Pedal Steel Music

Hello fellow players,

Well here we go. Another year, a brand new one ahead of it and a worn out one behind it. Let me start off by apologizing about my statement concerning there being a rumor that Red Rhodes was involved in Mesa Boogie in the beginning.

The early Fender amplifiers were a very straight ahead standard design which was used by many companies. It was very easy to use, build and modify. As a matter of fact, I’ve done several myself so I just assumed that what I had heard was true, but Randy Smith should be getting all the credit it seems.

I do know for sure that the Standel amplifiers were of a totally different design and used horizontal stabilizer tubes from the television sets of the day for amplification. There seems to be many ways to skin a cat, referring to Caterpillar tractors of course.

My appreciation for all of you players and especially Steve Hinson knows no bounds. I am very aware that we have some very brilliant guitar amplifier builders on my newsletter list. This impresses me very much. I just wish all of you lived here in Hendersonville.

As far as brand new steel guitar companies coming or going, the only news that I have is that Jackson is planning to do some major expansion and may possibly come out with the long rumored cable steel guitar which I certainly hope is true since cables are very quiet, very strong and inexpensive to build and I know they do their job perfectly as long as it is a well designed system. The day of the rattlely old rods may be over.

I remember as a little kid my father pulling our Cessna 140 up into a stall and hearing the cable rattling and banging against the fuselage and the airplane started buffeting just before it broke into the nose down attitude, but no matter what happened, the cables always worked perfectly.

I love the rod system on the Bigsby and Domeland, however the way they were put together on the Fenders left a lot to be desired. I can hardly wait to see what David Jackson is doing for us on his new guitars.

Looking forward to hearing from you all this coming year and I sure hope you don’t mind hearing from me. I love you all and let’s make this a really good year coming. I’m wishing you all a very great 2012 and I hope it doesn’t end as badly as some of the great philosophers are anticipating.

See our monthly specials at … www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html.

The friend to all bar holders,
Bobbe Seymour
www.steelguitar.net
sales@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
Closed Saturday and Sunday

Hello fans and fellow players,

I’m pretty shocked at the amount of comments I received concerning the great Red Rhodes, left coast steel guitarist. I didn’t realize he had so many dear friends. He was obviously a wonderful talent that everybody loved. I only wish our coasts were closer together so I could see more of the great talents and things that steel players are doing there.

I’ve threatened to move to Vegas a few times until I heard that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I sure didn’t want that happening to my playing. However, I will have to say that I spent many weeks there in the early seventies and really had a good time and made a few dollars.

I had to buy a car just to get around because everything at that time was pretty sprawled out. I remember driving that Cadillac back to Nashville and selling it for a small fortune, but unfortunately I had paid a big fortune for it.

The west coast sure isn’t a very good place to buy a steel guitar. But I feel sure there must be some deals somewhere. We’re finding several of the guitars we have all loved for years are drying up and are not as readily available as they once were. Rather than raise prices on some of these, we have just spent much more time looking for the great classics.

But like the lead guitar players, we are losing some of our great playing guitars to guys that just collect. Good things that are happening are the quality of the top brand guitars seems to have gotten better and better.

The Mullen guitars have gotten pretty astounding. They play extremely easy. After tearing owe down for inspection last week, we found that it had absolutely no wear in the changer mechanism. We will be stocking these great guitars as often as we can get them. This goes for any other high quality guitar that is available today.

It looks like the loss that we have had by losing Charlie Stepp will be felt more painfully than I ever thought possible. We’ve had several good used guitars in the store recently and are realizing that with very little modification, they are about as fine a steel guitar as money can buy.

The Fessenden guitar is nothing for a superior player to overlook as it’s tone quality is extremely good. As we always have, we will continue to stock the best guitars being built today for players worldwide.

I’m sure many of you are playing an extra job or playing because of New Year’s Eve. Some of the craziest jobs in my life were on New Year’s Eve. Often it seems like the outlying areas away from Nashville pay much better than they do in the big city.

I remember bandleaders renting a hall or a place like the skating rink in their little town and hiring musicians to work for the door. We’d always end up making $300-500 for the evening. It seemed like a good way to do it. The patrons would bring their own bottles and have all the fun they could swallow.

When in Nashville, if you’re already working for a club, they pay nothing extra over the regular salary which you’d be getting anyway. I also remember the road paying the same. The booking agencies would book the stars, the stars would pay us their standard fee and we’d end up with only memories of the good old days when the whole band played for the door and we could split it.

In this day and time, the Musician’s Union won’t even let us play for the door. If you don’t have a contract on the job, you’re not allowed to play it. If you play for the door, they don’t know what commission to charge you for doing it.

Anyway, Happy New Year and no matter where you’re playing, I wish you the best.

Check out our monthly specials at www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html and we’ll try to save you a lot of money.

The friend of all bar holders,
Bobbe Seymour
www.steelguitar.net
sales@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
Closed Saturday and Sunday

Hello fellow players,

Going along with my last newsletter there are a lot of different reasons for people to play steel guitar also, just there are many different styles and ways to play steel guitar. We all have our favorite styles. Probably the most common is slow and beautiful country E9th.

Playing steel guitar is something that many of us do to derive pleasure from this fabulous instrument. This is why I myself at Steel Guitar Nashville sell so many different learning aids, like tracks, CDs, instructional videos and tab books. This is what makes steel guitar what it is to many folks.

I learned to play by listening to many other players as about all of us have to do in order to stay on the right path. No sense in learning something on our own that no one else will enjoy.

In talking to the greatest professionals in Nashville every week or so I realize that they also study each other very closely. So if they are studying each other, why don’t we all study them to stay on course and keep the style where the majority of listeners are going to get what they expect.

A stylist from the West Coast that I remember being knocked out by is the great Red Rhodes. My first experience with hearing the great Red Rhodes play was on the smash hit tune called Games People Play in the late sixties.

This guy had a very similar tone and execution to the great Ralph Mooney. Red, Ralph, Sneaky Pete, Jay McDonald and Fuzzy Owens along with a few others created what is very well known now as the West Coast style.

Red also had a great sense of humor which was displayed in my first meeting with him. I was playing with the Opry artist Claude Gray and we were booked into Disneyland in Orange County. I was asleep on the bus when we pulled in, but I started waking up when I felt the bus gosling into the parking space.

I heard an unfamiliar voice from outside the bus yell inside, “Hey, ya’ll have a steel player on the bus?”

Claude Gray was driving a 4104 GM coach himself and answered, “Yeah we have one. Just a second and I’ll send him out.”

By the time Claude got back to the bunk to send me out I was already dressed and on my way down the aisle. I walked off the bus and said, “Who’s looking for the steel player?”

A guy walks up and sticks his hands out and I’m looking at him and he says, “Who are you?”

I said “I’m Bobbe Seymour. Who are you?”

He said, “I’m Red Rhodes.”

I then exclaimed, “Well I’ve certainly heard of you and I’m looking forward to talking with you.”

He asked me, “What kind of steel guitar are you playing.”

I answered him by saying, “A Mickey Mouse Emmons.”

He said with a grin, “Oh no. Don’t say that. We’re not allowed to say things like that here in Disneyland.”

That was my first encounter with his great sense of humor. It wasn’t long until we were good friends. I never did realize how renowned he was a steel player until I read his discography. This guy had recorded with everybody and was extremely successful as an L.A. steel guitarist. Anything I’ve ever heard him play on has set a standard of great taste.

Check out his discography by searching for him on google. You’ll find a ton of links.

Red is also known for his work in guitar electronics. I know when I saw him play at Disneyland he was playing through a Fender Deluxe Reverb that he had hot-rodded to put out nearly a hundred watts.

Rumor has it that he started building a custom amplifier that it seems like everybody in L.A. was getting in line to buy. It was called Mesa Boogie. His knack for modifying Fenders also earned him much notoriety.

His personality was what really stuck with me.

I’m hoping everybody had a wonderful Christmas and you’re looking forward to a fabulous New Year.

See our monthly specials at … www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html.

The friend to all bar holders,
Bobbe Seymour
www.steelguitar.net
sales@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
Closed Saturday and Sunday