Curly Chalker and Fender Guitars

Joe A. Roberts · From: Seoul, South Korea

I wanted to assimilate some gear history knowledge floating around in my head I read over the years here on the forum.
I thought it might be interesting to some folks.

I am sure that I at one time or another read everything that I included, but I did not make a note of who wrote what, and could have made some mistakes since I am no expert, just a fan.
I welcome any corrections or additions Very Happy

Early Fifties
With Hank Thompson Curly was playing a three neck Fender Custom, on tracks like:

Wild Side of Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwiwiGKGfk
Crying in the Deep Blue Sea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scMYykZbBto

Curly Chalker already developed an amazing style, especially on C6th tuning, with the single note and chord chop ferocity of Joaquin Murphey, and smooth slants and volume pedal technique of Jerry Byrd, who Curly greatly admired.

good thread about non-pedal Curly with more examples:
https://be.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=397377&sid=05fda0a0841b594b9adeae7824d53859

Mid Fifties
After this, Curly started using a quad neck long scale (1953, 1954?) Fender Stringmaster
In this clip from 1955, can see him play a solo on that guitar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMMzwQi07vs
He plays in a practically perfect copy of the high energy Speedy West style, complete with bar slams and tone control boo-wahs.
The tuning is likely some kind of F#9th or F#13th tuning neck, and has reentrant high strings on the bottom.

c.1956 - c.1965
Curly then got a Fender 1000, double 8 pedal steel (big Jazzmaster style single coil pickups)
These were white, and at some point his was painted red.
Curly played with two Fender Bassman amps.
He played this guitar for about 10 years, and began developing his C6th copedent.
On all his pedal steels, Curly had the C6th neck in the front, with the E9th tuning in the closest position.

Here are the copedents he used on his Fender 1000 from a Fender document from the early 60s, courtesy of Herb Steiner:

Already you can see some of the more unique aspects of his C6th copedent, including getting B and D by lowering the high E and C strings, rather than raising the C and A strings like the "conventional" C6th P7.

The other neck is the Leon McAuliffe E13th tuning tuned up a half step. P1 is the "Bud Isaacs" unsplit A and B early E9th pedal sound.
P2 alone gives an F9th (with a similar voicing to the forgotten non-pedal A9th tuning used by pros like Jody Carver).
P1 and P2 together gives a pretty Eb maj 7th voicing on the top 6 strings.

Examples using the Fender 1000:
Merle Travis - Travis! album:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLop5shodmkAMNmNLfCsYqnRhsNF7avUIS

Hank Thompson - Stirring Up the Ashes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz58afPAQt4

Bill Bledsoe - Tell Me Why:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-kf1v8vKic

Bill Bledsoe - That Same Old Feeling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOCL2sih-tg

c. 1965-1966

In this period, Curly was based in Las Vegas when not touring, and had a steady gig there playing steel guitar and trumpet.
Around this time Curly got a Fender 2000, which was Fenders new double 10 string (skinny, Jaguar style pickups).
He was one of the last real pros to move up to 10 strings.
This guitar was custom color sherwood green. Tommy Morrell later had this guitar and it got burned up in a house fire in which he lost many other precious items and his home.

Extending to 10 strings, Curly decided to add to the bottom. To the E C A G E C A F 8 string tuning, he added a low D, and then a very low A.
Hal Rugg and Big Jim Murphy also tuned their C6th like this around that time, but they both later switched.

He recorded Big Hits On Big Steel using this guitar, even though he is pictured on the front with a Sho-Bud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYVHsfb6r4

1966
In 1966, Curly Chalker moved to Nashville from Las Vegas. He changed to a Sho-Bud guitar, and ditched the Fender.
But even later on, Curly Chalker spoke highly about Fender equipment and he said they were good to him.
One factor that might be related: I read here on this forum that there was a big anti Fender pedal steel stigma at that time in Nashville, and that the first thing you would get asked for a job is what kind of steel you had, not whether you could play!

Fender also did too little too late as far as their pedal steel product line, not having 10 strings until 1964, and no knee levers.
That was also around the time of the CBS takeover who wanted to streamline everything, and the fact that practically everyone who ordered a Fender pedal steel wanted a different tuning set up did not fit with their mass production corporate philosophy.

Anyway, his Sho-Bud was supposedly the first pedal steel ever to use vertical levers, which were for his left leg for his C6th tuning.
He wanted verticals instead of conventional sideways levers because he wanted his leg to be free to hit the C6th pedals, as he almost always kept his foot on the volume pedal and rarely if ever used two feet.

These verticals were a (relatively open) secret and gave him some very nice altered sounds.
He also added two A to Ab right knees on his C6th which became a big part of his sound.

Also at this time Curly learned (at first reluctantly, according to Mr. Lloyd Green) the E9th tuning.
Lloyd encouraged him, and Curly of course soon developed a great, soulful style on the E9th neck.
Lloyd said that Curly later confided to him that there was a lot of going on in the E9th tuning after all.

Curly Chalker's D10 copedent:

Dave Zirbel · From: Sebastopol, CA USA

This is great Joe! Thanks. Would you happen to have any photos of Curly playing the Fender 1000 or 2000?

Cheers
Dave Z
_________________
Dave Zirbel-
Sierra S-10 (Built by Ross Shafer),ZB, Fender 400 guitars, various tube and SS amps

Joe A. Roberts · From: Seoul, South Korea

Thanks Dave, I enjoy your pedal steel videos on youtube!

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures... I am sure photos (and probably footage exists) must exist out there somewhere with him playing the 1000/backing a big name artist.

Joe A. Roberts · From: Seoul, South Korea

I found that old thread:
https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/013341.html

Wow a lot of interesting stuff in that thread.
Both Jody Carver and Bobbe Seymour are certain that he did Big Hits on Big Steel on the 1000...
I don't know, I think I remember Curly playing some really low notes notes on that album.

And on the second page Lee Jeffries says:
"Bobbe, Curly must of played a 2000, for at least a while, cause Tom Morrell had a custom colored 2000 (metalic green), that had been Curlys,it was lost in his house fire.
I was at Scottys one day and, Russ Weaver dug out a bunch of pics and, low and behold there was a pic of Curly on the bandstand playing a green 2000, judging by his clothes and, haircut it looked 66/68?."

Dave Zirbel · From: Sebastopol, CA USA

Thanks Joe!
My friend Lee Jeffries said he has seen those Vegas pictures with the green 2000.

Cheers!!
_________________
Dave Zirbel-
Sierra S-10 (Built by Ross Shafer),ZB, Fender 400 guitars, various tube and SS amps

Bob Carlucci · From: Candor, New York, USA

great info thanks!... amazing what you can do with a "limited"" pedal steel guitar if you have some talent. you answered several of my questions.. as I stated on the other thread, the tone Curly had using the Fender 1000 on these recordings was bigger, rounder, smoother, fuller than the tone other guys were getting from Fender cable steels of the era..
A perfect example of "tone is in the hands".... bob
_________________
I'm over the hill and hittin'rocks on the way down!

no gear list for me.. you don't have the time......

Ethan Shaw · From: Texas, USA

Man, it's great to have all this in one thread! I had printed out Herb's post years ago, but everything else about Curly has been just scattered around. Thanks, Joe! I was going to do a feature on Curly in the next season of Raising the Bar, and this makes things a little easier, haha!

Bob Carlucci · From: Candor, New York, USA

His Big Hits/Big Steel album has that muted kind of muffled sound that he used compared to many of his contemporaries I just figured it was "the MSA sound", because he used one for so long.. I would never in a million years have thought that was recorded with a Fender 2000. To each his own, that was the tone he liked, and it worked just fine for him.. bob
_________________
I'm over the hill and hittin'rocks on the way down!

no gear list for me.. you don't have the time......

Ethan Shaw · From: Texas, USA

I have a Fender 2000, and you can definitely get that sound by rolling down the tone knob. But you're right Bob, It's not the tone most people wanted from them. I think (and I think I read somewhere) that Curly liked the tone of Wes Montgomery and other jazz guitarists, who go for that darker tone. As I've gotten better on the steel, I realized that it also helps to cover up the inherent tuning issues of pedal steels (the whole ET vs JI thing). Bright tones let you hear those issues a lot more. Because Curly played C6 so much and used 3+ note voicings, that can be a real issue. I think that was also a big factor in the thing people were hearing in the "did Curly play out-of-tune" thread.

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