What do you expect at steel shows?

Billy Carr · From: Seminary, Mississippi, USA (deceased)

Here's a topic that's sure to get some different ideas and opinions. Let's hear from some pickers as to what you expect to see and want to see at steel shows. I imagine several things can be learned here, positive and negative. Don't be afraid to speak your mind. Also at the end, list the top five players you'd like to see. Here's mine: Buddy Emmons, Buddy Charleston, Lloyd Green, Tommy White and Gary Carpenter. These are five that I hadn't seen yet. Go for it!

Roger Crawford · From: Griffin, GA USA

You always want and expect to see great talent at steel shows. I want to see the steel guitar gear that is being offered, and be able to compare with other product. Along with that, I want to see the friends I've made throught the years that I only get to see at these shows. They are like family reunions with great music. Players I'd like to see, but not limited to are:
Buddy Emmons
Lloyd Green
Tommy White
Mike Johnson
Doug Jernigan
Paul Franklin

Andy Jones · From: Mississippi

Live steel guitar music,not karaoke.I like meeting and talking to players I've never met.I like looking at the different guitars.I love plenty of shuffles.I also like to hear gospel instrumentals.

The players that I've never seen,but would like to see and hear:Lloyd Green,Buddy Charleton,Dicky Overbey,Cowboy Eddie Long,and Kayton Roberts.

Frank Freniere · From: The First Coast

Brett Day · From: Pickens, SC

There are a lot of great players I'd like to see at shows, like Tommy White, Paul Franklin, and Lloyd Green. I'd also love it if I could play steel onstage while Dawn Jackson of the Jackson Steel Guitar Co. sings while I play my Jackson BlackJack Custom and also I'd love to hear Dottie Jack sing too.

Brett

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

I'd enjoy seeing Lloyd Green, for sure, along with Gary Carpenter, Billy Cooper and Tommy White.

I'd enjoy less "stage show atmosphere"......
and more 'live music'...like from the bandstands of olde. More relaxed and less driven.

Guest vocals, 1 or 2 per set, by the likes of Curtis Potter and Gary Vaughn........would be really nice, so one could hear the superb backup by our steel guitar session people.

It would be really nice to have an informal circle of friends for an hour or so, where the fans could pose questions to the "PRO's"......

My thanks to the players for ending that endless playing of Girl From EEEEEP-e-Neeeeema. Whew!

Rick Campbell · From: Sneedville, TN, USA

Billy Tonnesen · From: R.I.P., Buena Park, California

Have a good live Band the Steelers can play and interface with. If a show is only Steel playing, it can get a little boring and redundant.

J D Sauser · From: Wellington, Florida

I'd expect anybody but the big E to be forbidden to play I Destroyed The World (again??) or A Way To Survive... at least on E9th.

Other than that, I'd like to see innovations and maybe a builder's seminar.

... J-D
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George McLellan · From: Duluth, MN USA

I always enjoy the pickers, but it also is a perfect time to ask any questions to the builder or venders.

Spending time with friends you sometimes only see every few years is also a +.

On the down side, sometimes hearing xxx xxxx xxxx a dozen times. Rolling Eyes

Geo

Bo Legg · Posted 6 Aug 2010 1:00 pm

To be politically correct we should have all open to all Steel Guitar sessions.

Every one who plays gets a "Participation Award" and the better players get stopped before they get through the the first verse if they play too good.

Playing a song all the way through without making a mistake will not be tolerated (You know who you are).

I know it sounds as if I want to handicap the great steel players.

We could allow them to opt to play banjo where there are no rules. (nobody cares)

Bill Dobkins · From: Rolla Missouri, USA

FUN, FROLIC and some Ron Elliot Tea.
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Roger Crawford · From: Griffin, GA USA

Thanks, Rick. It sounds even better with you adding a great fiddle part!

Ed Iarusso · From: East Haddam, CT US of A

I look forward to hearing players and songs I haven't heard before. Something different. I'm tired of the same old shuffles and standard steel guitar fare. I enjoy listening to local and regional players that have something new to offer. Please no more Crazy Arms or old stuff thats been played to death. I appreciate and have a great deal of respect for those players and tunes that have gone before and built a history of what the steel guitar was and is, but I want to be surprised with something new.

Stephen Wells · From: Jackson, Mississippi

While I did notice that every other player (at the last show I attended) played "Night Life" I wouldn't go so far as to take out the stuff that brought us to the dance. Somebody is going to be there that hasn't heard it yet. I do think that it would be interesting to have singers singing what they normally sing and have the steel player take a ride or several. Sometimes it seems the songs are chosen because the player wants to play what's on the record, then everybody plays the song exactly the same. I enjoyed the Laurel show when whole bands would come in and play; that really kept things from sounding too much the same. Ideally the shows would draw lots of people that are not steel nuts who come for the music itself and become steel nuts when they hear our great players both famous and in famous.
Oh yeah... Lloyd Green, Doug Jernigan, David Hartley
Steve Sanford and Billy Carr.

Stephen

Theresa Galbraith · From: Goodlettsville,Tn. USA

Chuck Rich
Terry Crisp
Joe Rogers
Mike Smith
I could go on. It would be cool to have young players like Jonathon Cullifer, Austin Tripp, Jamie Lennon and I could go on......... Smile

Paul Crawford · From: Orlando, Fl

I'm there for the trade show and reunion. I want to see gadgets, gizmos, and steel guitars. A swap meet is a real bonus so we can trade what we bought at the last show. I'd like to try out different guitars just in case I can someday afford them. I want to see custom cases, seats, stands, and a pimped out Ford to haul it all home in.

I do love to hear a top headliner and learn from the masters, but I mostly want to hear new music and styles I've never seen before. Surprise me with something I didn't know could be done on steel guitar. I love country, but jazz, rock, classical, or screaming blues are things I always want to hear. Make my jaw drop and say, "I didn't know you could do that!"

Ron Whitfield · From: Kaaawa, Hawaii, USA

I would imagine these positives happen at some shows, but being secluded from what most of you experience, I'd like a decent venue/seating, decent sound system, decent sound people, decent volume, decent backup, one decent MC, a decent A/V crew to document the event in pro quality fashion and the product from previous shows made available, a decent program, an audience that knows how to keep vewy vewy quiet, the best players available but not the same old every time unless they have a new setlist, a restriction on overdone tunes, and floral arrangements for the stage would be nice. These are just basics for any show that you'd expect a good review for, and return customers. Essentially, just how Jerry Byrd conducted his great steel shows for a decade+ in Honolulu.

Ray, JD, and a couple others have mentioned some cool things.

Larry Baker · From: Columbia, Mo. U.S.A.

Roger Crawford, adding the vocals of Jean DeVore on I'll sign the papers couldn't hurt either. She does it Jeannie Seely style. Larry B.
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Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

The shows seem to be mostly "preaching to the choir".

The choir appears to want (mostly) songs associated with 1960s/1970s mainline country music. So that's what you get. The umpteenth version of "A Way To Survive" and shuffles.

Look at the typical picture taken from the back of the room at a steel show.

What do you see? Grey heads in the choir. Most of whom will not be there in 10 or 20 years.

That doesn't bother me as I very rarely go to steel shows.

But I'd think the promoters ought to ponder the demographics and repertoire.

Keep up with "A Way To Survive" if you expect the average attendee in 2023 to want to hear it. Maybe they will. I dunno.

Personally, I'd be more interested in jazz and pop and more lap steel. Maybe in smaller rooms. More informal jamming and spontaneity.

The shows are highly predictable---you can guess what you are going to see nowadays with a high degree of accuracy. Not good.

Do the invited players really have narrow repertoires?? I doubt it in many cases. Yet you year "I've Just Destroyed The World" rather than "Be A Good Girl", let alone "At Sundown".

I wouldn't think the predictability "advances" the steel guitar beyond where it has been for the last 50 years.

But then, maybe the purpose of steel shows is to generate attendance for the immediate event at hand, rather than to advance anything. Give today's choir what today's choir wants and worry about the 2023 choir in 2023. Kinda like politicians. Rolling Eyes

In which case, "never mind".

Roger Crawford · From: Griffin, GA USA

Larry, one of these days, and I do look forward to it, I'm going to have the honor and priveledge of accompanying Jean. She sings the stuff I REALLY like to hear.

Brett Day · From: Pickens, SC

There's one song that I think should be played at a show that came out in 2005-"Lotta Leavin' Left To Do" by Dierks Bentley. This way, in addition to vocals, the guitarists and steel guitarists can do solos.

Brett

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

Good beef on Weck.

Chris LeDrew · From: Canada

Seeing Ralph Mooney in Dallas last March was surreal - in most incredible way imaginable. Right, Bob Blair?
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Joachim Kettner · From: Germany

Song choices that impressed me mostly and the players who did them, at steel shows I attended in the last years were:
"She's not there" (The Zombies), "In My Mind's Eye" (The Small Faces) played by an english guy called Vic Collins. I wonder what happened to him?! ***
A song by Richard Thompson maybe it was "Dimming Of The Day", by dutch player Hans de Jong.
"Nights In White Satin" (Moody Blues) with vocals done by Jim Cohen.
"Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" (B.J. Thomas) sung and played by Russ Hicks.

*** He also did a good job on "Jessica"

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