Why did you want to play pedal steel guitar?

[Chris Sattler]

I lived in a place in the late 70's where there was no TV, newspapers and one radio station which was obsessed with the prices of pork and lamb in a place far away called Dubbo.

So I listened to Slim Dusty and Charlie pride and a few others on the record player. I picked guitar but couldn't figure out how all those licks were being done. Someone told me stop wasting my time because it's not even a guitar but a pedal steel.

I took myself along to the steel show in Tamworth about 1978 to check them out. Watched in awe as Kenny and Norm played. I couldn't get one quick enough. In fact the sole purpose of my moving out of Hayseedville and back to the big smoke was to pursue this instrument.

Got a 3x1 shobud instead of a life.

[John Billings]

"Why did you want to play pedal steel guitar?"

Simple answer? I heard Lloyd Green!

[Lynn Fargo]

So I listened to Slim Dusty and Charlie pride and a few others on the record player.

Got a 3x1 shobud instead of a life.

So it's true what Joe Wright said about Australia and Charlie Pride. Cool!

Hi Chris, I pretty much gave up playing music to play at the game of life for the last 25 years. Should've stuck with my Bud . You go for it! Enjoy and be happy!

[Lathan Mills]

I played 6 string Fender Jazzmaster, I put a lever on it pulling 2 strings, I still have it in the guitar case. It didn`t work all that well. Because I loved the steel sound I got a Fender 400, Nightmare to say the least. Moved up to a Sho-bud S-10 3 and 1. Then in 1970 I got the D-10 Sho-Bud and am still playing it 3 nights a week and loving it. I just bought a S-10 6139 Sho-Bud 3 and 1. I have 3 knee levers ordered now from James Morehead. Can`t wait to get it going. I don`t have to carry my gear back and forth to the job. This a big plus for us older guy`s.

[David Hartley]

I am giving this a bump to see if it will encourage a few more replys..

[Alan Rudd]

Always loved the sound of steel on the records back when Country WAS cool. Grew up on the good, old country music. Never had the money to get one until a few years back. Listened to Dickey Overby on the Milsap Live album. Spend my first few months in Nashville with a guy by the name of Mike Smith at Gatlin Bros. Music listening to him play on a CD we were coproducing at the time with the late and great Randy Hauser, drummer for Chet Atkins. All these things and more made me want to play the PSG...

[Gregg Laiben]

I grew up in late 60's and early 70's listening to real country, Outlaw and country rock era. Buck Owens and Waylon were favorites, so between Tom Brumley and Ralph Mooney, it didn't get much better than that. Although, I did wear out a tape of Doug Sahm's Texas Rock for Country Rollers.

I never picked up a steel guitar until a couple of years ago, when it dawned on me that I had the money and the time and _could_ learn the PSG. So, I found a steel in 2009 along with a great teacher here in KC (thanks Russ Wever) and have been practicing ever since!

[Bobby D. Jones]

I grew up in a music family. They played bluegrass and some country. They did not have a base player. They wanted me to play rythum guitar so they could play fiddle, banjo, mandolin and harmonicas. They would not show me anything about any of the insturments just wanted me to play rythum. After I returned from the Army I met a steel player in a local band one night and that was it. I built a steel with 3 pedals and learned some on it. A divorce, promotion and transfer at work and I wanted to try it again. I bought a MSA S 10 and that is the rest of the story. Have a D 10 MSA under the bed just for emergencies.

[Alan Rudd]

Emergency! Emergency! Come on, Bobby! Get that think out from under that bed! Time is precious.

[Gene Jones]

deleted

[Michael Schuppe]

If I had to narrow it down to a single song or player, I'd probably have to say Bruce Bouton's playing on "Neon Blue" by the Mavericks inspired me to want to be able to do something like that.

[Andy Keen]

Ralph Mooney - The bottle let me down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sT5K4BHBs

[Mickey Adams]

I wanted to play with EVERY band in every town...When you try and sit in, and you say "i play guitar"...you might as well sit down and drink ...LOL...
But if your answer is "I PLAY STEEL"....Well now....."we needs a steel picker" ...And id say....aaaaight!......
That was back when the steel was king....and in my book it always will be...

[Johnny Thomasson]

I was just wondering, ?

What were your reasons for wanting to learn to play a PSG?

I think you know mine...

Why, the BIG MONEY, of course!!!

[James Mudge]

The sound of the steel got me hooked back in the 1970's. Bobby Black, Buddy Cage & John David Call. I couldn't afford a steel back then so I had to play Air Steel along with my records. So now I have a Sho-Bud and I am proceeding with my journey of learning to play a real pedal steel.

[Daniel Morris]

The sound of the steel got me hooked back in the 1970's. Bobby Black, Buddy Cage & John David Call.

Yup, exactly. Around '70, I heard some instrument in country songs on the radio, and when I learned it was a pedal steel, I decided I HAD to learn it. I didn't know you don't just call a music store in the Cleveland area and ask for a pedal steel teacher. Found a Hawaiian lap steel teacher, who I still acknowledge for teaching me how to "hear", but eventually moved to pedal steel and just marinated in "hippie country", with steel guitarists like Cage (New Riders), Call (Pure Prairie League), Black (Commander Cody), Rusty Young (Poco), Red Rhodes (Michael Nesmith), and Sneaky Pete (Flying Burrito Bros.). Later I heard (early) Chas Smith, and realized a whole new world of possibilities was available on this fabulous instrument.

[Lane Gray]

First time I saw one, I HATED it. My dad took me along to a gig that I *think* was Buzz Busby. Some joint in the Va. side suburbs of DC with a bowling alley and bar (I was about 3). I clearly remember the Sunburst Fender and that harsh electric sound completely unlike the acoustic bluegrass dad usually played.
Several years later, dad's in a band (two, actually) with Dobro guy Mike Auldridge. I fell in love with the hubcap guitar. I got one and Mike started teaching me to play it. Then the Scene comes out with Act 4, with Mike at his Sho-Bud on Hank Thompson's "Girl in the Night" and a gorgeous intro to "Life's Railway to Heaven." At the same time, Mike, Pete Kennedy, dad and half of Country Current had a western swing band and I got to hear them (dad taught us kids to drive by pressing us into chauffeuring him to gigs). I told Mike "I gotta get one of those!" And he talked some of his former students into lending me guitars to learn on while looking for a good deal on a guitar for me.
No looking back. These things are cool.
Sadly, to the extent they're chick magnets, it appears the chicks have the same polarity.

[Jerry Meek]

I started playing guitar while in High school. I always liked country and liked Buck Owens and Ralph Mooneys steel playing.That got me interested in steel and then I heard Lloyd Green on some instrumentals on the radio. I got a Fender 400 then a D10 SHO BUD crossover then a ZB customD10 then A D10 SHO BUD permanent and finall a 1973 SHO BUD PRO II that belonged to Tommy White and I sill have it love the Bud looks and tone. Have paid for all my toys many times over and had lots of fun playing gigs over the years and still learn something once in awhile. I haven't played out for over 3 years since my wife got Lukemia but still play some with tracks[if I had only had them way back then] in my music room. It is good for relaxin as Hal would say have a lot of good memories. David's Utubes have given me new inspiration you could mistake for Lloyd.

[Glenn Uhler]

When I was young, my parents went to see most of the country acts that played in eastern PA. I enjoyed the music, but was most interested in the steel players (like almost everyone else here). Eddie Alkire taught Eharp not far from where I lived, so I got to take lessons there. After several years of lessons, I realized I couldn't do the pedal steel bends, so I quit lessons. By that time, six-string was all the rage because of the British groups (Thanks, David.) I switched over to six-string because then, you could get all the girls. Bought a new Marlen just before I got married and played it for a few years. Since my wife says I can't get any more girls, I've gone back to playing pedal steel.

[Sam White]

Hi David I have been watching you on U Tube and you amaze me and lots of other people.I do not play a Rain's but my good friend Ray walker does. I just bought a Steel Guitar that Ray Walker and Jack Palmer built and it is a amazing Steel Guitar. Go on Steel Players and you will see it.
OK why I want to play Steel Guitar is ever since I was 8 years old I have always loved and wanted to play Steel Guitar.I'm now 75 years old as of last Sunday. I have been trying to play Steel Guitar since 1998 and I'm not there yet.I love the Steel Guitar so much that I Started #1 Rhode Island Steel Guitar Association #2 The New England Steel Guitar Association #3 The Greeneville Tennessee Steel Guitar Jam #4 I Started the Clayton North Carolina Steel Guitar Jams. WE have had two and #3 is coming up March 24TH 2012. I might try to run another before March.I go to the MASGA Jams twice a year and I go to the Greeneville T Steel Guitar Jams.
I only wish I could play better than I do as I'm still learning and get mixed up some.
Sam White

[John Palumbo]

Always wanted to play a six string, with many lessons and had a tough time with my left hand going from chord to chord, at the same time shows on TV such as the Wilburn Bros. with Hal Rugg and That Good Ole Nashville Music and others and just loved the sound of that instrument, that I did not not what it was til I found out it was a steel guitar, thought it would be easier not having to finger chords, geez just hold a bar in your left hand and pick, boy was I surprised, but lovin it. Just wish they had shows like that again.

[Michael Remming]

For me it was the Poco "Deliverin" album I remember listening to it trying to figure out how a guitar could make that sound. But by far the best of Rusty's playing in my IMHO is on the "From the Inside Album". But that is a topic for another post.

[Carl Johnson]

Bobby Chatfield. I was only 17 and playing drums in a country band in the early 70's. Bobby Chatfield came to town and the club hired him, he taught me so much about playing drums and music in general, but I always wanted to play steel like him. Bobby is still one of my steel guitar Idols.

[Paul Foster]

I think the year was 1957, we were putting togather a local country music show and a neighboring band had a steel player who had made a pedal from a radio antenna, well I heard that sound and never forgot how it made me feel, never got to play in my younger years as I was a bass player and they were in demand, Im now retired and just starting to play, still love as much now as I did then, Just bought a new RUSSLER!! COCOBOLA to be delivered in Jan2012!!!!
Thanks to Russ and Randy four building such a great guitar!!!
Waylons bass player for the early years!!
Paul Foster

[Terry Sneed]

Always loved country music, and listening to Hal Rugg on the Wilburn brothers, and all the greats on country music records, I come to realize that the steel guitar was, and still is the purtiest sounding instrument ever made!
terry