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Topic: Doobie Brothers steel last night |
Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 23 Oct 2015 9:25 am |
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I was playing a corporate party last night with a country band before the main act and saw this on stage.
The Doobie Brothers are into pedalsteel ! I didn't have time to hang and get the full story though.
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Bob |
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Jon Light (deceased)
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 23 Oct 2015 9:43 am
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| I had no idea what the current Doobie line up was but after looking it up, that's got to be John McFee . (Of course Skunk Baxter covered some ground way back when.) |
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Jerry Overstreet
From:
Louisville Ky
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Posted 23 Oct 2015 9:49 am
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| Cool! Good to know they're still using steel guitar. |
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Tim Russell
From:
Pennsylvania, USA
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Posted 23 Oct 2015 10:06 am
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Which song(s) of theirs features steel guitar? I only know a smattering of their mainstream hits, and I can't remember any steel sounds...
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Sierra Crown D-10 |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 23 Oct 2015 10:06 am
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They must still play South City Midnight Lady.
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Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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Jeff Heard
From:
Lopez Island, Washington, USA
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 23 Oct 2015 1:11 pm
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McFee has been playing steel on certain songs in concert for years.
I have no idea if he has used steel in all the shows, but he first started with the band in 1979 replacing Jeff Baxter. Then they were disbanded for a number of years, and he came back on board in the early '90s.
So John has put a lot of miles in with the Doobies and the pedal steel has been along for the ride on many of them.
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Mark |
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Ian Worley
From:
Sacramento, CA
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Posted 23 Oct 2015 6:12 pm
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Washington must be in another country. I get the message "this video is not available in your country"
maybe they're talking about country music, it's ok, rock and roll will be fine, just let me see the darn video... |
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Jeff Heard
From:
Lopez Island, Washington, USA
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Posted 23 Oct 2015 6:53 pm
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I'm getting the same message now as well. ???
Well, here's another from a few years back.
http://youtu.be/zt7kEqWlSyc |
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 1:29 am
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In the early seventies I often read his name in the credits on singer/ songwriter album covers. Van Morrison is the best known among them. Clover was a great band too.
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Fender Kingman, Sierra Crown D-10, Evans Amplifier, Soup Cube. |
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Jim Palenscar
From:
Oceanside, Calif, USA
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 6:53 am
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| John came into the shop a few years ago looking for a push pull and left w an ETS- then called me the next day an ordered another one. While there he played snippets of many steel standards and when I looked at him quizzically he said that he cut his teeth on that and that his musical roots we straight country. I just finished restoring his 1st pedal steel that he played w Clover- an Electraharp EH 610 (pics in another thread) that I'm still looking for a changer cover for. |
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Dave Zirbel
From:
Sebastopol, CA USA
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 7:00 am
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He's recorded with Wanda Jackson, Southern Pacific, Grateful Dead, Joe Goldmark, Elvis Costello, Boz Skaggs, Huey Lewis.......
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Dave Zirbel-
Sierra S-10 (Built by Ross Shafer),ZB, Fender 400 guitars, various tube and SS amps |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 8:48 am
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pride of cucamunga? (sp)
clover was a great band. i remember seeing them at freedom hall (? university ave.) in berkeley in the seventies and being fascinated with his sho~bud with the cool curved knee levers. |
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Paul Sutherland
From:
Placerville, California
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 9:31 am
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I saw John McFee with Clover at a tavern in Seattle somewhere between 1971 and 1973. He was playing a ShoBud D10. I recall he played a lot of C6th, and it impressed me. I also recall a song off Clover's album where he played a really great tele lick; something about a chicken.
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It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. |
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 10:03 am
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From the same 1996 concert as posted earlier of South City Midnight Lady, here is another of my favorite Doobie songs, Neal's Fandango, with John going back and forth between Strat and steel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRMy5j-LKBI
Goin' back I'm too tired to roam
Loma Prieta my mountain home
On the hills above Santa Cruz
In the place where I spent my youth
That's my story right there. I might have even run across Pat Simmons in those mountains, a fellow San Jose area boy who graduated from Leigh High School.
The Bay Area overall has such a great musical tradition, the majority of it concentrated in San Francisco, and for some of us ballpark 50 miles down the freeway in the South Bay back in he day the Doobies were our band, "the pride of San Jose, California."
I was a little too young to get in yet, but my older brothers and their friends would go see them at places like The Chateau Liberte in the Santa Cruz Mountains and The Bodega in Campbell, ballpark $2 cover charge.
And Clover too, they might have only charged a buck... 
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Mark |
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Paul Sutherland
From:
Placerville, California
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 10:16 am
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Chicken Butt: That's It!!
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It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. |
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 11:15 am
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Tried to think of the song title for "Neal's Fandango". "Santa Cruz" met no matches. So thanks Mark!
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Fender Kingman, Sierra Crown D-10, Evans Amplifier, Soup Cube. |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 11:55 am
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Just think Neal Cassady!
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Mark |
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Joe Goldmark
From:
San Francisco, CA 94131
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 12:44 pm
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John is an old friend of mine from back in the days when i played with Billy C Farlowe & John was with Clover. John is one of those gifted musicians who plays many instruments well. I enlisted him to play guitar on my album "Seducing the 60's", and had him do a cameo steel solo (the first solo is John) on the Who's "The Kids Are Alright." He kills it of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d21oVkZHhKY
Joe |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 1:44 pm
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| Joe Goldmark wrote: |
John is an old friend of mine from back in the days when i played with Billy C Farlowe & John was with Clover. John is one of those gifted musicians who plays many instruments well. I enlisted him to play guitar on my album "Seducing the 60's", and had him do a cameo steel solo (the first solo is John) on the Who's "The Kids Are Alright." He kills it of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d21oVkZHhKY
Joe |
Joe, I loved your version with John the first time I heard it after buying that CD. Wonderful stuff!
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Mark |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 1:51 pm
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A fairly recent photo of John, Tommy and Pat and below that an excerpt from an interview John did with the Hippo in August.
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Southbound is the latest Doobie Brothers album, made with help from some big names in country music. Given your background with Southern Pacific, how was playing with performers like Brad Paisley and Chris Young?
I spent a lot of time in Nashville doing gigs and sessions when Keith and I formed Southern Pacific [and] I played with some of the guys. … I grew up playing country music [and] discovered rock and roll later on when The Beatles came out. Everybody wanted to have a band and they’d say, “Well that McFee kid already knows how to play, let’s get him.†I really started getting exposed to pop music and then blues and jazz. It opened up my musical world almost in a backwards fashion. But my roots are country, so playing countrified version of Doobie Brothers songs — that felt pretty comfortable for me.
How is a kid from Santa Cruz, California, such a big country fan?
I am from Santa Cruz originally, but we moved around the state; my dad worked in oil fields. I’m part of a subculture known as oil field trash. Country music was huge in California when I was growing up in the 1950s. Merle Haggard and the Bakersfield Sound came out of that. That’s my background. A lot of people think it’s strange that I’m a surfer and [also a] guy that grew up playing hillbilly music. That’s one of the cool things about California — it’s got everything.
What’s the best thing about touring with the Doobies now?
It’s always been about the music. That’s what attracted me to the band in the first place [and] that’s what keeps it interesting. We’re dinosaurs in a way, I guess, but we’re guys that just like to play music. So that is what keeps us going and gives us energy. We’re lucky enough to still have fans that still want to hear us. ... We’re really lucky guys. |
"Oil field trash" - I love it!
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Mark |
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 24 Oct 2015 5:05 pm
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i was at san jose state from 66-69 and hanging out after that. hiway 17 to santa cruz on my roomates triumph 500 and later my bsa lightning.
pat lived at a house on 8th st. that i frequented...as well as pete grant. cartoonist george metzger lived next door. songwriter david anderson in morgan hill. artist jim brady hangin' around..
big brother, quicksilver, the dead, moby grape, fritz, doobies...
a very wonderful romantic era!
then things drifted to sam's and cowtown with pete and bobby black and...steel guitar!
....now we're here. |
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Joachim Kettner
From:
Germany
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Posted 25 Oct 2015 12:43 am
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Interesting story Chris!
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Fender Kingman, Sierra Crown D-10, Evans Amplifier, Soup Cube. |
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