Hello fellow players,
The steel player that I would like to recognize from the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame today is a player that has been so universally accepted that he has a style named after him. The style is the most played and most loved of any style that has ever been played on steel guitar, the Bud Isaacs style is a style that Bud invented in 1952 and has been universally adapted by almost every steel player in the world.
Bud had one pedal on his double neck eight string Bigsby that raised his B string on his E9th a whole tone and his G# string a half tone. By working these two strings together, his chords and tuning went from an E chord to an A chord. This he incorporated into a style that he used on many, many hit records. Later on, most players split that pedal up into two pedals to pull the strings separately.
In 1952 Bud was on eleven number one songs on the country music charts. He was the predominant player of this style even though everybody else scrambled to have this pedal put on their own guitars. Paul Bigsby’s waiting list for a new guitar went from two a month to twenty five a month and he never did catch up.
In Nashville, Buddy Emmons, Shot Jackson and Don Davis started their careers one might even say, trying to help satisfy the demand for steel guitars to play Bud’s style by fitting pedals on non-pedal guitars. Today that is the main style on every setup of every pedal steel guitar built. I don’t know one steel guitarist that has infected so many other steel players the way Bud Isaacs has.
Most steel players won’t even buy a guitar if they don’t have this Bud Isaacs style setup on it when they buy it, however today that pedal has been split. It takes two pedals, one pulling the B and one pulling the G# to play this style. Most steel guitar players, unless they are quite old to the instrument, don’t even know that is what they are buying. Bud Isaacs is definitely the daddy of steel guitar the way it is played today, the most standard tuning ever on steel.
Even though there is not a lot of Bud Isaacs playing available on YouTube, those that followed in his footsteps like Sonny Burnett, Buddy Emmons, Walter Haines, Howard White, Joe Vincent (that played with Faron Young in the fifties) and Jimmy Day are available in abundance for your viewing pleasure. These guys were very close carbon copies of Bud Isaacs in the beginning of the Eth style, but took this style on to new heights when Bud left Nashville to go to California in 1955.
Bud Isaacs was born March 26, 1928 in Bedford, Indiana. He was inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1984. This is about the most historical player in the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame.
Well here we are at Christmas shopping time. We are dropping prices, slashing the bottom line and just getting vicious with our discount prices. I don’t want anybody that knows me and wants a steel guitar or any steel guitar product to do without this year.
Christmas is the time to get what we want the most reasonable way we can get it. So let’s plan on doing this without losing the true meaning of Christmas.
When it comes to steel guitar and Christmas I have mentioned many times what Christmas has always meant to me. It means celebrating the birthday of our Lord and being in a great mood. Having a new steel guitar and associated equipment always put me in a good mood as a little kid.
I don’t want to use this time of year just as a time to make big dollars, but as a time to see big smiles on my customer’s faces because of things that I can do for them. The prices that are listed are sales prices and these prices are far from retail, however these prices, are now being offered at 20% off the sale price which means on some items you could be as much as 50% off.
On the last sale we had, there was one beautiful Emmons D-10 steel guitar that we sold and lost over $400. I only hope the customer that got it knows what kind of a deal he got. Anyway, these are the kind of deals that we are offering now. Remember, gift certificates are a great way to save money also.
Next week’s featured Hall of Fame player will be Lloyd Green. We’ll have a discussion on different styles of changers like fingertip, permanent, broken finger, push pull etc. Don’t miss next week’s newsletter.
New products. Well I finally buckled and decided to give everybody what they’ve been asking for. Non-gaudy, very classy, long-sleeve, solid black steel guitar t-shirts, the key words here being long-sleeve.
After all, here we are coming into winter and I don’t care where you live in the United States, things get cool everywhere, so why not have a cool shirt. All the shirt has on it is the three most important words of your life. The three words that say what you love and what you are, Steel Guitar Nashville.
Here’s the link: www.steelguitar.net/shirts.html
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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Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
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