Pedal Steel Music

Hi boys and girls,

Here we are at the dawn of 2004. Where has this millienium gone! Seems like only yesterday we were worrying about power outages, computers stopping because of the millenium bug and teaching ourselves to write 2000 instead of 19 something. It still sounds a little weird to say 2004 … somehow 1995 still seems to roll out easier.

I am brimming over with ideas for the new year. My New Year’s resolution is to get out and play more live shows so that I can get out and meet more of you in person all over the world. I already have several live appearances booked and plan to book several more. Why don’t you make a resolution to come out and see me!

I have several new videos which I’m planning to shoot, all of which came from your suggestions and feedback about what you wanted to see and learn. A variety of topics are covered from How To Learn Effectively and Efficiently … based on new scientific discoveries. A New Appoach To Playing C6th … how to learn the most in the least amount of time. How To Play Rock and Blues. How To Work With A Band … how a band needs to work together. 100 Hot-Licks … everybody’s been asking me how to play and several more.

As many of you have already heard, I am being sued for one million dollars ($1,000,000) by a Dallas based company for expressing my opinions and asking questions publicly. I feel this infringes my right to free speech and if they win it will effect all of us, after all, if they win, they May Sue Anybody. I feel that this is not only an attack on me but an attack on the entire steel guitar community. This lawsuit will involve large legal fees before it’s over so to help defray the costs of defending myself and my right and your right to our opinions, I have recorded a live CD with the help of several loyal supporters. The result of this is one of the finest albums I’ve ever done in a live situation and I’m very proud of it and all the wonderful friends who took part in this effort. I wrote all the songs on the CD. I’ve played many of them at live shows in the past but never put them together on a CD before … and yes, I have included the “car wreck” on the CD since so many of you have asked for it for so many years. The CD will be out in a month … more on this later.

May God bless and keep you through the new year.

Your friend,

Bobbe

www.steelguitar.net

sales@steelguitar.net

www.bobbeseymour.com

Hi guys and gals,

I’m relating this story because of it’s Christmas goodwill to all significance. It has to do with human traits and personalities that tend to get slightly out of tune with each other or perhaps because nobody ever tried to tune them together.

Let me start off by saying that out of 34 years in Nashville, the first 25 were spent not necessarily not being very well in tune with the personality of one very famous steel guitarist named Jimmy Day. It seemed that everytime we saw each other and tried to talk about anything, somehow we got crossways and each of us walked off thinking the other one was an idiot. I admired his artistic abilities as I heard he did mine, but we weren’t able to find any other common ground.

One day I got a call from the Pedal Steel Guitar Association in New York to come up and do a show. They offered me a fee and an airline ticket which I accepted. The day came to leave and I went to the airport, checked in my steel guitar, got my boarding pass and boarded the airliner. Looking for my assigned seat. Much to my surprise, there he was, Mr. Jimmy Day. His seat assignment was right next to mine. I thought oh no, two hours of this. It seems as though he was also booked on the same show and our tickets were bought at the same time so we had side by side seat assignments. I sat down, made myself comfortable, finally looked into his face to see a big smile and a handshake come out. He said let’s make the best of this. I didn’t know you would be here either. We both broke out laughing and the laughter and stories didn’t stop until we got to New York and by that time we were the best of friends and had already made plans to do a recording project together in the future. Luckily for both of us, this did come to pass and was Jimmy’s last instrument project that he lived to do.

I learned an awful lot from this experience. I realized and learned that communication was the problem we had and it had prevented us from being very close friends for so many years and now that I look back, I’m seeing and feeling a great loss because I could have had such a wonderful friend for so much more of my life. Because of my immaturity and obstinance in communicating, my life is not quite as rich as it may have been. I’m sure you all have stories like this one where our lives would have been richer if we had gone the extra mile to be a little more understanding and appreciative of our fellow beings.

So the moral of this story is if you think someone out there could be a good friend that you haven’t given a chance to yet, you’d better get to it because we only have so much time on this earth and the richer your life can be, the better. I think of Jimmy very often and I miss him tremendously now.

I wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Steel Guitar Year.

Your buddy,

Bobbe

www.steelguitar.net

sales@steelguitar.net

www.bobbeseymour.com

Hi guys and gals,

It’s astounding going through a 23 year old steel guitar magazine how things have changed in the world of steel guitar in that time. Some of the biggest names then, are only just barely known today and many products that were touted as being the greatest steel guitar aids and items ever, never got to first base with the players. Some amps and steel guitars that we advertised extremely heavily in 1980 did not stand the test of time.

This shows me that as new products and items come out, according to history, most of them won’t have much of a history. Peavey products have stood the test of time with the exception of the Session 500. Emmons products have more than stood the test of time. Sho-Bud guitars are worth 4 times what they were then and even though the product stood the test of time, Sho-Bud the company didn’t after being bought by Fred Gretsch. Two guitar companies which were advertised extremely heavily are totally gone now and history has shown that they should be.

It seems that history can be wonderful window on the future if you study it. These wonderful old magazines contain a delightful plethora of historical facts about players and types of music. A very accurate history of western swing, complete with pictures and interviews of the musicians who shaped the music. These great articles serve to keep the history straight and as I personally know and you may know, there are some people who purposely want to distort, bend and rewrite history. The facts don’t matter to some of these people but the facts are available in these old magazines. Accurate history is a hard thing to hide. There are many great articles on players such as Tom Brumley, Hank Penny, Ralph Mooney, Paul Franklin, Winnie Winston, Tom Bradshaw, DeWitt Scott, Don Helms, Lloyd Green, Bobby Black, Curly Chalker, Bobby Koefer, Bud Issacs, Speedy West and others both remembered and forgotten.

I never realized at the time what these magazines would be worth to future generations as a record of steel guitar, it’s players and the types of music that it starred in. If you want to know the facts on Hank Thompson, Spade Cooley, Bill Wimberly, Tex Williams or the history of the Town Hall Party, it’s there for the reading.

The name of the magazine is “Steel Guitarist”. It was the finest steel guitar magazine that was ever published with many of the articles being written by the greatest players in the industry. Just the articles and pictures by Buddy Emmons are worth more than the price of the magazine alone. These still brand new copies, unopened and in their original mailer are available for $5.99 each or free with every purchase over $30. These are as informative as they are collectible. I have a limited quantity of 5 different issues which I’m happy to be able to share with you. These magazines came to me through Tom Bradshaw, I wish to thank him for his magnificent effort to preserve steel guitar history. I’m sure several of you bought these magazines when they came out 23 years ago and may have lost them along the way. Here’s your chance to replenish your collection.

I’m not making these magazines available to anyone outside of my mailing list so email me personally at sales@steelguitar.net … after all, there’s no reason for being on my mailing list if you don’t get something special every now and then and this is something special.

These are the issues I have copies of:

January 1979
May 1979
January 1980
May 1980
May 1981 – a special double issue (Volumes 6 & 7)

Your buddy,

Bobbe

www.steelguitar.net

sales@steelguitar.net

www.bobbeseymour.com

P.S. The sale page for mailing list members is www.steelguitar.net/sale.html so get your Christmas gifts while there’s still time.

P.P.S. The mailing list program has been substituting strange characters for letters and dropping some words altogether. We are working to solve this problem. In the meantime, enjoy the mistakes because some of the substitutions are pretty funny.