a new release. My guess is that more than 95% of those that purchased one of those piano cds do not even own nor have ever owned a piano. To further drive home my point, I own Kenny G CDs (not embarrassed by that)...yet I have never even picked up a saxophone of any kind. None of what I just said can be said about the Steel Guitar. While you might be able to point out a rare exception or two, I know this to be case overall. 
Respectfully Submitted,
Zane
P.S. - Wally - I posted this on a public forum so I know I open myself up to criticism and I welcome it. I actually hope it comes. It would be nice to see a response of some sort. Thus, feel free to copy and paste this anywhere you like.
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Zane King
Email: zaneking@me.com |
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