Pedal Steel Music

Hello fellow players,

From Pismo Beach to Virginia Beach across this great country, from Bangor, Maine to McAllen, Texas people are traveling from hither to yon this summer. The heat may be a factor but it doesn’t seem to be stopping anybody. We have had many wonderful visitors including many Europeans that we had only known from emails in the past. Summer is an exciting time for us because we get to see so many wonderful folks that we have been corresponding with throughout the year.

I’ll never forget the time I went to the Playboy Club in Hollywood, California. I had never been there but was expecting something very exotic. Not only was I disappointed because the folks I was supposed to meet didn’t show up, but there was no live music and the Playboy Bunnies reminded me more of my family than the exotic dreams that I had in my mind.

The Bunny uniforms were a little loose and saggy and looked more like little jumpsuits than what you’d expect to see in the la-la land of Hollywood on Sunset Blvd.

I ordered food and I should have been suspicious when the waitress asked if I was kidding. I said, “No. Is it bad?”

To which she replied, “No. A lot of people like it.” That’s when I should have got up and made my exit.

I asked for a baked potato. She asked what caliber. I said, “No. Don’t load it in here.” figuring I would be surprised and have a wonderful meal. I didn’t.

About a month later, this Playboy Club on Sunset Blvd. closed. I don’t wonder why. However, when the band asked me how it was and I told them, they thought I was kidding. Truth in advertising? No. Wasn’t much there.

Soon after this I heard that Hugh had sold the big black Bunny airplane. I don’t wonder why if the airplane was as bad as the club. Soon after, I went out and bought my first airplane. It was one of those things I just wanted. I did not need it. I did have fun and I’ll probably have more before I kick the bucket or even turn a little pail.

I can’t say enough good things about the GFI double ten with eight and five. Here’s a beautiful, loaded guitar that weighs about half as much as many big guitars do and it’s got bullet-proof durability. This guitar should be called the undertaker model because it’ll be the last to let you down. Just don’t ask for a lay-away plan. Just a little steel guitar humor.

If you want to go to the other end of the spectrum, we do have an Emmons wrap-around, 1965, in immaculate condition. Extremely rare and beautiful. Check it out on our featured guitar page at www.steelguitar.net/featured.html Get a free amplifier of your choice with this guitar. We have a Peavey Session 500 that would be a great professional mate to this guitar. And yup, I meant it. It would be free to the buyer of this wonderful collector instrument.

We have some unbelievable deals on Fender, Peavey, Evans, Webb and so on. Please call me direct and we’ll talk about this deal. We have new and previously owned, but just remember incredible summertime deals on everything.

The kids are going back to school so why not put yourself back to school in the privacy of your den or living room. Your choice of any 5 of my teaching videos with the purchase of a new Nashville 112 amplifier. Remember, that’s 5 free videos with the purchase of a 112. This along with our greatly discounted prices, makes you a real winner.

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 would like to acknowledge the effort of Bob Quasar¹, creator of the Steel Guitar Forum, for putting my newsletters on his website at PedalSteelMusic.com.

Bob is a gigantic power in the world of steel guitar. This steel guitar forum is a gigantic help to steel players everywhere. He has made the entire globe much smaller by making it possible for every steel player to be in direct contact with other steel players, teachers, builders and designers.

What he is really doing for the world of steel guitar is a truly wonderful contribution. If you can send him just a quick thank you once in a while it may be highly appreciated and I know that any financial aid that you can spare to send him will be used to further the success of this great medium.

I know whenever I have a few hundred thousand laying around, he’s the first one that I send it to. LOL. Bob has proven how much good he and the forum can be to us all. Every once in a while, he has to shut down for maintenance and myself along with millions of others go through a period of DTs. Some form of withdrawal symptoms are what we all go through when the forum isn’t there. Thank goodness it’s there most of the time. I just want to thank bee-zero-bee (b0b). You are greatly appreciated.

I’d like to talk now about you steel players that think you’re obscure. There are thousands of little steel guitar jobs in small out of the way places all over this country, Canada and many other countries. You may only play one night a week. The band you’re working with may not be packed with highly trained musicians, but this doesn’t matter because there you are, playing, having fun and making money.

The people that come to see you and the band are appreciating you very much for being there and have that admiration that they probably have for the great big bands also. When you get in your car on Saturday night and have to drive a long way to play, not only are you probably having a great time, learning and making money, but those folks that may seem to not pay attention to you, are secretly admiring you for your craft.

I saw on the forum about a gentleman trying to form a steel guitar club in southern Oklahoma and northern Texas for you guys around Altus, Duncan, Lawton, Burkburnett and Wichita Falls will have a place to get together and enjoy camaraderie with others of similar interests. It used to be the stomping grounds for the great western swing bands of yesteryear. The Miller Brothers, The Western Starlighters, Leon Thompson, Hank Thompson, Bob Wills, Johnny Lee Wills, Leon McAuliffe and many more.

I remember driving through this area and working here in the 50s and 60s and seeing some of these great western swing bands playing at some obscure clubs and barn dances. I stopped and walked into a big barn one night only to hear incredible western swing music and looking at the stage and seeing the great Billy Gray western swing band.

You just never know what you’ll find in that area. You may think you’re little, obscure and out of the way, but you’re not. This goes for many other areas in the United States. Get out there on Saturday night and have some jam sessions if nothing else.

I am still in awe learning of so many non-pedal steel guitar players shifting over from pedal to non-pedal after having a full career of pedal playing. This tickles me because a good player in a band can pull it off to where no one in the club and probably no one in the band will know if he’s playing pedals or not and they probably won’t care.

As long as you play the right note in the right chord with enough fancy pizzazz and play nice harmonies with the lead guitar or violin section, why should it matter which of the two you’re playing? Of course, the type job you’re on may make a little difference. You wouldn’t want to hear Ralph Mooney playing with Buck Owens without pedals. However, most of the dancers wouldn’t know the difference.

The origins of the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame? It started like this folks, many of the Nashville steel players were contacted and asked to come to a meeting in a banquet room at a restaurant at the corner of Gallatin Road and Due West Avenue in Madison, Tennessee one evening in the early 70s.

This was a fairly good place to eat. I figured what the heck? Stu Basore and I drove over to the meeting. When we got there I was shocked to find some of the greatest steel players in the world. Buddy Emmons, Lloyd Green, Jimmy Day, Jim Vest, Gene O’Neal, Big Ben Keith, Howard White, Billy Robinson and many others.

Of course, we were all yelling and having such a good time that it was awhile before we got any business done. Finally, Jim Vest and Dewitt Scott called this meeting to order. It’s subject matter was to start a new International Steel Guitar Club. Things went on for awhile, we went through the typical questions of what a club should do, when we would have meetings, we even decided to have a convention once a year, preferably around Labor Day for obvious reasons.

About this time Jim Vest and Scotty made the statement that we could also have a Hall of Fame. Everybody went along with it and we elected officers, president, vice-president, treasurer, sergeant at arms along with the typical things. We all dug into our pockets and made our contribution to get this new club on the way.

Everything was going and doing well until tragedy struck. I have been told not to be too specific about what happened, however I can say that the treasurer that we elected bought a Lincoln Continental with the money that he absconded from the treasury, moved to Florida and pretty well ripped the heart out of this new steel guitar club.

Most of you know who this was and he is actually a Hall of Fame member now. He was a great player, but throughout his career he really didn’t do much good for other players in the service of their craft.

Dewitt Scott of St. Louis thought that this club and Hall of Fame idea was way too good to let die. So he appointed himself the guy that restarted it in St. Louis with most of the same members. So he ended up saying the world’s biggest steel guitar club and has done a wonderful job with the club and Hall of Fame, bringing the world of players from all countries together once a year to St. Louis for the greatest of all steel guitar shows.

Check out all the nooks and crannies on b0b’s site : b0b.com

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

¹ note: “Bobby Lee Quasar” and “Bobby Lee” are stage names used by your editor, whose real name is Robert P. Lee.

Hello fellow players,

Here’s a little story that has pretty well ripped my heart out. Just imagine me as a little kid borrowing a jazz trio record from my father 52 or 53 years ago and me playing this record every day and night. I even went through the United States Air Force without missing a day of playing this incredible jazz trio record.

I’ve mentioned it several times over the years to people, even after goggling the album, I could not find out anything about the players. I knew from the name of the album that they were Milwaukie based, but only after mentioning this in this letter to all you guys have I found out anything at all about it.

Yes, I still have it and I still play it. It was the basis for me learning tunes on my jazz album “As Time Goes By” that I recorded two years ago. So here I was sitting at my computer this morning and an email comes in with the subject line “My dad was in the MIL Combo.” The email was from Paul Milano, the fantastic bass player with this group that went on after this band disbanded to play with some of the finest jazz bands that this country has ever been witness to.

The power of this internet is astounding. Something that I have listened to and loved all my life has suddenly come to light and I’m getting the history on this little trio that I could never get before. All I can say is, Paul, thank you very much and I only hope this kind of thing happens 50, 60 or 70 years down the road with some of the recordings that I have made in the past 10 years.

I think what I’m saying to all the rest of you now is that you should collect all the CDs that you like, don’t throw them away, and learn everything you can from each and every one of them. You will treasure them forever and the good ones will become more valuable over time. Every one of them is a wealth of information. Remember, it’s the older guys that teach the younger guys. Yep. I’m old. Time to pass it on.

This great little jazz album that I got in the mid-fifties, if it were only available on iTunes back then, it would have been lost forever to me, but since I have it in something I can actually hold in my hand and carry with me through the years, I still have it, learn from it and can enjoy it the way I did when I first got it. iTunes might be a good idea for some folks, but not us musicians.

There has been quite a bit of discussion recently and some very fine compliments from several good musicians and players on the steel guitar forum concerning my composing. I sort of have a unique way of writing songs and material. I think in chords and chord progressions first. I’ll come up with a chord progression that I really like because to me, chord progressions are what really make a great song.

It’s the words that make a country song, I’m not a country songwriter. I am more a technical songwriter. I feel great songs can be much greater if they don’t have words to get in the way of the true feel and ambiance of the music.

I’m also not stuck with just major or minor chords. I prefer getting off into something much deeper and more complex because the things that I have to say musically cannot be said with only triads.

When you approach writing a song, there are thousands of great chords and progressions that you can use. The things I have I have to say are much more complex musically than what most songs are.

I love steel guitar and as a little kid growing up I learned to play all of the steel guitar songs, but found that once you learn the first one, you have basically learned them all. My Rhythmatic and my blues albums are a lot deeper than many of the songs that I have heard written in the past.

In my opinion, if you’re going to write a song, especially an instrumental, write it and say something that hasn’t been said before, something interesting and fun to play. Most of the songs I write, I have written in my head on the way to the studio the morning that I recorded them. In other words, once you get a good chord progression down, the song seems to write itself.

Jerry Fessenden of Fessenden Guitars came by last week and fixed us up with a beautiful dark blue wood grain single ten string with a pad, three pedals and four knees and I’ll have to admit the tone is the best I have heard in a long time for a new guitar. The Del Mullen guitars that I love so much, are also great but in a little different way. People that hear and play both of these brands seem to pretty well go nuts for both of them. Add in GFI and you have the gamut pretty well covered.

Many people are now using the Bobro Dobro Simulator to replace the actual Dobro. This is good because of the problems of tuning the Dobro as a separate instrument, amplifying it and having to transport a separate instrument. Having a Bobro eliminates all these problems. The tone is so good from these little units that many people run a Dobro with a pickup on it through a Bobro to get an even better sound.

Marty Stuart even plays lead guitar through a Bobro for that fretted Dobro sound of the seventies that was on so many records. With our new Bobro bar even the sustain and attack of the Dobro is accurately duplicated on a steel guitar. Just playing steel guitar by itself with one of these bars adds the Dobro quality to the steel. It might be a real good idea just to have a Bobro bar handy. These bars are only $39 and make the Bobro sound even more like the Dobro it has been purchased to simulate.

I want to congratulate Tom Bozman of Lake Placid, Florida for ordering a loaded Mullen steel guitar. I’ve got to be nice to Tom because he’ll give me a case of oranges from time to time, sans alligators I hope.

Just as I suspected, Kent Goodson, formerly with the George Jones organization for 28 years, is doing very well and back in the swing of things in Nashville. It seems like George Jones really was holding him back.

I received this very wonderful compliment and I want to share this email with you.

Hi Bobbe,

I’m sure your probably hear this all the time. I just put on my first set of cobra coils this morning and all I can say is WOW! These already are my favorite strings. They just don’t get any better and I don’t think they can, heck my pedals and levers even seem to be lighter. From this moment on as long as their produced, they’re my go to string.

Thanks again
Mosey

Yesterday, Sunday, the great steel guitarist and Hall of Famer Billy Robinson rented a beautiful club on the lake and threw an incredible birthday party for all his friends. Billy just turned 80 years old, still looks and acts 25. Billy of course, was the steel guitarist with Red Foley and George Morgan, along with having worked with many other artists on the Grand Ole Opry and the Ozark Jubilee.

Billy is still a great player and a fine artist. The feast he threw yesterday, myself and all the musicians in town will probably remember forever. Many steel guitarists showed up to honor Billy and his triumphs for a lifetime spent with steel guitar. A nicer and more intelligent person would be hard to find. Billy designed the beautiful logo and color scheme for the Sho-Bud Christmas Tree amplifier. A very good mind to have on the side of steel guitar.

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