Hello fans and fellow players,
Let me start this letter off this week by telling you of one of our visitors. The great B.J. Cole of steel guitar recording fame in London, England spent a few hours with me on Monday. I am very appreciative and familiar with his playing and was very glad to meet him along with being able to talk with him as I had many questions about the recording scene in London.
B.J. has done many magnificent sessions with artists such as Sting, Elton John, Robert Plant, REM, Bjork, Roger Daltry, The Verve, Depeche Mode, Beck, Elvis Costello, David Gilmore, Brian Eno, Robbie Williams, Moody Blues, Olivia Newton John, Tom Jones. This would be a thirty page newsletter if I listed all of his credits. I loved his playing on Tiny Dancer with Elton John. Excellent production.
B.J. is very knowledgeable about steel guitar and has been playing his entire life. B.J. also has a very unique approach, a wide open mind and can play about anything. I’m so glad to see these great English acts use steel guitar and especially use a steel player with the attitude that B.J. has. B.J. has several steel guitars that he uses of several different brands and I remember him expressing that Cline and Emmons as his favorites.
He is a very intelligent man with a great sense of humor and no matter how many times he visits, it will always be interesting when he does. When he left here, he was on his way to meet with Lloyd Green. I’m sure that was a good visit too.
Here is a link to his website: http://www.bjcole.co.uk/. I encourage each of you to listen to great players like B.J. Cole because much can be learned by studying the masters of the instrument as well as by watching teaching videos over and over.
I had several great young players come in to visit and restock their steel guitar goodies for the fall playing season. Eddie Dunlap, Pat Severs, Mike Daly and Chad Udeen are all regular visitors and great players of the present day that know where to spend their dollars.
It seems like I’m not the only one that wants to save the history of the golden age of steel guitar and the big western swing bands. The chief of these western swing bands was the great Hank Thompson. He had two steel guitarists during most of his career. Both played triple neck Bigsbys. One player’s name was Peewee Whitewing and the other was Bob White, not to be confused with the fiddle player in the same band with the same name.
Peewee Whitewing was a pretty astounding player. Peewee had three eight string necks with a Bigsby guitar and Standel amp combination and of course, the legendary Bob White also used a triple neck Bigsby with Standel amp. Bob had two ten-string necks and one eight string neck.
Bob is no longer with us, however his daughter, Snow White is writing a book about Bob which I think everybody should find very interesting as Bob was quite a wonderful character, loved everybody as everybody loved him. I only hope somebody writes a book about Peewee Whitewing, his compadre from the same band. As I’ve said before, two nicer guys there never were. The band had many great arrangements.
Bobby Garrett was also a steel player in this organization in later years, as were Gary Hogue, the almighty Curly Chalker and Bert Rivera.
The future may be looking good for us doing some serious instruction here at Steel Guitar Nashville.
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
www.myspace.com/bobbeseymour
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Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
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