I've been asked to play in a bluegrass/old time band to accompany some Appalachian dancers and, although I normally play dobro in another bluegrass band, I'd really like to introduce some PSG on a couple of tunes.
I've only been learning PSG a few months, but I'm confident I can play some decent steel licks on tunes like "Amanda Jewell". My concern is whether a bluegrass audience will accept the PSG as a legitimate contribution to bluegrass because it is an electric instrument.
Has anyone played steel on bluegrass tunes? If so, how was it received by the audience?
British bluegrass fans tend to be quite snooty and purist in their tastes and I don't want to experience a "Bob Dylan Newport moment"
I played for several years with Wild Oats in SoCal, the great Steve Spurgin on vocals (later to be with Sundance and California with Byron Berline, Dan Crary, and John Hickman) and Duncan Cameron on guitar. We we're exactly traditional bluegrass, but did a whole lot of BG tunes as we had banjo and mandolin.
So, it's not that pedal steel doesn't work with bluegrass, it just that it makes it different, if not better.
So get your grass on and play it like you mean it!
When Dierks Bentley came out with his "Up On The Ridge" record, Tim Sergent played steel on the tour for the record. Dierks had Del McCoury's band as a backup band, along with Tim Sergent on dobro and steel. The live shows had a lot of steel, because Dierks would play his country hits in bluegrass style, and Tim Sergent added the steel with his Jackson Pro IV.
Check out Doug Jernigan and Hal Rugg's work with J. D. Crowe and The New South. Also JayDee Maness with Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen on the "Way Out West" and "Desert Rose" CDs as well as Herb's "Lonesome Feeling" CD.
QUOTE: "Has anyone played steel on bluegrass tunes? If so, how was it received by the audience?"
I've done that when the blue grass band asked me to sit-in with them, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. The audience of non-players can enjoy a generic musical event without the prejudice or bias suffered by some musicians.
Chris Tweed wrote:...British bluegrass fans tend to be quite snooty and purist in their tastes and I don't want to experience a "Bob Dylan Newport moment"
It would be like taking an electric guitar along to a folk club.
Bluegrass is an all-acoustic form of music, and they don't even like percussion.
That's quite a commute you have there, from Cardiff to Ballymoney.
paul f. (nervous breakdown was 'beyond' bluegrass)...
having said that, bluegrass is unamplified acoustic bass, guitar, banjo, fiddle, dobro, mandolin...
any variation, especially with amplified instruments is a bastardization of the pure form...
and though not always true to the pure form, alison krauss et al is heavenly music.
How many Bluegrassers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Eight.
One to change it and seven to whine and moan because it's electric.
The Osborne Brothers, who obviously had a pile of stature and legitimacy, took a lot of flack from the bluegrass mainstream when they incorporated drums and a steel. Most of the other examples cited got the same reaction I heard from a guy at a festival in Ohio. After what I thought was an outstanding set by the New Coon Creek Girls, he opined that "it ain't bluegrass and it ain't purty!"
If the band you're playing with are not traditionalists and are fine with the huge pile of equipment and setup time for PSG and want the sound then do it!
My well known regional band was asked to eliminate the non-bluegrass content from our show if we were hired by a traditional bluegrass club. We declined the gig. My goal is to not misrepresent my musical style, but to play what I want to play, and face the consequences when they arise. I suppose that when a quartet consists of guitar, dobro, five string banjo, and electric bass, there are expectations that cannot always be accommodated.
Plug in and toke up a bluegrass band and add steel?
New Riders!
At their heart an electric bluegrass band with steel instead of banjo. "She's no Angel", "Ashes of Love", "Little Old Lady", "Glendale Train", an on and on. David Nelson was in all of Garcia's early bluegrass bands when Garcia played banjo. Listen to Cage and you'll hear banjo licks aplenty.
Go for it! Shake 'em up!
JB
2 Fulawka D-10's 9&5
Sho-Bud Pro 2 8&5
"All in all, looking back, I'd have to say the best advice anyone ever gave me was 'Hands Up, Don't Move!"
"Your FIRST mistake was listening to your wife instead of your steel instructor." (H.Steiner)
In the jazz world there's the term "moldy fig", which describes the type of jazz nerd that hasn't quite come to terms with the fact that there is improvised music that doesn't involve a banjo and a tuba. I leave it to someone else to decide what moldy fruit represents the bluegrass purists with the same sort of mindset.
In the jazz world there's the term "moldy fig", which describes the type of jazz nerd that hasn't quite come to terms with the fact that there is improvised music that doesn't involve a banjo and a tuba. I leave it to someone else to decide what moldy fruit represents the bluegrass purists with the same sort of mindset.
I currently play with a band that mixes quite a bit of old-time music (including frailing banjo and a National Tenor guitar) with old classic country music going back to the Carter Family, Delmore Brothers, Jimmie Rodgers, some early bluegrassers, and early honkytonk country up to about Webbb Pierce, Carl Smith, and a bit of early Bakersfield.
This is not 'purist' old-time or bluegrass at all. I play steel, some electric and acoustic guitar, and maybe some 5-string, the banjo player occasionally dons a Tele. But the electric parts are largely textural - there is no question about the acoustic roots of this band - so we don't really get much flack from acoustic nazis. In fact, I know some pretty hardcore bluegrassers that really like pedal steel - OK, not in a hardcore bluegrass band, but in a mixed context. Upright bass, minimalist drums (mostly snare/hat) sometimes, and we get good crowds. It's fun music.
I don't consider this 'bastardizing' anything at all. It's not 1935 or 1955. We occasionally play with zydeco and cajun musicians, it's all a big melting pot, as is most American music. YMMV.
Chris, you might get by with using a Pedal Steel on that venue if you don't plug your steel into an Amplifier, and just use one of the many PA Mic channels that most every Blue Grass Band I have ever seen has at their disposal on stage....so that they can be heard in the back of the arena or room. You would be considered accoustical then wouldn't you?
Last year at the IBMA's (International Bluegrass Music Assn.) annual big doings in Nashville, David Peterson did a showcase right in the middle of the IBMA's doings. He added Paul Franklin on steel. Boy, it was amazing all the teeth gnashing, griping and cussing that went on on the Bluegrass-L and other bluegrass sites. I knew most of the gripers. The night of the showcase, guess who was sitting right up front? You got it.....the gripers. Paul Franklin and David were given a true standing ovation after the showcase. The gripers continued to gripe after the showcase but they sure enjoyed Paul on the pedal steel guitar. You talk about tunnel vision.
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I played steel and dobro in a bluegrass band for several years. The crowd loved it. However, my fellow band members always wanted to push more traditional bluegrass. It didn't seem to matter what the crowd liked. As a steel player you will be the one that will get tired of it first. With steel you will want to bend the harmony and put in alternate chords. With the band I was in, the perfect bluegrass song had no more then three chords and they were all major. A 7th was living on the edge and a minor was over the top. If I talked about anything beyond that they looked at me like I was speaking a foriegn language.
