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Topic: Bob Wills Steel Player |
Declan Byrne
From:
Southern Ireland
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Posted 2 Dec 2010 8:34 am |
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Can anybody throw some light on this Steel Player with Bob Wills (Name) and (or) what type of Steel this is.Thanks :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwReZml9acg
Last edited by Declan Byrne on 2 Dec 2010 8:49 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Declan Byrne
From:
Southern Ireland
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robert kramer
From:
Nashville TN
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Posted 2 Dec 2010 12:47 pm
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Judging by the "carrot" tie I would say it is the great Les "Carrot Top" Anderson:
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Billy Tonnesen
From:
R.I.P., Buena Park, California
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Posted 2 Dec 2010 1:36 pm
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That is definatly Les "Carrot Top" Anderson. He was a good freind of mine and when I got my first three necked non pedal Steel he told me what tunings he would recommend for it. In later years Les played Steel for a short time with Spade Cooley at the Santa Monica Pier Ballroom. Les pretty much gave up his Steel playing to concentrate on his Singing Career. He was on Town Hall Party for several years. The Girl Singer sitting next to Tommy Duncan in the Bob Wills film short was Laura Lee Owens, daughter of early singer Tex Owens who wrote "Cattle Call". In the middle 40's Laura Lee married Dickie McBride and they came out to California to record, I believe for Decca Records. I got to work with both of them on the Ole Rasmussen Band in 1948.
Les Anderson, when working with Bob Wills, wrote and recorded the Steel Guitar instrumental "This is the Southland". It became a Steel Guitar "Standard". |
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basilh
From:
United Kingdom
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Posted 5 Dec 2010 6:36 am
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| The guitar is a pre war Epiphone Electar.. |
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Herb Steiner
From:
Spicewood TX 78669
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Posted 5 Dec 2010 10:33 am
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I of course remembered Carrot Top from the Town Hall Party and Ranch Party TV shows, being from LA. But I didn't get a chance to meet him until much later.
In 1991 I was playing in the house band at a concert, in Austin TX, for the Western Swing Hall of Fame. The job was to back up that year's inductees as they performed, and an elderly fellow I didn't recognize came up and asked if I knew "Little Red Wagon." He allowed as how it was his theme song and I told him I knew it well. He was glad and said, "I'm a steel player too, y'know." I asked him his name and when he said "Carrot Top Anderson," I was floored!
We went back to where he and his wife were sitting, and my wife joined us. He had scrapbooks of his entire career, both in music and film, which was mostly B-westerns like Tex, Smokey, Deuce, et al. did back then. Fascinating to me. He talked for a long time about the players and singers from those days, some of whom I'd worked with as a young player living in LA.
He said he moved up to Las Vegas, played there, then started an air conditioning business in the early sixties and got out of music altogether. Sometime later he moved up to British Columbia, ran a trailer park (as I recall?), and got involved in bluegrass festivals. I lost touch and I understand he passed away a few years ago.
A very gracious, outgoing man. We really enjoyed hanging out with him and his wife that day.
_________________
My rig: Infinity and Telonics.
Son, we live in a world with walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with steel guitars. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? |
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Bryan Bradfield
From:
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
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Posted 6 Dec 2010 7:22 pm
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Here is the pedal bar on Les' last steel guitar.
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