Who is the steel player and how do you play this lick?

Ray Mitchell · From: San Diego, California, USA

My question is how to play the short lick that is played during the 1:41-1:43 second segment of the recording at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apjR-mAef3I
I've heard Jimmy Day play this same lick on his "Golden Steel Guitar Hits" album and I've never been able to figure out the strings and pedals he is using. A short diagram or explanation of how to do it would be appreciated.

Joe Goldmark · From: San Francisco, CA 94131

Its similar to Buddy Charleton's lick at :35 in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jIxtZLWkFU
Which I think is a spread chord (strings 3,5,8 ) that you play down the neck chromatically. But I'm sure there's guys on here who can tell you exactly!
Joe

Dale Rivard · From: Ontario, Canada

Hi Ray, This is what I'm hearing: Key of A on the C6th - 9th fret, string 5, then 4, then 3. Those are the approach notes. Then, 9th fret, strings 2, 3 & 5, then raise the 2nd string a half tone. Then, 7th fret, strings 2, 3 & 5, keeping the 2nd string raised a half tone. Then, 4th fret, strings 2, 3 & 5, keeping the 2nd string raised a half tone. Then, 2nd fret, strings 2, 3 & 5, keeping the 2nd string raised a half tone. Then, strings 3 & 4 at the 3rd fret, then slide to the 2nd fret. Then, strings 4 & 6 at the 3rd fret and finally strings 4 & 6 open. This may not be exact as I'm bouncing between my laptop and my guitar, which is in another room, ha. As I listen to it and the more I do, it sounds like Emmons. Nice solo.

Joe Goldmark · From: San Francisco, CA 94131

I wonder if it's Big Jim Murphy?

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

robert kramer · From: Nashville TN

Usually, you wouldn't assume this is Buddy Emmons on these 1963 Anita Bryant Columbia releases because he quickly moved on and off different styles during his career. The C6 lick on "Bonapartes Retreat" is similar to the lick on "Night Life" Emmons recorded with Price on February 22, 1963. It does sound like Charlton or Murphy, both influenced by Emmons. The "A" side of "Bonapate's Retreat" is "Hey, Good Lookin'," and this is the session that Emmons might've been recalling in this Steel Guitar Forum post:

The Steel Guitar Forum
March 23, 2000.
Buddy Emmons, "Who Really Invented The Talking Steel Guitar"
https://steelguitarforum.com/Archives/Archive-000003/HTML/20011227-1-008567.html (accessed, March 23, 2000)

"Now that the cat is out of the bag, here's "the rest of the story."
Shot and I were cutting an album at the Starday studio and I was trying to get the talking sound with tiny microphones I had turned into speakers and put in my mouth. The sounds from forming the words were louder than the talking effect so I was just about to give up when Neil Wilburn walked into the studio.

Neil was an electronics man who built the first Sho~Bud amp, so his car was always full of electronic paraphernalia. He went to his car and brought a box with a six inch speaker and a hole in the top at the speaker center. I hooked the terminals to my amp, stuck a plastic hose in the hole and voila, the sound came out the tube.

The song I was going to use the tube on was Danny Boy, but because the sound wasn't coming from in back of the tongue, and the sound was distorting, it wasn't as clear as I wanted it, so I trashed the idea temporarily. Meanwhile, Pete Drake had been sitting in the corner of the studio for the entire session. The next day, he went to Bill West and Bill mounted a speaker driver in a box, which eliminated the distortion.

Pete was on fire in the studios at the time and I couldn't buy a session. I finally got a call for an Anita Bryant session and took my improved box with me. I walked into the studio and one of the Jordanaires said, "Oh, I see you have one of those Pete Drake boxes." I smiled and said, "yeah." I used it on "Hey Good Lookin" on the Anita Bryant session and Burnt Fingers on the Singing Strings album, and that was the end of it for me. . . "

"Hey Good Lookin'' Anita Bryant Columbia 4-42847
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQp2vdswO90

Buddy Emmons turned 26 in January of the year and his idea of "not being able to buy a session" in 1963 was to record with George Jones & Melbourne Montgomery, Joe Carson, Bobby Vinton, Ray Price, Shot Jackson, Billy Walker, Anita Bryant and the Jordanaires, Bobby Barnett, Billy Henson, Danny & Audrey Harrison, Austin Wood and His Swingsters, B.J. Johnson, Jerry Dyke, Delores Smiley, The Texas Rangers, plus "Steel Guitar Jazz" for Mercury under his name.

1963 was a year Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and Randy Hughes died in a plane crash, and JFK was assassinated. Some record releases of 1963 were the Beatles, "Please Please Me," Jimmy Day, "Steel And Strings," Duane Eddy, "Twang A Country Song," Bob Dylan, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," and the Rolling Stones, "I Wanna Be Your Man," written by Lennon & McCartney.

Emmons was on the road with Ray Price, and in June, Jimmy Day came on board, and they switched sets between steel and Fender bass. Emmons sustained an injury in late September after a date at the Cedar Rapids Memorial Coliseum. The mishap produced the remarkable "Holiday Inn Hotel Room Jam Session," recorded by Dale Thomas and recovered and archived by Buddy Emmons biographer Steve Fishell. The informal tape showed Emmons was already five years ahead of "Steel Guitar Jazz" he had cut 2 months earlier.

Jason Altshuler · From: Brooklyn, NY

I am sure it was originally played on C6, but for what it's worth, the Bonaparte's Retreat lick is pretty straight-forward to play on E9 too. You can get that lick in multiple places, but I think it is easiest to use strings 4, 5, and 7 (no pedals/levers), in this case starting at fret 10. That gets you that "extended fourths" sound, which you can move around the neck. The second half of the lick is a little trickier but still accessible in E9...

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