Pedal Steel Music

Here is the best reply I had to the last newsletter.

Bobbe,

Speaking of the “newer generation” not knowing who the “pathmakers” were reminds me of a story I heard in Nashville a few years ago. I can’t remember the person who told me the story, or the singer involved, but it really hits the old nail on the head. Here ’tis:

It seems that pretty little Miss So and So was doing an album and needed one more song to finish it up. Her A&R man suggested she do a Patsy Cline song because they were a good cover. The gal answered, “Oh, she sings? I thought she just came out on stage at the Opry in a funny hat and told jokes.”

When I heard that, I knew country music was in for a big letdown. The funny thing is that when all of the “ignorant wannabes” are forgotten, and they are hustling sandwiches at Subway, and their records are in the fifty cents bin at the Salvation Army store or at garage sales, Patsy Cline recordings will still be selling on the racks with the latest hit makers . Just like Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, even Elvis.

I dug up another newsletter I wrote years ago and never got around to sending. Here it is.

The pedal board on a steel guitar. Do you realize how many different spacings, pedal travel and pedal shapes there are from guitar to guitar? When you say a pedal feels good, does this mean you want one to push real easy or have enough resistance that you can get half pedal without running the pedal into the floor?

There are many different types of pedal feels and of course, pedal shapes. If a pedal is rounded off from the top to the end, the ratio actually changes as your foot pushes it down and walks along the top of it. This might be okay if you get used to it, but after playing a guitar with a flat pedal on top like Franklin or Fessenden, it could be pretty confusing.

The first Emmons LeGrande and actually second and third LeGrandes, I took the pedals off and replaced them with the old style cast push pull pedals. I like the feel much better even though the tension from all the way up to all the way down was identical. Upon seeing Buddy Emmons first LeGrande, I see that he did the same thing.

I personally don’t like the LeGrande pedals because of the sharp edge on top that prevents a player from sliding his foot across the top of the pedal. The old Emmons pedals, you could do this quite easily. The good thing about this is if you have a belt sander, it’s very easy to cut this sharp edge off the tops of the pedals.

The Sho-Bud pedals do not have this trouble. I like the newer Sho-Bud pedals that are thin from the shank to the end of the pedal because it gives you more space between the pedals without the pedals being further apart. However, the very wide spacing like on the early Sho-Bud Pro IIIs, these new pedals give you almost too much space between the pedals. But let me say this out loud.

All these pedal sizes and pedal feels I’m talking about really must be sized and adjusted to the player. The person that likes one may hate another. I remember Tom Morrell and I building some of the first MSAs and Tommy himself built a steel guitar with only two inches of space between them. This was horribly narrow for me and I just couldn’t play it. But he wanted it that way and played it very well.

I like two and three quarter spacing or even more if the pedals are wide. I just put the pedal setup on my new Clinesmith and because of the width of the pedal, I went to three and a quarter inch spacing. This would be too much on a Sho-Bud or Emmons, but it’s just perfect for Bigsby or Clinesmith.

Remember here, Clinesmith and Bigsby pedals, like the first Sho-Bud pedals, are built with a very wide pad on the end so they require either thinning them down with a band saw, which I have done, or add more space between pedals overall.

Most steel guitars today that are on my floor here are a good blend of width and spacing, for instance, the new Mullen guitars. It’s obvious that these guitars are being designed and built by a very good player, Mr. Del Mullen himself. These guitars are extremely comfortable to sit down behind and play well the first time you try.

Just remember that any pedals that’s too easy to push is not going to give you the control that you need of the note changing from one pitch to another. Also, the rate of string change will determine the pedal feel. The harder you push the pedal the farther a note goes? This is not good. The pedal should push with about the same tension all the way to the stop. As you push the pedal, it should get progressively easier, not progressively harder.

You may notice if you’ve ever played an Emmons push pull, the farther the pedal goes down, the easier it is to push. This ratio of pressure can be adjusted on all guitars. However, it may take a different bell crank, or different parts to accomplish this. The Emmons LeGrande guitars are also very good about incorporating this feature.

I have seen several homemade guitars in my lifetime and guitars like the Sho-Bud Fingertip that have progressively harder push the farther you push the pedal. Not bad if you get use to it and can control it possibly, but not for me.

The Sho-Bud Permanent, built from ’57 to ’65 is fine, but the Fingertip made form ’64 to ’68, unless adjusted very precisely, does not have what I call good pedal action. However, this Fingertip model was a brilliant design and the great granddaddy of the all pull guitars of today.

Bobbe Seymour

www.steelguitar.net
info@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.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
Second and Third Saturday each Month Open 9AM – 2PM
Closed Sunday

Here’s a newsletter I wrote 3 years ago, but for some reason, never got around to sending it out. I think it’s worth a read. Here it is.

Marshall Rowland is a great friend of many years and like greats such as Maurice Anderson, Tom Morrell and Billy Robinson, Marshall has decided to kick the pedal steel guitar habit and just go with non-pedal. There are hundreds of styles you can play on non-pedal, not just Hawaiian, Gospel or old time country.

Joaquin Murphy, Noel Boggs, Vance Terry, Slim Idaho and Herb Remington have proven that you don’t need pedals to play incredible jazz and western swing. So here’s the email I got from Marshall Rowland.

Here’s a well deserved BRAVO to your latest newsletter. . I’ve been feeling like a step child when John Lesmaster or other great local pedal steel players are on stage BUT I HEARBY QUIT. . Jerry Byrd, Alvino Rey, Little Roy, Don Helms etc., were my idols. . to me 90% of the pedal players I hear nowadays sound alike. To heck with it, I’m gonna be the best non pedaler (at my age 80) around.

Keep up the good work, yo buddy,
Marshall Rowland

I have always been a fan of non-pedal guitar, even the Jerry Byrd Hawaiian kind of thing, but after hearing many jazz and western swing players, I have deeply again fallen in love with non-pedal steel guitar and found that I can still play some very deep chords and play them in tune.

The single note scales and many other tricks you really don’t need pedals for. I feel that any pedal player worth his salt should own and practice playing a non-pedal guitar for a few hours a month and it won’t be long before he’ll see what I’m talking about. So do it, you’ll love it.

Nobody ever thinks of steel guitar as a solo instrument. You know how boring and uninteresting other solo instruments are? Like trumpet all by itself. Saxophone or flute sound wonderful with rhythm and backup from the band, but they just don’t have that big full sound that vibrates you through your entire being like piano, vibes or a symphony size harp.

However, standard guitar is a different story. I find that great players of this instrument are as interesting to listen to as the great piano players that specialize in solo recitals. I have referred to several players in the past in my newsletters, so I won’t do it again. However, I feel steel guitar played in a gigantic, rhythmic five finger style the way Chet Atkins and Merle Travis intended it to be, can make a great, full range entertaining instrument out of the steel guitar.

It seems like the Dobro players of today like Johnny Bellar, Tut Taylor and Jerry Douglas would crash a party and nobody knew what a Dobro was, they will play it so well that everybody at the party will scream more and more and go away saying, “Wow. What was that?” Maybe even possibly saying, “Who was that masked man?” Everyone will soon know what a Dobro is.

These Dobro players have no pedals, no string stretchers and no tricks. They just play incredibly well. They set a standard that steel players need to listen to and quite possibly work to achieve.

Another funny subject here involves the western swing musicians who worked for Ray Price thirty or so years ago. I was kind of a youngster on the road when Blondie Calderone hired me to work with Ray. I thought I was an old pro but soon realized there were a few little things that I didn’t know, one of which I remembered when I walked into the Waffle House last month and couldn’t think of anything they had that I would enjoy eating.

Finally I ordered scrambled eggs with their bowl of chili with the eggs all by themselves on the plate, I dumped the chili on the eggs and it brought back many memories of working with Ray Price in the old days.

I replaced Jimmy Day and our front man was a hard living old guitar player named Charley Harris. Charley ate scrambled eggs with chili on them about every meal while we were on the road. Finally I asked him, I said, “Charley, why do you order that every time we stop?”

He exclaimed, “It’s the road musicians feast. Not very expensive, almost pure protein, no carbohydrates and it’s hard to mess up eggs and of course chili is the staple of foods in south Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Tennessee.”

I started eating this way thinking it would make me a better steel guitar player and still every time I go into a questionable restaurant and I’m never dissatisfied because it’s a very simple wholesome meal. We lost Charley Harris a few years ago. He was one of the staples of the great western swing days and Ray Price country music.

Other seldom remembered heroes from those days were Billy Gray and Leon Bollinger. Real great old pros from a wonderful era. A little more now to Tennessee, Mr. Stony Stonecipher from Knoxville just sent me an email that was very much welcomed because of Stony’s stature in the world of steel guitar. Stony is on the Hall of Fame Board in St. Louis and was the producer of the Knoxville steel guitar show on Memorial Day every year for many years.

Anyway, to the point, Stony said to me, “Bobbe, you’re mentioning an awful lot of names in your newsletter that I’m sure these new guys in the business playing steel guitar don’t know who half of them are.”

My reply to him was, “There are many of these great old star players that they need to know about.” I admitted that he was correct and that I hate to think of it, but every day I’m seeing more and more new players that barely know who Buddy Emmons is and don’t know who Curly Chalker was at all.

This is a horrifying shame because these are definitely two of the very greatest steel guitar players that every walked the face of the Earth. Many of these new players think that good players are of the Jerry Garcia caliber. I think it’s really horrible some of these players think they know steel guitar but never felt the impact and violence of the great music, chords and staccato single note lines that were put out by Curly Chalker.

And no, what you see on YouTube is nothing like what he was playing through the sixties and seventies with the Billy Gray western swing band or the Wade Ray Trio and Jimmy Heath band in Las Vegas. It’s sort of like the really great big band jazz groups of yesteryear. The jazz players of today just can’t get that feeling from a CD and two eight inch speakers.

Bands like Chick Webb at the Savoy, Count Basie anywhere and the Buddy Rich band killing them all in a Detroit jam session from the fifties and sixties, talk about hearing pure violence, it made your goose bumps have goose bumps and you just shake your head and walk away and say, “I know I just heard it, but I think it’s impossible.”

I love country music of course, but I’m sure glad I have an open mind because I sure would have missed an awful lot of great music had I not.

If you want to take your steel guitar playing to the next level, you might learn something from some of my videos like the Non-Pedal steel guitar video, or the Bobbe Seymour and Maurice Anderson video.

www.steelguitar.net
info@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.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
Second and Third Saturday each Month Open 9AM – 2PM
Closed Sunday

Tim Wright send me this inspiring story which should hit home with every pedal steel player. Please enjoy it.

Bobbe,

While reading your newsletter today, I recalled a trip I made to Nashville in 1970. I had been driving to work on a Saturday morning to put in some over time on a bridge construction job that my dad had gotten me that Summer. While driving along the East side of I-465, in Indianapolis, IN, I spotted a hitchhiker – and this hitchhiker didn’t appear like most of the Hippies that were making a habit of walking along the highways of the U.S. during that time peri9od. This guy had on what appeared to be some sort of band outfit – a uniform type look, complete with a paisley shirt and a vest, and cowboy boots, no less- not the greatest shoe for walking along, trying to hitch a ride. I stopped. I knew this was going to be interesting.

This chunky fellow got in my ’67 VW Bug and I couldn’t wait to hear his story. He told me his name was Roger, but I’ll withhold the last name just in case he wouldn’t appreciate this type of publicity. Immediately he informed me that he was trying to get to Nashville, TN, and he’d been hitchhiking all night – from Michigan. It seems that he had run into a “double woman problem” the night before in the bar where he had been playing PEDAL STEEL GUITAR! Talk about fate! I had already falle3n in love with pedal steel since the first time I’d heard Tom Brumley’s break on “Together Again”. I was a child of the 60’s and I’d been listening to the steel guitar in the Byrds album, “Sweetheart of The Rodeo,” played by Lloyd Green, and I believe by J.D. Mannes (I think) Rusty Young of Poco, Sneaky Pete, playing with the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Mr. Brumley, who had been playing in Ricky Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band. And now, I had a genuine pedal steel guitarist in my car. He asked me, “How far South ya goin’?” “Nashville,” I replied. It didn’t take long for me to make up my mind where I was going that day. I had to take him. This was an opportunity of a lifetime for me to spend time with a steel guitar picker – and maybe even learn something about this unique instrument I’d grown to love to listen to. I just had to own one someday. This was my true introduction to the instrument.

We got to town and immediately went to Tootsies Lounge, where I phoned my mom to tell her I was in Nashville, and that I hadn’t gone to work that day. She assumed I meant Nashville, Indiana. When I explained that I was in Tennessee, she whispered into the phone, “Are you alright. Did someone kidnap you?!” “Well, kind of … in a way … but it was my own choice,” I told my worried mother.

She calmed down when I told her I had picked up a total stranger on the way to work and now I was in a bar in Nashville, while he was ordering a beer! I told her that I was in good hands – a pedal steel player’s hands!

Next stop for Roger and me was the Sho-Bud store, where he sat down and played the most beautiful version of “Danny Boy” I’d heard to that date. I was in Heaven. I’d finally made it to my “Emerald City,” my “Land of Oz” that somehow, I just knew I’d end up spending a great deal of time in some day. The day passed and we ended up on the steps of the Ryman Auditorium, listening to The Earl Scruggs Review playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and an instrumental of Joni Mitchell’s “Clouds/Both Sides Now;” an arrangement by Randy Scruggs that I had heard on one of the Review’s albums I had at home. This was way too cool. The Opry was probably sold out on this particular hot August night, but it didn’t matter. When I had left for home that morning, all I had were a few dollars in my wallet and a checkbook. Also, I was dressed in a purple tie dyed tank top ( wife beater) T-shirt, cut off jeans shorts, and work boots – not exactly the “proper dress” for the occasion. I was as out of place as “a hog at a church wedding!”

I followed Roger back to Tootsies, where he seemed to know a lot of the Opry stars who were coming in for a nip between their sets next door at the Opry. I was most definitely out of my element, but it didn’t matter; I was in Nashville, and it simply seemed as if something more than the chance meeting of a hitchhiker at the exact time I was driving by him that was bringing about this special moment in my life. Since we didn’t have enough money for even a cheap motel, we began wondering if we could both actually sleep in my VW. The Opry was over, and we were back on those steps off of 5th Ave. As the Opry fans all walked out with smiles on their faces, I continued to wonder what the rest of this special night would hold.

Roger said, “Follow me.” We walked around to the back side entrance to the Opry. Roger knocked on the door and an older gentleman answered. Roger just came out and asked him if we could spend the night in the Ryman. “I can’t believe you just asked him – and he let us in,” I exclaimed to my new friend. Believe it, or not, that’s exactly what happened. I couldn’t believe this serendipitous moment was happening. The empty Ryman – the stage where Hank Williams and so many legends had stood and sang their songs – So much history – under my feet. The night watchman said, “Pull up a chair.” And we did! There was a lamp stand in the middle of the stage – no shade – just the bare light bulb giving a dream-like setting to this most surreal of nights. There it was; the bright red Opry Barn background, against the back wall that I’d been seeing on the Johnny Cash TV Show! I couldn’t hardly believe this was really happening. As I stood on that “hallowed ground” and peered out into the dimly lit auditorium filled with church pews, I had this strange feeling that I’d be on this stage one day, playing music. I had been in a band all through high school, and had more recently played some country and fold music with my brother, Tom. I so wanted to play professionally – to do what I love for a living.

The sleepless night ended and Roger and I, somehow, made it back to Indiana where I bought him a bus ticket back to Michigan. I never saw this man again – even though, ten years later, I was on the Grand Ole Opry stage, playing and singing with my brother and singing partner. The Wright Brothers Band had made it to the Mecca of Country Music! Our dear friend, Grandpa Jones helped us get on the show one night in 1980. Grandpa’s son, Mark had worked for our band in the mid 70’s and this led to that wonderful man, Lewis Jones “pulling the strings” that allowed us to perform on the Opry. It was certainly a dream come true. Weldon even backed us up on “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “Bucket To The South,” and a bluegrass version of “Midnight Rider.” What a night to remember.

After my experience with my hitchhiking friend (perhaps an angel) I bought a pedal steel about three years later, when out band had begun playing steadily around the Indianapolis area. I’m so glad I did, because for the past 40 years, I’ve had the immense pleasure of playing those three chord changes and harmonic notes that float in and out of each other, and as Buddy Emmons once said in describing the sound of the pedal steel, “These notes that seem to sit still and move at the same time..” as they weave a seamless tapestry of background sound that complements a song like no other instrument. I’ve been blessed to learn a little bit about this instrument and experience the job it brings – to be enveloped in a sound that seems to become “one with” the song’s (and player’s) emotion. Thank you Roger!

And thank you Bobbe Seymour. Tim Wright

www.steelguitar.net
info@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.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
Second and Third Saturday each Month Open 9AM – 2PM
Closed Sunday