A stand up pedal steel

Pat Dawson · Post by **Pat Dawson** » 31 Dec 2007 8:04 am

I saw an interesting steel guitar on a Opry video of Porter Wagoner from the mid-60's. It was a Sho-Bud with 8 strings and 2 pedals. The player stood to play it. Familiar with that one? I wonder who the player was? He sang harmony too. That steel guitar sounded really great.

Michael Douchette · Post by **Michael Douchette** » 31 Dec 2007 8:07 am

That was Don Warden, who now is Dolly's manager.

Chris LeDrew · Post by **Chris LeDrew** » 31 Dec 2007 9:22 am

Did Don play on Porter's original recording of The Carrol County Accident? There was a very nice Fender steel sound on Porter's songs of this period, and I always wondered who was playing.

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 31 Dec 2007 10:17 am

Chris, a lot of things on Porter's old records that sounded like Fender steel was actually Buck Trent playing an electric 5 string b@njo with benders on it.........JH in Va.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 31 Dec 2007 12:10 pm

If you stand up to play pedal steel, how do you use the volume pedal with your right foot without falling over ?

Ernie Pollock · Post by **Ernie Pollock** » 31 Dec 2007 1:23 pm

Remember, Jeff Newman said Mooney had an extra foot, so he could work the vol pedal & stand up & play, I am surprised he never has, he just don't want us to know about that extra foot, you have to have great eyes to catch him using it!!

Ernie

D Schubert · Post by **D Schubert** » 31 Dec 2007 2:38 pm

Does anybody out there know how his guitar was set up?

Bent Romnes · Post by **Bent Romnes** » 31 Dec 2007 2:56 pm

Chris, that particular song you are talking about did have the electric banjo w/benders on it. Man, I used to dig that sound... Buck was quite the musician...

Once I saw him play steel..on Hee Haw I think it was. He did a killer version of My Shoes keep walking back to You.

Can anyone elaborate on his proficiency on steel? It would be great to know...

Chris LeDrew · Post by **Chris LeDrew** » 31 Dec 2007 2:58 pm

Thanks for the tip about the banjo, guys! You learn something new every day.

Jamie Danter · Post by **Jamie Danter** » 31 Dec 2007 3:13 pm

Good info on the Unofficial Sho-Bud page

Buddy's 1957 tuning:

E, B, G#, F#, D, B, G#, E,

but no mention of Don's tuning.

jamie

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 31 Dec 2007 4:56 pm

if you're not careful, banjos will soon be taking all the steel jobs!

Garry Vanderlinde · Post by **Garry Vanderlinde** » 31 Dec 2007 4:57 pm

Check it out to the right of the Melobar. White Sho-Bud, White platform shoes and White curly-cord... 28)
Man...I bet that knee(?)lever was a hard one to hit!

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Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 31 Dec 2007 5:08 pm

Just a bit of trivia...

The "stand-up" Sho~Bud that Don Warden played was the very first one that was built!

And yes, Buck Trent fooled a lot of steel players into believing his banjo stuff was done on a steel. "Let's Go All The Way", by Norma Jean, was a prime example.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 31 Dec 2007 5:20 pm

looks alot like rusty young..

Dan Meadows · Post by **Dan Meadows** » 31 Dec 2007 9:57 pm

I loved Don Wardens style especially on the show. All you had to do was listen for that first lick and you knew it was Don Warden. An incredible and unique style.
It seemed Don could milk that steel for every mouth watering lick possible. I miss hearing that particular
pedal steel sound on mainstream radio.

Dan

Chuck Thompson · Post by **Chuck Thompson** » 1 Jan 2008 8:08 am

the curly chords are making a come back - how long before those white shoes and those pants like timothy b schmidt is wearing come back and haunt us too?

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 1 Jan 2008 12:30 pm

Hmm. I guess you could hook up a couple of hip-levers on a stand up pedal-steel.

Craig A Davidson · Post by **Craig A Davidson** » 3 Jan 2008 7:05 am

As far a stand-up pedal players,go, Bob White and Pee-Wee Whitewing played standing up also with their Bigsbys.

Pat Dawson · Post by **Pat Dawson** » 3 Jan 2008 8:06 am

The song that I saw this steel on was called "A Satisfied Mind". The film clip was from 1967 and Porter said it was "one of the old ones" refering to the tune.

Craig A Davidson · Post by **Craig A Davidson** » 3 Jan 2008 8:11 am

That was one of Porter's first hits.

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 3 Jan 2008 11:53 am

Around the late 90's, I had Sierra make me long legs and rods for my Sierra S12U, and attempted to do a stand up steel thing with a rock-a-billy band.
I had lever extensions made for LKL/RKR (my E>F & E>Eb's).
It was pretty much un-do-able.
At that height, just playing the thing made it sway back and forth from left to right (i would have needed some kind of stabalizer legs I guess).
You could either play pedals, or use the volume pedal, but not both at the same time.
It looked cool, though!... as does Rusty's rig.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 3 Jan 2008 2:13 pm

looks cool? even if it worked, i wouldn't be caught dying of embarrassment behind it....i think it looks ridiculous. course, that's just my opinion.....like tim's pants, they didn't hurt his career!

Kyle Everson · Post by **Kyle Everson** » 3 Jan 2008 8:08 pm

Here is Junior Brown's stand-up steel, from Duane Marrs' website.

Paul Redmond · Post by **Paul Redmond** » 3 Jan 2008 10:27 pm

Price Porter from Marble Falls TX uses a stand-up MSA E9/B6 Uni with 7 pedals and 2 wrist levers. The guitar was originally converted by Tom Bradshaw and a cameo pic of it appears on the cover of Tom's catalog from eons ago. I re-did the guitar for him in 1995 making a small 'second' pedal rack that relocated the pedals rearward without disturbing anything else. There are short connector rods going to cranks that then pull the pedal rods. Price also plays lead and sings, so he wanted something that he could use while doing just that/those things, then jump on steel and still have pedal changes without having to suddenly sit down. As far as I know, he still drags it out to a gig here and there, now and then. Last time I worked on it was about 3 years ago. I re-made/re-mounted the wrist lever mechanisms to make them more user-friendly including replacing the levers themselves. I found that after about a half hour of messing with it, I could actually play it!!
PRR

Garry Vanderlinde · Post by **Garry Vanderlinde** » 3 Jan 2008 11:34 pm

Well we have the D,E,F,G and X knee levers already. It looks like Jr. Brown's could be called the "P" lever

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