Eric West, Byrd Benton, USA vs Gibson

Hello fans and fellow players,

A wonderful thing about this internet is the friends we can meet and the friendships that can grow in steel guitar because of the internet and mainly the Steel Guitar Forum. I have acquired several very close friends that I absolutely think the world of. One of these was a wonderful brilliant character named Eric West.

Eric turned up in the middle of one of my great internet tirades with a well-known steel player that is of course a great friend today. Eric sided with me with many great, brilliant arguments on my behalf.

When I heard that Eric was no longer with us last week, I immediately felt the loss because we were in the middle of another long involved conversation about steel guitars, amplifiers and the construction of both.

Just like the fact that not everybody agrees with me, not everybody agreed with Eric either, but for some strange reason, I pretty well agreed with him and most of his quirky ideas. Eric was a great mechanic and loved riding his 1949 Knucklehead Harley.

I restored an old Sho-Bud for him five years ago that he seemed to love greatly. I will miss Eric probably for the rest of my life, as I do many of my Steel Guitar Forum friends. I just hope we can all be together again someday in that big steel guitar jam session in the sky.

I’d like to remember also the great Byrd Burton, fellow pilot that played steel guitar and lead guitar with The Amazing Rhythm Aces and was a great studio musician on many wonderful hits to come out of Nashville. Byrd was also a flight instructor and was teaching some of my staff here at the store to fly.

I hired Byrd on several sessions including the David Allen Coe albums that I produced for Sun Records. It’s hard to believe so many people that I’ve known over the years I won’t see on this planet again, but as long as my mind keeps working, I’ll remember them all.

Everyone of you that I correspond with in this newsletter, on the forum or as a customer for my store mean something special to me. I am very proud to have you as friends.

I stay away from getting political in this newsletter, but this just makes me wonder what is going on in our government. Go to www.google.com and search for “Department of Justice tells Gibson to export labor”. It’s unbelievable that this could happen in the United States that I was born in.

The Tennessean is Nashville’s local newspaper. Here are links to what has been going on between the government and the Gibson Guitar Company.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110826/NEWS01/308260088/Gibson-Guitar-chief-denies-wrongdoing-after-raids

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110904/BUSINESS/309030089/Gibson-goes-offensive

There is also growing concern amongst musicians about guitars that are being confiscated at airports. Here’s a link: www.delcamp.us/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=61916

Here’s an article entitled “Cross the border, lose your Bentley.” Apparently cars can be confiscated also. www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/08/cross-the-border-lose-your-bentley-the-lacey-act-applies-to-automobiles-too

Let me know your thoughts.

Check out our monthly specials at www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html and we’ll try to save you a lot of money.

The friend to all bar holders,
Bobbe Seymour
www.steelguitar.net
sales@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.com/bobbeseymour
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