The 70`steel guitar boom

[Olli Haavisto]

I posted this in the Dylan thread but thought that a separate thread might be in order. Please share your stories...

The last big "boom" group of new steel players started on the instrument via "hippie country" which was born because Bob made it OK to dig country.
I`m one, for sure. There has to be a bunch of players here on the Forum now in their late 50s/ealy 60s who got the steel bug that way. I`m I right ?
Tell your story!
For me, the two songs at the end of side two of John Wesley Harding planted the seed and a few years later when I bought Parsons` Grievous Angel and Home on the road by the NRPS at the same time I had order one....

[Donny Hinson]

The last big "boom" group of new steel players started on the instrument via "hippie country" which was born because Bob made it OK to dig country.

I'll agree about the early '70s being a pretty big boom for young people and pedal steel, but I can't give Bob the major share for credit. I think Gram and the FBB, Neil Young, the Byrds (SOTR), Poco, Michael Nesmith, Commander Cody, Steely Dan, and so many others had as much or even more influence than Dylan (at least where pedal steel was concerned). This was also the last era of really "raw" music, before the big corporate interests took over, and before everything had to be fine polished and over-produced to the Nth degree, so the music still sounds very fresh and listenable.

[Richard Sinkler]

Bob Dylan had NO effect on me what-so-ever as far as anything in my life, musical or any other aspect. While I started playing in 1971, it was Jerry Garcia and John Hughey that got my interest in the PSG started.

Like Donny, I think it is a stretch to think Dylan had a major impact on the popularity and "the boom" of the PSG. Hearing it on some of his records may have gotten some started though.

[Olli Haavisto]

Yes, that`s what i meant. Those bands were in part born because when Bob used steel and recorded country, it became OK for the"hippies" to do so.
Of course not all credit goes to Bob, but he was a catalyst, I`m sure... Anyway I didn`t want this thread to be about Bob, I just copied my post from the Dylan thread...
That aside, please share your stories of finding the steel in the 70s through country rock etc.

BTW. I think it`s a stretch for anyone to say that Dylan has had no influence on their lives..

[Joachim Kettner]

Btw, "You ain't going nowhere" by the Byrds is a Dylan song, and I think that was the first song I ever heard with steel.

[Mark van Allen]

Like anything steelish, it's a personal path to slidey bliss.
In the 70's there were loads of great "Nashville" and "West Coast" artists using steel that obviously hooked a lot of the players here, and I bet some were drawn in through hearing remnants of the earlier Western Swing heyday.
As for rock and "hippie" music, a LOT of those bands were deeply influenced by and reverential toward traditional country, and a lot of kids, myself included, heard that as some of "our generation's music" alongside Hendrix, Cream, Beatles, et al.
While I was initially gobsmacked by BE playing "Wichita Lineman" on the Suite Steel record, my first band drew from the "hippie" catalog, along with Merle, Buck, Eagles... and I immediately started seeking steel wherever I could find it.

"Nashville Skyline" and "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" were both immensely hopeful to me, presaging an acceptance and melding of influences, lifestyle, and audiences, that, alas, never came to fruition much beyond projects like Barefoot Jerry and Area Code 615. Seems people always prefer being divisive and a bit judgemental.

Either way, include the many instances of steel on pop and rock tracks, and there's a vast catalog of great slidy stuff to be mined and enjoyed from that decade, and doubtless still influencing people to take up steel. Good times!

[Richard Sinkler]

My start into this was by listening to an FM country station here in the Bay Area that was automated somehow (before computers I am sure) and they played a wide variety of country and western swing songs. A song would come on every day at the same time, so you could always tune in to hear the songs you wanted. The song was also only played once during the day, not repeated every hour like on top 40 radio. I was hearing Conway Twitty's version of "Wine Me Up" and then seeing the bands at the Fillmore with the PSG. I was able to ask Jerry Garcia what he was playing at one of the NRPS concerts. He showed me his ZB and told me about it. I was hooked after that. As a drummer (at the time), I couldn't practice with the band I was in with my brother because my Mom couldn't take the loud noise, and I would sit on the bed and play and acoustic guitar with a slide of some sort. My brother finally decided to buy me a steel. A local music shop had an old triple 8 National that he bought for $75, and he gave it to me. It's been downhill ever since.

After that, it was seeing bands with PSG at the Fillmore and other SF venues that fueled me as well as the songs on the radio with the "big boys" from Nashville playing on them. Having never been a fan of Dylan, it was probably several years after "Nashville Skyline" came out that I really actually listened to any of the record. I remember not being very impressed with what I heard.

[Shawn Brown]

As a young teenager I loved the steel I heard in country music. I saw Buck Owens at the Capital Theatre,Ottawa in 1968 when I was 14. However, what turned me on to it's possibilities in popular music was when I heard that year or a year later: "She Belongs to Me" by Rick Nelson (written by Bob Dylan) and Someday Soon(written by Ian Tyson)on the radio, both of which had Buddy Emmons on steel, although I didn't know it at the time. That was really it for me.

[Paul King]

I first started noticing the steel guitar sound around the early 70's. I started in 1979 at 19 years of age. The hard shell country music and mainly gospel music at that time is what I enjoyed listening to. That means John Hughey, Hal Rugg, Tom Brumley, Buddy Emmons, Weldon Myrick and some others influenced my decision to become a steel player. Jack Smith who played for the Happy Goodmans was a big influence as well during the 70's. Junior Knight was my biggest television influence. I wish we could have another invasion of steel players and start another boom.

[Bob Blair]

I saw Garcia (NRPS), Sneaky (FBB) and Buddy Cage (Tyson and GSB) at Festival Express when I was still in high school. I used to watch Cage on Tyson's TV show. Later Bobby Black came along with the Commander, and I was starting to listen to some of the stuff out of Nashville too. It made a big impression, and the sound was like nothing else in the world, so it was not that many years later I got my first pedal steel, so I am definitely part of that boom. There was a lot of live music in bars back then (in fact I think in a lot of places by law they had to have entertainment) so there were places to play, which contributed to the boom as well. By the later 70's Reece had placed MSA's in music stores all over the place - Long and McQuade in Calgary was even advertising on the radio that they had them in stock. My first steel was a Sidekick that a local music store in Lethbridge, Alberta ordered for me...all I could afford. I remember that forumite Chuck Lawson and his late brother Wayne (both from Lethbridge) bought steels around the same time I got mine. There was a lot of interest in the instrument back then for sure, and a lot of it came from the hippie stuff and also guys like Tyson (a lot more cowboy than hippie) going to Nashville and using Pete Drake and Weldon Myrick. And Dylan of course.

[Dave Grafe]

Before "Nashville Skyline" and :Teach Your Children" there was The Byrds' "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" and John Sebastian's "Rainbows All Over your Blues" that got me moving to a pedal guitar. When Dylan came out with "Lay Lady Lay" I was thinking "he's finally caught up with the rest of us!"

[Jim Lindsey (Louisiana)]

I'll have to claim a spot in the 70's steel boom as well. I started steel in 1976 at the age of 21 and, though it was Gospel steel playing that first got my attention (John Rich with The Oak Ridge Boys, Weldon Myrick on a Rambos album and John Hughey's work on Happy Goodman Family albums), it was the steel playing of Rusty Young with Poco and Toy Caldwell's work on Marshall Tucker Band's "Searchin' For A Rainbow" album that really got my "steel juices" flowing as I learned. I also listened to the steel work of Bobby Black with Commander Cody, and the works of Sneaky Pete and Buddy Cage as well as many others ... I was hopelessly hooked on pedal steel and knew that my life would revolve around it from that point on.

One of the things that really sealed it all up for me was Rusty Young's playing; listening to songs like "Kind Woman" and "Bad Weather" (as well as everything else he played on steel with Poco) really impacted me.

I've heard so many terminologies (such as, country rock, etc.) used to describe the styles of music like Poco, Marshall Tucker, etc., but the term I remember most is what we called it in southwestern Oklahoma (which is where I first started learning steel) ... at that time, we all called it Progressive Country and I can remember, as we'd talk with club owners about bookings, the club owners asking, "Do y'all play regular country or that new progressive stuff?" --- we'd reply that we did a mixture of both and we never had issues getting booked.

My first steel was an MSA Red Baron that I bought from an individual in March of '76, but as Bob Blair mentioned, there were MSA guitars in stock in music stores and I bought my first double neck steel in August 1976 at a music store in Lawton, OK ... a brand new red MSA Classic with 8 & 4. I always look back to the 70's as some golden days to remember!

[Bob Carlucci]

New Riders, Poco, Burritos, Dead, etc... thats what got me started, and its how i play to this day.. never could make it too far beyond my early influences...

[William Lake]

The first steel recording I ever heard, which forever tainted my life, was in 1959. As a very impressionable 18 year old, I was taken by a tune which most of you never heard of. Sleepwalk
My first steel many years later was a Carter S10 E9 and guess what was the first song I learned?
Thank you Jeff Newman.

[Lynn Fargo]

I started playing lap steel in 1960 and listened to most of the big boys on PSG, so by the time CSNY came around, I knew what that sound was (unlike most of my friends.) It wasn't until I heard Pure Prairie League, though, that I had to buy probably the only pedal steel in our town, a Maverick. That was about '75, and I was soon buying every album I could find by PPL, MTB, Poco, NRPS, and later Cody, AATW, FBB, to name a few. It WAS a golden era! Jobs were plentiful and everyone wanted to be a cowboy (or at least dress like one. )

[chris ivey]

exactly what lynn says...and everyone else. i started in '70. steel started creeping in everywhere. sneaky pete and al were everywhere, but then bobby,jd and buddy ..and rusty ..showed me what a real steel player was...from there it led to hal, weldon, john , doug, and the rest is reece, curly and on and on.

i don't know that i appreciated dylan at first as much as i do now. he is indisputably a chapter of his own (or book) in the american songbook. he's the hank williams of the 60s-70s on. so many incredible words and melodies, and like haggard and willie...still alive!

[John Billings]

As a kid in the Fifties, I always watched the Saturday/Sunday morning music shows. So I was aware of, and enjoyed steel guitar. Started playing 6-string around 1959/60, but I was rockin'. Then got a lapsteel so my band could play "Don't Bogart That Joint." (Who originally released that, and when? Not Little Feat) Shortly thereafter, I got my first, an S-10 Miller. It was burnt up in a fire by some connected club owners, who wanted to remodel. Then a Crossover Custom that was stolen, along with my '58 Flying V, shortly thereafter. Then got a Shobud Professional in '71/'72, I think. Played that until I got my Kline around '84.

I was never much of a Dylan fan. I was a huge Byrds fan! But I had already started playing lap and dobro before SHOR came out, and that album kicked me! Then I found a Lloyd Green album, and I was really done for! Up until that time, I had been playing the other instruments just to add color to the music. Lloyd made me get serious. Quit playing Rock altogether, and went straight Country.

I hope my timeline is about right! Lots of stuff I don't remember from the late Sixties!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[Olli Haavisto]

Don`t bogart that joint by The Fraternity of Man

[Brint Hannay]

...

[chris ivey]

it's interesting. because of dylan's vocal style i didn't realize the beauty of the melodies of his songs until i heard someone else do them. however, i found i appreciated his lyrics more presented by his own voice .

[Bent Romnes]

I feel that these people and institutions deserve honorable mention:
When I arrived in Canada in May of 1973, Bruce Armstrong was the ultimate rep for the pedal steel guitar in the London, Ontario area. He introduced me to a pedal steel assoc - the North east Pedal steel Guitar Association (NEPSGA) later to change to Pedal Steel Guitar Assoc (PSGA) with Bob Maickel, Jim Hand, Clay Savage, John Demaille, Winnie Winston - to name a few- spearheading the PSGA Newsletter, a godsend of monthly information for the information-starved steel guitarist.

This was decades before the internet and Steel guitar forums and one of the few links uniting steel players everywhere.

I remember placing an ad in Country Song Roundup informing players all over to write me and joining up with the PSGA. I remember two responses..One was from Egil Skjelnes in Norway, the other one from Janne Lindgren in Sweden who both joined up. I hope my feeble attempt at encouraging membership, was in some small way instrumental in furthering these pickers' careers. Look at where they are today - world class players.

I still have 60 of these newsletters and every now and then I read some and reminisce...

[Chuck McGill]

you guys are playing my song.....

[Tony Prior]

Ok I'll play..I love Dylan..but he, in my mind had absolutely nothing do do with the emergence of Pedal Steel Guitars in the late 60's going into and including the 70's..

Sure Bob had some tunes with Steel but they were not pickin'...

Lets talk about who really created the storm of interest...

In My Mind...

We are not talking about the traditional Nashville players, we're talkin' about the roots West Coast bands that sucked us in... I didn't learn about Loyd and Buddy until AFTER I bought my Maverick....I don't think I'm alone here...



Garcia
Rusty Young
Sneaky Pete
Buddy Cage
Jon Call
and
Ben Keith,Dan Dugmore , but at the time they were not as prominent as the above...I would say more next page...

[Jim Peter]

The first John Prine album with Leo Leblanc was the first time a pedal steel guitar really caught my attention. I still love that album.

[Olli Haavisto]

Tony, I hear you but I still wonder if the players you mentioned would have been in rock bands if Dylan hadn`t sort of made it okay to use the steel?
Hard to say for sure and in the end it doesn`t really matter...
It was a fantastic time to start playing steel, even here in he outermost fringes of the steel guitar world