Pedal Steel Music

Hello fellow players,

Alright friends, neighbors and customers, this is the first writing we’ve done to you since our big 20 percent off sale. As you all probably know, this is what we called a true 20 percent off sale which was even 20 percent off everything, even the advertised sale price.

And yes, we were hit hard. It’s obvious that many of you folks loved this sale. We sold thousands of dollars of worth of items at discount prices. From the emails I’ve gotten since, this sale was greatly appreciated. Most people have asked when we’ll have another one. I don’t really know how to answer that except that it will probably be at the end of next summer.

Of course we will have many items on sale for Christmas before our next big across the board sale.

Our steel player this week to tell you about from the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame is Speedy West. Speedy was definitely the player with the greatest personality that ever was. I remember a steel guitar show put on by the boys in Tulsa, Oklahoma several years ago. This was a hard show for me to play because I had just lost one of my dearest friends in steel guitar, the wonderful Gary Hogue, steel player for Marty Stuart.

When I was onstage, I decided to do a commemorative song for Gary. Upon announcing it I hung my head and could not hold back my emotions and how I was missing Gary’s friendship. I started crying rather profusely into the microphone and tears got down on the inside of my glasses where I couldn’t see to play.

Upon apologizing to the crowd that was there, I looked in the front row and there was Speedy West crying his heart out also. After the show Speedy came up to me and put his arms around me still crying he said that was about the nicest thing he’d ever seen. It was right then and there that I realized that Speedy West’s heart was as big as the state of Texas.

This famous player worked for many years in Oklahoma City for Fender. He promoted the Fender 1000 steel guitar. It was during this period that he sold his very famous triple neck Bigsby. It was the Bigsby guitar, a triple neck eight string, that Speedy built his career on in the late forties. This was truly a very gorgeous steel guitar and the one that Speedy used in all the movies that he did in major movie studios in California.

Jimmy Bryant of guitar playing fame put out many instrumentals that he and Speedy wrote together and had great luck in the sales department with these great tunes and arrangements the way they performed them. Tunes like Speedin’ West, Across The Alley From The Alamo and many, many more on the Capitol label. As a matter of fact, I was twelve years old when I saw my first Bryant and West album in a record store and bought it having never heard of them, but only because of the great picture on the cover.

The picture was of Speedy with his great triple neck Bigsby and Jimmy with his newly released Fender Telecaster lead guitar. Upon playing it when I got it home, I was pretty astounded all the way around. Little did I know at that time that Speedy would many years later become a great friend.

If anybody asks you today if you ever heard of Speedy West, just say yes, he was the nicest guy ever in the world of steel guitar. You can get a lot more information on Speedy from google. And go to the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame website and read his plaque.

Speedy West had a son named Gary that was born when Speedy was playing for Lawrence Welk. Speedy Jr. just died in 2011. I might add here that Speedy Sr. was also in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in Springfield, Missouri. He loved Standel amplifiers and his idols were Billy Robinson and Jerry Byrd. Let’s all remember this great player reverently.

One of you readers of this newsletter has asked me to get into lubricants that are used on steel guitars. I recommend a dry silicone lubricant for the changer. Spray it on heavy with the guitar upside down. A tiny drop of 60 weight motor oil underneath the guitar where cross shafts go through their L-bracket holders will make things much quieter and easier to manipulate.

There are some brands of steel guitars which include GFI and Mullen that may not need lubricant because of roller bearings or delran bearings.

A tiny drop in the end of the legs that screw into the guitar will keep them from rusting. Just don’t use enough that you make a mess. Where the pedals rotate on the pedal bar, it’s a good idea to use this 60 weight oil continuously there. Never get any oil on your strings as it will keep them from vibrating freely and kill your sustain.

Many folks have told me not to recommend using oil in the rollers at the keyhead, but I find that this is one great way to keep the rollers from rattling back and forth when the guitar is being played. Tom Bradshaw has other ideas here.

On my Bigsby guitars, I don’t even use rollers at the keyhead end and have no problem at all with just putting a tiny drop of heavy oil under each string. Naturally with no roller, the strings will not make a funny vibrating noise in the keyhead. I even ordered a new Clinesmith guitar specifically without rollers because this works so well.

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

Listen To Steel Guitar Music Streaming 24 Hours A Day!

Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Closed Saturday and Sunday

Hello fans and fellow players,

I’d like to talk a little bit about steel guitar mechanisms. The changer on steel guitars is the heart of a pedal steel guitar, no question. How they are designed controls how well they stay in tune and how temperature affects tuning, cabinet drop and many other things that we just take for granted.

The easier a unit is designed to pull, the less strain it puts on the body of the guitar, consequently the less detuning when you’re playing. The ratios are the important things, how far and easy they pull. They also need to be equal. A raise needs to pull the same distance that a lower needs to pull to do approximately the same amount of change, but in the other direction.

For instance, the Emmons LeGrande changer is designed to pull a long distance to make the same tonal change that many changers just use a short distance to accomplish the same thing. This makes it obvious that as the pull rod changes length due to temperature expansion and contraction, an Emmons guitar will be less affected than a changer like the old original two piece Sho-Bud changer would.

I have many friends that have designed changers for many different brand guitars and have had many guitars born in front of me at my store. What these designers seem to always talk about as they are designing the changer is the distance and pressures it takes to control the drop pitch in comparison to the raise pitch.

This is just something to think about until I get into it deeper in another newsletter. The Steel Guitar Hall of Famer that I would like to talk about today is the great Don Helms. I met Don in 1953 when I was but a mere inkling of a steel guitarist. As a matter of fact, even at that age, I was a monster Jerry Byrd fan and was very familiar with Don Helms because of hearing him so much on country radio stations with Hank Sr, Patsy Cline, Zigador Bedford, Vernon Oxford and many other country music stars of the time.

One of the first things I remember saying to Don backstage at thirteen was, “Why are you playing Gibson when all the other big boys play Fender?”

He said, “Because I don’t like the tone of the Fender and I don’t like the string length. All that and they’re ugly.” So I left backstage with my tail between my legs never knowing that several years later he and I would turn out to be best friends. It didn’t take long to figure out that Don had a slightly warped sense of humor that kept me on my toes for decades to come.

Some of the best days I’ve ever had in my store, Steel Guitar Nashville, was during the weekly visits that Don would come in, pull up a chair and just talk to all of us and tell us funny road stories when he was with Hank Williams in the early days.

A group of tourists came in the store one day and one of them asked, “Do you ever have any big name steel guitarists come in here?”

I laughed and replied, “I can’t keep them out!” I said, “As a matter of fact, I have one of the most famous and greatest ones in here right now. The great Don Helms from Hank Williams’ band.”

I yelled over at Don, “How long have you been on the road Don?”

He replied, “Ever since they come out with it.”

I said, “Are you still working with the Williams family?”

He said, “Yep.” He said, “With Hank Sr. then with Hank Jr. and now I’m working with Jett Williams. He said, “It’s really handy because I’ve only had to learn six songs in my whole career.”

I have so many memories of Don playing his non-pedal guitar, but when he switched to his pedal Sho-Bud it ruined all the great creativity and things that I remembered Don playing when he was young.

A few years later Don came into my store and I said, “I want to have a talk with you Don.”

He laughed and said, “You’re not gonna try to give me a pedal guitar lesson, are you?”

I said, “No. But I’m gonna do something a lot more serious than that. I want you to switch back to your non-pedal guitar and stay there.” Then I went into long stories of how I loved his original playing. Then I hit him real hard with, “Don, you’re a horrible pedal steel guitar player, but you’re a wonderful non-pedal player. Do the world a favor and don’t ever touch a pedal guitar again.”

He looked at me like I’d slapped him, then he put his right hand out to shake mine and said, “If you say so.” He stood up and hugged me and sure enough he never played pedal guitar again, but went on to continue his original non-pedal career. I put new legs on his old Gibson and that was about all that was wrong with it. I found him another one to use as a spare and off to the road he went.

Don used to come in my store once or twice a week and we’d laugh and talk about the great old days and he’d have me rolling in the floor with laughter. I miss him more than I can ever say. Don Helms February 28, 1927 – August 11, 2008.

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

Listen To Steel Guitar Music Streaming 24 Hours A Day!

Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Closed Saturday and Sunday