The 70`steel guitar boom

[Per Berner]

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

The only influence Dylan's ever had on me is making me turn off the radio whenever I hear his extremely annoying voice... It's even worse than rap or heavy metal.

[Dave Grafe]

Olli wrote:

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?

The truth is, Olli, that most of the steelers we are talking about here were already well established in the popular "rock" music scene well before Mr. Dylan decided it was "OK" to use one himself. His introduction of the electric guitar to the folk music crowd was much more revolutionary. It is his lyric sense that has really changed our world and little more, certainly his personality has not raised the bar much....

[Olli Haavisto]

John Wesley Harding -67
with Pete Drake

- Kind woman -68
- Pickin up the Pieces -69
-Burritos -69
-Cage joins Ian and Sylvia -69
-Pure Prairie League 1st album -70

Like I said I`m not claiming anything, just toying with the idea. I don`t really care

Above is a rough timeline of when the great country rock steelers established themselves on a major scale.

[Bent Romnes]

Say what you want about Dylan but he is one heck of a good writer.English classes have been taught over Dylan's writing.

[Richard Sinkler]

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

That's really an absurd statement. I can assure you that Bob Dylan has had NO effect on my life, other than playing some songs he wrote over the years. But even so, they were JUST SONGS. Had we not been playing his songs, we would have been playing someone else's.

Although, I have to agree with Per. And add that after switching station, he had the effect of making me want to puke.

It's fine that you think he is God's gift to music and the PSG, but don't imply or assume we all feel that way.

[Steve Wilson]

Although Hank Sr. died before I was born, my first steel addiction came from Don Helms and Hank Sr. I remember hearing Nashville Skyline when it first came out and was not impressed. But when Sweetheart of the Rodeo came out I was blown away, and then it was on to all the bands Tony mentions.

You can't deny Dylan's songwriting prowess though. Arlo Guthrie once said that songwriting is like fishing. You cast out your line and sometimes you pull a word or phrase out...but he cautioned "Just don't fish downstream from Dylan"!

[Donny Hinson]

Say what you want about Dylan but he is one heck of a good writer.English classes have been taught over Dylan's writing.

Agreed, he's a prolific and iconic writer. But, if english classes are really taught over his writing, it's merely to get students interested enough to attend classes. Let's not forget there are college courses on everything from The Philosophy of Star Trek to The Art of Walking.

Many iconic songwriters (such as Burt Bacharach and Leonard Cohen) aren't good singers. But once you've earned the requisite millions and become well known, it doesn't really matter whether you can sing or not...people will still listen.

Fame is its own arttraction.

[William Lake]

Bent, would you be thinking of Dylan Thomas perhaps?

[Olli Haavisto]

Whoa!
If I`d known Bob was such a touchy subject, I wouldn`t have mentioned him at all.
Sorry if I offended you all....

Richard, I did put a smiley at the end of my statement to say that it is not to be taken too seriously. I have no interest in offending people I`ve never even met. Sorry if it came out that way...
But I`ve been misunderstood before

Peace and luv, as Ringo often says

[Joe Goldmark]

I have to agree that Dylan wasn't a major country rock influence on the West Coast, mainly I think because Pete Drake's playing was laid back and tasteful, whereas the other folks named were more psychedelic and exciting.

However, Bob Dylan was the most gifted song writer of our generation. Yes, his voice is an acquired taste, yes I'm talking about the 1960s and after that the muse came and went (and mostly went), and yes he's almost unlistenable today. But he was so brilliant.

Joe

[Chris LeDrew]

Say what you want about Dylan but he is one heck of a good writer. English classes have been taught over Dylan's writing.

You're quite right, Bent. I teach Bob Dylan in university English. (I also teach Dylan Thomas .) I actually wrote a dissertation on Dylan's use of biblical images in Blonde on Blonde. The only reason his material is not more prevalent in poetry anthologies is because he is still alive. Same goes with Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Gordon Lightfoot and others. All great poets and worthy of in-depth study and analysis. Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," for example, is a masterpiece of personification unparalleled in English literature.

Bob Dylan changed the course of popular music, period. Perhaps more than other other 20th century musician. If you're a musician, you've felt his influence one way or another - either directly or indirectly.

[Tony Prior]

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

Well that's certainly a valid point of consideration..but are we thinking now that the West Coast Country Rock era came as a result of Dylan ? I don't feel the bands such as New Riders, Poco, PPL etc came as a result of some tunes where Bob had Steel on them, if anything I would look at the West Coast/Mid West sort of folky styles...which I think came as a direct result of Nashville...I think the likes of Pete Drake and all the tracks he played on probably had more influence on the whole thing than any other ONE person...I think HE woke up the planet.


It's a given that Dylan has had an influence on each of us as well as those bands back then.. so has Clapton, The Beatles, the Stones etc... If anything we would have to go find out what Graham Parsons was thinking about the whole deal...

It is a very interesting discussion. I never looked to Dylan as an influence for Steel guitar but certainly on music, it would be impossible to deny this. Certainly when Dylan started showing up in pictures with Fender guitars..this was turning things upside down..no doubt...! For certain Dylans amazing trail blazing showed us all that it was ok to leave the sandbox...

At the end of the day, that era was very exciting...it was a good time to be playing music and getting sucked in...it was music with a way of life...it wasn't just a band with a Steel Guitar, it was an era of attitude and life style that we wore on our sleeves...which some of us are still living !

Telecasters, Pedal Steel Guitars, Fringe jackets ...being part of something bigger than we were....

Back then we weren't ROCK players, we weren't Country players..we were in the "OTHER" category....at times dissed... it took about 10 more years before those other categories came to us ! After URBAN COWBOY , things changed...

[Tony Prior]

I gotta add this..true story

When I got sucked in, I was all in...I wore hair down past my shoulders and a Suede Fringe Jacket daily..I was playing Country but we were also adding the West Coast tunes to our set list it seemed weekly.., I was no longer part of a Rock band, Blues etc....My friends thought I was odd man out..nuts..referred to me as some sort of hokey Country nut case...literally no respect for my Sho Bud Steel...

UNTIL...

Poco was playing not far away in Portchester NY, so I bought two tickets, my wife didn't even want to go...she also thought I was nuts...so I took my long time ( still) friend, who is more of a Blues /Jazz guy...at the concert he see's Poco all dressed out, Jim Messina on Telecaster, Rusty on Steel, Tim Schmidt, Richie Furay..they looked great, dressed for the show..and Fringe shirts/jackets...My friend loved the show , thought they were friggin awesome which they were...

On the way home he says..that guy on Steel, do you know who he is ? AHH..So I told him who all of them were, the history of Buffalo Springfield etc...he even connected Rusty's Sho Bud to mine..
Today, 40 years later I sometimes still remind him that we went to see that lineup of Poco...and he still gets it, even as a Jazz/Blues guy...

I still wear Fringe jackets on gigs now and then and my young band mates look at me and call me Roy Rogers, John Wayne etc....they don't get it..but it's all good...I'm not going to "school" them because those names they call me... I love those guys !

PS

Oh yeh, how could I forget...the wife that thought I was nuts...well she didn't have to concern herself after '82..and no I didn't kill her...

[Bill Bertinot]

I bought a Sho Bud Maverick in 1973 (at the age of 20) and in '74 upgraded to a double 10 Blanton. Playing in the Texas music scene in the early 70's, a lot of my friends were getting into steel. There were a whole string of us in Houston, Jonh "Bubba" Gould, a fellow forum member was one. We were all influenced by Rusty Young, Sneaky Pete, Bobby Black, and Buddy Cage to name a few. I was influenced and inspired by songs such as Grand Junction and Kind Woman by Poco as well as Sneaky Pete's playing with Linda Ronstadt and Gram Parson. Our band once opened a five night engagement for the Flying Burrito Brothers and I got to meet and listen to Sneaky Pete every night, what a treat! We later opened for Waylon Jennings and I saw Ralph Mooney - awesome! Robby Springfield's sizzling steel on Big Mamou was a major influence. I have to say that it was love at first "sound", and still is!

[Chuck McGill]

I would listen to Charlie Douglas on WWL all night to hear the steel pickin.
I also remember Big Mamou and always wondered who that was. Sweet playing on that song. Thanks Bill for finally clearing that up. Tony it sounds like we lived parallel lives and at least were hearing the same music about the same time.

[Richard Sinkler]

I will concede that Dylan was (is) a GREAT song writer. He along with Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. None of those 3 should be allowed to have a microphone placed in front of them though. Just my opinion.

[Bo Legg]

I don't remember any real good PSG other than a whole lot of 70’s Country Music. It seemed to have all that great PSG and these two songs that come to mind that first stirred my interest. Click on the Red
“Woman (Sensuous Woman)”This one hooked me and this really cinched it
“Hello Darlin”
But I sadly remember the 70's as the period when Ray Price took a few voice lessons and decided he was going to be the Frank Sinatra (complete with big orchestra)of Country music.
Here is what I'm talking about the song of his that when it hit the charts in the 70's it just about killed the Steel Guitar and country music after that.
You're The Best (That Ever Happened To Me)
Can you believe the title!? Should have been titled "The Worst Thing That Ever Happened".

[John Billings]

You got that right Bo! And wasn't Chet Atkins involved with that new "sound?"

[Olli Haavisto]

Touching story, Tony

[Lynn Fargo]

Hi Tony,

Another true story . . .

I graduated HS in '70. Cheerleaders, football players, and class officers didn't even know my name, cuz I was all horses and what they considered "hick" music. Six years later, they'd show up at my band's gigs in cowboy boots and down vests, and start talking to me like we were best friends. (Well it's too late, baby, now it's too late. . . ) Gawd, I miss the 70's! PSG freakin' Heaven!!!!!

[Steve Pawlak]

Do I dare say that Black Oak's Stanley Knight's steel playing caught my ear?

It's also too bad that some folks couldn't handle free speech and silenced the Dixie Chicks

They had some nice ear candy with some great steel too

[Mark Dershaw]

When I was 13 I would leave the room when my stepfather played his Merle Haggard records. There was no way I was going to accept that music. When I was 16 I was playing guitar and eatin up music in general. I happened to hear a live Pure Prarie League show on a local Cleveland radio station. I went the next day and bought the "Tears" album. I immediately started saving money to buy a steel. By the time I made my first purchase I had dug up all of the "progressive" country stuff. It was an amazing time for me. Funny, it took me a long time to look back and realize how cool Merle, Johnny and all those guys really were! Kids...

[Tony Prior]

Hi Tony,

Another true story . . .

I graduated HS in '70. Cheerleaders, football players, and class officers didn't even know my name, cuz I was all horses and what they considered "hick" music. Six years later, they'd show up at my band's gigs in cowboy boots and down vests, and start talking to me like we were best friends. (Well it's too late, baby, now it's too late. . . ) Gawd, I miss the 70's! PSG freakin' Heaven!!!!!

Great story !!

And I can parallel that ! Probably late 70's thru early 80's ..our band was pretty hip, playing all sorts of West Coast Country Rock but also mixing in Stones..rock and roll etc...We had a reasonable following and were booked quite a bit. Enter many of my former HS classmates, who basically ignored me when I was in HS, as I was a long hair band playing freak..I guess..... Now they had long hair and discovered the music scenes and came around...guys and gals, I didn't blow them off , I could have but it was better for them to buy me Beer !

[chris ivey]

it's kind of funny in retrospect...wearing cowboy hats in our urban households in the 70's....although i've worn cowboy boots since i was 3.

i'm proud to say i never had a fringe jacket!

once again i've got to say that 'pickin up the pieces' with rusty's steel and exciting dobro, mixed with messina's guitar was a stimulating mind blower...and still is. i don't know if anything has come close since.

so many pickers have gotten technically better and more sophisticated, but there was something in the air back then. and then paul f. recorded 'nervous breakdown' and left everyone in the dust!

but no music is 'cooler' than buddy emmons, jd maness and curly chalker...they were creators. paul, too!

[Walter Bowden]

Hey John. I wouldn't worry too much about remembering details from the late 60's.
They say if you can remenmber the 60's you weren't really there. Walter