Pedal Steel Music

Hello fans and fellow players,

Every once in awhile I’ll be watching television when somebody will mention a name to me about an old friend that I haven’t seen or heard from in awhile. A name that is haunting me as of recently is that of a great guitar player named Roy Buchanan.

I think I’ve mentioned him several years ago in my tips newsletter but think he is worth mentioning again. Just meeting Roy was a funny situation. I was odd-jobbing around the Washington DC area and got hired for a one-nighter by a local act and as we were setting up that afternoon to do a matinee, an interesting looking hippie very quietly comes into the front of the club, watches us for awhile, then gets invited up to play by the bandleader who I barely knew.

To myself I’m thinking, “Oh no. What’s he doing inviting this raggy looking hippie on the stage?”

This weirdo hippie goes out to his Volkswagen van which he lived in, gets his guitar with no case along with his extremely raggy looking 4-10 Fender Bassman amplifier.

We continue the show for awhile, then our illustrious leader introduces the guitar player to the audience and asks him to do an instrumental. I looked at him thinking he was going to do a great, fast little show off tune like Arkansas Traveler or Little Rock Getaway. But no, he says “I’d like to do By The Time I Get To Phoenix”

I figured to myself, “What a square tune to play for an instrumental.”

We counted off slowly, he plays the melody the first time through, I take first through the four chords on the C6th neck, then this sit-in player plays it gargantuously beautiful in three to five note chords as wonderfully incredible as I had ever heard it done.

I was completely blown away. The front man introduced him as Roy Buchanan. He was a friend and fan from that moment on. I helped him load his equipment back up after the gig, no case for his guitar, no cover for his amp, just a ragged tee-shirt for his body, but he was obviously buzzing with talent from everywhere.

As nice a person as I had ever met. I had never heard anybody stretch four strings on a lead guitar from one chord to another without being out of tune. Soon after I moved to Nashville and found that there were very few people in my new home town of Music City that did not know the great Roy Buchanan.

It wasn’t long after this until I heard that Roy had died in the DC area and upon hearing the circumstances of his death, I was horribly depressed. I’ll give you this link to Wikipedia, however I just wanted to give you some personal insight to this wonderful character and how much everybody loved him in the DC area.

I would like to say that he was a great pedal steel guitar player and loved C6th styles on steel. To me he sounded like a steel player that would have been a great fan of Chalker, Anderson or the great Eric West from the same home town, Washington DC.

Here is the link: Roy Buchanan

We just had a visit from Jerry Fessenden, Sharon Denney and a nice email from Roger Crawford concerning the steel guitar show in New York, better known as the 38th Annual PSGA Steel Guitar Show. It showed a band in the back of the publication they send out with more nicks in it than Don Helms had in his Gibson double neck.

Our little industry is very lucky to have a great club with a pedal steel newsletter of the quality this club has.

I’d also like to thank another pusher of steel guitar that we should all thank for his efforts in our direction. His name is Bobby Lee Quasar and he runs the Steel Guitar Forum. I must say that I am very impressed with the way personalities have mellowed out over the past twelve years because of the internet.

The fighting and arguing that used to go on, on a constant basis is now all but completely over. The older the members of the forum get, the better friends they seem to turn into. I’m proud to say I’m as guilty as anyone myself. There are some awfully wonderful people in this society of steel guitarists. The more we’re in touch, the nicer we all seem to be.

It seems like the leaders of the free world or the leaders of the rest of this planet could learn something from the world of steel guitar. How about that?

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,

Here is a question I got from Bill in Oregon.

Hi Bobbe
I really enjoy your newsletter and I was wondering if you ever had the chance to work with Jimmy Bryant or have any good stories that you could share about him and Speedy West.
Thanks,
Bill
Hermiston, OR

I have many stories of Jimmy Bryant, a lot of them not so good, however I definitely enjoyed working with him in Vegas in the beginning of the seventies. He was a great player and definitely played a lot of fast things very well. His personality could be a little far out there when he drank and he loved to drink.

I remember a beautiful girl coming up to him at the bandstand one night. He looked at her and said, “You are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”

Blushingly she looked at him and replied, “I am a grandmother you know.”

He looked at her and said, “I bet you’re a great grandmother.”

Then looking at me he said, “Doesn’t she look like the greatest grandmother you ever saw?”

I know the girl couldn’t have been over thirty-five, but Jimmy wouldn’t let the point get by. Watching how he dealt with her and related to other people was pretty funny at times.

He came to Nashville to work in the studios but died while waiting for his first session. I don’t know if it would have worked out for him or not but what he and Speedy West did for the business was pretty wonderful.

Here is an email I got from Billy Woo.

Hi Bobbe

I was wondering where and when to lubricate my steels, I just bought an Emmons Le Grande II from Larry Petree (Bakersfield, CA) and Larry did mention to use a product called Tri-Flow, also it might be beneficial to remind Steelers to lube as a lot of us forget that we are playing a mechanical instrument also I have a U-12 Zumsteel?

Thanks and as always appreciate your newsletter, Jeremy Lin is great, hey I’m part Asian too, last name is Woo

Billy Woo aka
Bronco Billy

I’m still getting a lot of people asking me about lubrication of a steel guitar. Just remember, never use WD-40 anywhere with the exception of the hinges on your case. Several people recommend Tri-Flow. Just make sure whatever you use has an anti-rust additive and is thick enough that it won’t run all over the guitar and drip on the floor and in the case.

Many people still use 3-in-1 oil and will still rave about its ability. I know it does have an anti-rust additive and when you put it on your guitar, just wipe off any extra so it won’t get all over anything.

I’d like to say that I know several steel players in West Liberty, Kentucky and after seeing your town flattened by the tornadoes on television, I send out my condolences and wish I was able to be there and help. I have a lot of friends in that area and it is as beautiful a part of the United States as there is. Such a shame Mother Nature has to be so destructive at times.

Another thing I want to mention is the Pedal Steel Guitar Association in the northeast under the direction of Bob Maickel. He puts out one of the very greatest newsletters with the greatest pictures on a monthly basis that I have ever seen. These boys in this club work very hard to bring their members the best news and fun that they can for just the price of being a club member. If you are not a member of this club, you should be no matter where you live in the United States. You can find them at www.psga.org

It seems that many of you are getting ready for a good summer playing season by stocking up on expendables such as cords, bars, picks, strings or anything you think you may need because it looks like it will be a good steel guitar season. Being over prepared for anything that could go wrong is always a good idea.

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,

Here is an email I got from Arkansas Red.

Bobbe-
Just finished listening to the As Time Goes By CD. May not get to the other one. Why? This one blew my hat in the creek. I’ve got to play it again and again and again. Not only are the arrangements fine, and the playing super on all instruments, but the tones you get from your ax and Andy’s tone from the Farlow and Fender Deluxe amp. I’m a guitar player, so I’m a tad prejudiced. What a great combination. Man, I’ve got to get to Nashville and jam with you guys. You play the kind of music I wish they played around here. I know of one guy who is “hip” to this music, but he rarely gets to play because he’s usually running sound and lights for different groups. I play this kind of music in a little jazz group, but the bass player is a converted guitar player and won’t listen to people like Ray Brown and Milt Hinton to get the feel of the music. The drummer wants every song to be “Stan Kenton/Buddy Rich big band”. Have you ever heard the song Cry Me A River played as if it were Caravan? “Subtle” is not a type of music that these people understand. But we get by, and the people seem to like us. If I wasn’t so old, so rooted here in the mountains, I’d move to Nashville just so I could play with guys like you and the Time Jumpers. That’s music. And I was surprised there weren’t any special effects, and if you play somewhere does your stage explode with pyrotechnics and you have a bunch of half “necked” girls parading around to distract the audience from your “no talent”? Gee, I wish you lived closer. The music we’ve got around here is the Red Dirt-Oklahoma trash music, Taylor Swift, and the “wonderful” songwriters who wouldn’t think of ever doing a cover song. They want to do their original material. Songs with intro’s like, “This is a song I wrote when my pet gerbil saw his first rainbow, and I realized I could feed the world’s children and have world peace”. Then they proceed to play an out of tune guitar and sing lyrics that would make an English college professor wonder what the heck they were singing about. And the sad part about it is, they have a following of people who go around saying, “They are truly awesome”. What a pile of poo. When someone comes up to me and says, “You are such an “awesome” guitar player, I thank them, and ask them if they’ve ever listened to Chet Atkins, Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, or even Jerry Reed (forget mentioning guitar great Hank Garland, they’re still trying to figure out who Chet is.). They give you this “deer in the headlights” look, and I say, “Now there’s some awesome guitar players. Give them a listen”. They usually walk off with their head spinning wondering what “heavy metal” group these guys play with. Can you name me five heavy metal songs or heavy metal groups from ten years ago that are still popular? I doubt it. Can you name me twenty standards of sixty years ago, played and sang by Ellington, Brubeck, Goodman, Holiday, Sinatra, Bennett, Miller, etc.? I’ll bet you can do it in one breath. Why? Because it was music not a bunch of noise with wah wah pedals, and screaming distortion. Effects have their place in the music business I guess, but in a hundred years people will still be playing the songs like you’ve put on this CD. Songs with understandable words, songs with meanings. Songs with melody you can sing along to and pat your feet to the rhythm. Joe Pass said it very well when he talked about playing jazz guitar. He said, “Play the melody first, then go in to your harmonies and improv”. He’s right. Identify your tune right of the bat, and you’ll have your listener hooked. Start out playing a bunch of riffs and improv notes and you’ve lost the ballgame. The old KISS method works everytime.

Red

What can I say Red? You’ve done something I can’t remember anybody else ever doing before. You’ve left me speechless.

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