Deborah Mundell
From:
Arizona, USA
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Posted 3 Feb 2006 6:06 am |
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We own the Bigsby Steel in these forums that Lloyd Green played with Faron Young. My father Jerry Mundell bought the Bigsby from Gary Stewart in the mid-sixty’s, my father passed away last year and we purchased the Bigsby from my step mother Joyce, for our son Tony, to keep it in the family. Following is a letter from Gary Stewart on the History of himself and the Bigsby in question: He also addresses the Herb Remington album issue.
Bigsby History
I Bought the Bigsby from Faron Young, in about 1958, had it under his bed for a while and when I told him I wanted to purchase a Bigsby, he convinced me to buy it. I had him send it to Paul Bigsby in Downey Cal. and Paul rebuilt it to my specs. With the pedals and tunings I wanted and the front of the guitar with my name on it.
I spent quite a bit of time at Paul's home / shop, and we got to be pretty good friends. He made a lot of suggestions on what he could / would do with the guitar and I know he put a lot of care and quality in the rebuild. Paul was a real perfectionist with such talent with his guitars and accessories.
I never thought to ask Faron who he got it from. He told me that he made some of his steel players play it. He liked the sound and tone of it. I kept it until I sold it to Jerry.
I used it on the road when touring with the Grand ol’ Opry with Charley Ryan, and His Hot Rod Lincoln, also with Jim Reeves, Ferlon Husky, and Johnny Horton. It was at the end of that tour that Horton died in the traffic accident.
I have a promotional picture of me (8 X 10), and some night club pictures of me with some stars like Buck Owens, Wanda Jackson, Claude Grey, also a pictures of me playing it behind Tommy Collins, on a TV show.
Unfortunately, I never had a camera with me or no one to take pictures when I was on stage with the stars, until I got married and my wife carried a small kodak brownie with her, the pictures were not very good. It used flash bulbs inside, and you had to get real close for them to come out.
I did a bunch of recording with the guitar over the years and played with Johnny Cash in Idaho, and played on the back of a flat bed truck for a promotional thing called Lucky Dollar Days, with the wind and sunshine making it imposable to keep in tune.. LOL
I received a lot of help from Bob White, (Hank Thompson's Steel Player) with setting up my tunings, I also played with Thompson three different times.
The only picture I have of that is so far away that it is impossible to see who the players are. I have one up close with he and I but not the guitar.
A rather amusing thing, it was pointed out to me, that my promotional picture was used for the back of an album by Herb Remington. I will send you pictures of the album and you can see the guitar on the back of his album with my name airbrushed out, otherwise no doubt it was from my promo photo.
I can send you scanned images of the photos if you can receive larger files. Let me know.
Give all our love
Gary
It’s a real shame that Gary has been forgotten over time, an exceptional Steel Player, person and teacher. He should be in the Steel Guitar Hall of fame!! I was probably 13 or 14 when my father bought the Bigsby from Gary. My remembrance of that time was Gary had been in a bad car accident and hurt his back and could no longer carry the Bigsby so he and Dad traded guitars, Dad had a single neck Fender, and some money. He spent many hours teaching Dad to play (Dad remained a novice) and after he moved from Pullman, WA. to Spokane, Wa. He sent Dad reel to reel tapes to keep up on the teachings, we still have the tapes and son Tony has learned to play from the tapes. Gary influenced, introduced and brought a love of the the steel guitar to many many people in the Inland Northwest, Palouse Country and beyond playing live and recording with a multitude of artists. He was and still is an exceptional artist, person, was a great friend to my father and a positive influence to those who know him. I have a few pictures of Gary and the Bigsby
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