How did you come to play steel?

admin · Post by **b0b** » 12 Jun 2016 10:15 am

Edward Meisse wrote:This is the song that did it for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBpERMkIYlY

Very cool solo! Is that Don Helms?

Edward Meisse · Post by **Edward Meisse** » 12 Jun 2016 10:25 am

I'm not sure. But that high range makes me think it is. It is amazing to me how good he made the lap steel sound with such basic techniques. Very few others had a musical sense like him. My favorite singer is Frank Sinatra. He also had a terrific sense of musicality expressed relatively simply compared to other jazz singers. Those are the kind of musicians I try to emulate. Getting the most musical expression out of what ability you have.

Paul Honeycutt · Post by **Paul Honeycutt** » 14 Jun 2016 7:15 pm

I always liked steel guitar. I was in a band with a guy who went from playing an acoustic with a raised nut and a pan handle for a bar, a triple neck National to a ZB Custom pedal steel. I figured with him in the band I didn't need to play steel. Then another friend sold me a battered National Tri-Cone. I gave it to my steel playing friend for a while, but got it back and started learning Dobro-style playing.

Then in the early '80's I was in a pawn shop in Santa Rosa, Ca and they had a grey Rickenbacher steel guitar hanging on the wall and I bought it. I was listening to David Lindley and started messing with it. I worked with books and records and maybe got a few lessons here and there. I'm mostly self taught. I picked up a wood bodied square neck Dobro, traded off the Tri-Cone after having repairs made and later picked up a Supro and National New Yorker lap steels.

I'm still working on a double neck National D-8 and have a friend's Gibson in C6 and trying to get decent on it. The Supro and Rick are gone, but the New Yorker is a keeper.

I just keep pluggin'.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 14 Jun 2016 7:22 pm

Paul Honeycutt wrote:Then in the early '80's I was in a pawn shop in Santa Rosa, Ca and they had a grey Rickenbacher steel guitar hanging on the wall and I bought it. I was listening to David Lindley and started messing with it.

We may have met back then. I played with The Stringbusters and we opened for David Lindley at the Cotati Cabaret around that time. I played a stand-up Sho-Bud Maverick with no pedals.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 15 Jun 2016 1:40 am

Some guys that I went to high school with threatened me,"You're gonna learn to play pedal steel guitar or else,So they took me to Mannys Music in N.Y.C.to see what one looked like,Then they took me to see "The New Riders"with Buddy Cage...next thing I knew I was getting beat up by a Sho-Bud Maverick!

Guy Cundell · Post by **Guy Cundell** » 15 Jun 2016 3:06 pm

Charlie McDonald wrote:I picked natural assumption tho wonders if that's possible, reading about Lowell George's Craftsman plug socket after trying a glass bottleneck.

It was Lowell for me too.

Michael Devito · Post by **Michael Devito** » 20 Jun 2016 10:31 am

Started for me with a fondness for Hawaiian sounds and classic country even as kid. Didn't know exactly what I was hearing, though now I know steel was always in the mix.

What got me to try doing lap style was playing slide and open tunings on regular guitar. I kept hearing things that were sort of like slide playing but not quite, and weren't pedal steel either.

Strange thing is, I attempt steel playing repeatedly, with little success, but doing so has made me a much better slide player with the regular guitar. I'll take it!
MD

Lee D Kaiser · Post by **Lee D Kaiser** » 20 Jun 2016 7:20 pm

Other: I'd like to say it was the haunting sound in one song or another, but an elbow injury kept me from fretting a guitar. Elbow's better, so not much steel playing these days.

George Rothenberger · Post by **George Rothenberger** » 22 Nov 2016 11:42 am

I have always been a multi-instrumentalist and used to play stuff in open D (Vestapol) tuning and stuff. On the Guitar. Fast forward to a few years ago I was making a CD of original songs (bluegrass/country) and called a friend to play pedal steel and dobro. Well we started in on a Texas Swing thing(Sally Goodin backup progression) and the guy says -'Hey! Let's do this next week and I will bring my lap steel - I want to play this on the lap'. And he did and it's here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjBmRrtq7QA.
And after that I HAD to get one of those lap steels for myself!
It's been 3 years, I now have (in addition to my starter) a 9-string and a double 8 console.
I do not play in a country band but rather a bluegrass band and the guys are not keen on the steel in that. So I am progressing kinda slowly on my own and have not played out - but once, busking with a great guitar player - with my Roland battery powered amp (and we had great fun). So I got the bug. Just need to find the right bunch of pals to play out.

Phillip Vaught · Post by **Phillip Vaught** » 22 Nov 2016 1:23 pm

A man (music teacher) walked down the street and asked a group of us kids (7 to 8 year olds) if we wanted to play steel guitar which was big back in the late 50s
and of course we all said yes and it ended with just 2 of us finishing his course and i played an electric console 6 string on stage for a couple tunes, i was hooked needless to say. Got into other things after that and now 60 years later picked it back up and wonder why i stopped playing..

Loren Tilley · Post by **Loren Tilley** » 22 Nov 2016 7:44 pm

Used to go see Eddie Rivers' old band, the Western Box Turtles, when I lived in Milwaukee (even got to fill in on standard guitar a couple times). Really got hooked on the steel guitar sound when I lived in Honolulu. Then I moved to Maui and there weren't many steel guitar players playing regularly so I thought I'd take a stab at it. So far so good!

Steffen Gunter · Post by **Steffen Gunter** » 23 Nov 2016 12:21 am

I would have clicked "other" but for some reason I can't take part in the poll.

I came from the ukulele. I wanted to add some different color to the band and thought steel guitar would be the natural addition. Got addicted immediately.

David M Brown · Post by **David M Brown** » 23 Nov 2016 6:00 am

Steffen Gunter wrote:I would have clicked "other" but for some reason I can't take part in the poll.

I came from the ukulele.

I couldn't vote either.

I also began on 'ukulele, played guitar and bass and mandolin, and was working at an old music store as a stock boy and found a National "Waikiki" lap steel...and found an old book on Hawaiian guitar, and for years just goofed off trying to learn whatever, in open G or A high bass.

Then I discovered 2 things around 1978 - Hawaiian music and all the other tunings, from old E7 to C6, A6, C#m, and all the many other 6 and 8 string tunings.

I've been at it on-and -off since, and this time am back to the lap steel for good.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 23 Nov 2016 6:19 am

Rusty Young, then Buddy Emmons.

Ron Simpson · Post by **Ron Simpson** » 23 Nov 2016 2:59 pm

My father was returning home from the Korean War. The ship made a stop in Japan, and the GI's got some shore time during the stop. My dad and his buddy each purchased a steel guitar in Japan. During the second leg of the journey, his buddy got into a game of cards, but he wasn't having much luck. The buddy came to my father and asked if my father wanted to buy the buddy's steel guitar so the buddy could get back into the game.

Fast forward to 1991, when I learned of the Aloha International Steel Guitar club. My parents, and my wife attended the convention, and there was no turning back for us from that point on.

Ron

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 23 Nov 2016 3:19 pm

Great story, Ron!

Wayne D. Clark · Post by **Wayne D. Clark** » 23 Nov 2016 8:11 pm

Mom liked Hawaiian music,I took lessons on a 1933 Sears guitar. I still have it] after a year Mom bought me a second hand National New Yorker for $100 and that was the start. I was 12, that was 71 years ago.

Marty Broussard · Post by **Marty Broussard** » 23 Nov 2016 10:09 pm

When I was 11 years old I was playing bass in a Cajun band and the steel guitar player announced that SHE couldn't hold down the job and keep up with her duties at home so the band leader looked at me and said, " next weekend ur on steel." That week he and my dad brought me to a steel players house where I purchased a Fender 400 for $100 down and whatever I could send weekly until the $350 was paid in full. Next night we went to another guys house and I bought a Fender SF Pro Reverb for $150 cash with my own money. Been banging on it off and on ever since......

Lee Holliday · Post by **Lee Holliday** » 24 Nov 2016 2:29 am

Without knowing it the subliminal tunes of Hank Williams etc coming from my dads 8 track have to come out later in life.

I was also lucky to be in the right place at the right time when "The Kennet Sheiks" a UK contemporary band of the the Mississippi sheiks had a regular residency at the Dove a pub in Reading in the UK where Stuart Cumberpatch opened my eyes to the National tricone and what it can do.

I am really glad to have discovered the steel which a lot of guitarists still look at in a puzzled fashion.

Lee

David M Brown · Post by **David M Brown** » 24 Nov 2016 7:37 am

Marty Broussard wrote:When I was 11 years old I was playing bass in a Cajun band and the steel guitar player announced that SHE couldn't hold down the job and keep up with her duties at home so the band leader looked at me and said, " next weekend ur on steel." That week he and my dad brought me to a steel players house where I purchased a Fender 400 for $100 down and whatever I could send weekly until the $350 was paid in full. Next night we went to another guys house and I bought a Fender SF Pro Reverb for $150 cash with my own money. Been banging on it off and on ever since......

That's cool!

BTW, I'm from New Orleans and love playing Cajun steel. I even had one lesson from Papa Cairo!

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 24 Nov 2016 10:16 am

I guess I cannot be the only one to not answer my own question.

I was intrigued by the steel on Hank Williams's records, and on country music generally.

I loved Sleepwalk, which I used to play on the Sonometer (Monochord) in the Physics Laboratory at school.

My Dad loved Hawaiian music, and had quite a collection.

Steel guitars were almost unobtainable in England during the 50s and 60s, and, in any case, I looked at them just as being a plank with strings on, which anyone could build, so I started building my own lap steels. After building dozens of them over more than fifty years I'm still convinced that a non-pedal solid lap steel is a plank with strings and a pick-up. The rest is cosmetic.

David M Brown · Post by **David M Brown** » 25 Nov 2016 8:09 am

Alan Brookes wrote: so I started building my own lap steels. After building dozens of them over more than fifty years I'm still convinced that a non-pedal solid lap steel is a plank with strings and a pick-up. The rest is cosmetic.

You know it!

But that's half the fun, these instruments are 2x4's with a pickup and strings.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 25 Nov 2016 10:35 am

I have to add that I was always impressed by the sound of those rich C6 full chord slides on Merrill E Moore's records by Jack Carpenter and Speedy West.

Don Barnhardt · Post by **Don Barnhardt** » 25 Nov 2016 3:11 pm

I was one of a half dozen teenage boys strumming flattops and trying to out sing each other. Needed a lead instrument. I spent a weeks wages on a lapsteel and amp. Dont remember what it was. I was working on the back of a John Deere combine tying grain sacks and it was hot as hell. I basically had to teach myself to play it but I became a lead musician. There's been a lot of bridge under the water since then but I've loved it.

Tom Gorr · Post by **Tom Gorr** » 25 Nov 2016 7:50 pm

EXCELLENT THREAD TOPIC!

I went through my teenage years with a six string electric and a rock n roll duty. .but started hanging in country music clubs in my early 20s and really enjoyed listening to the steel guitar. ... then met my now wife and one of our early dates was seeing Martina McBride live at the Calgary Stampede just as she started breaking through... about 1995? That got me thinking I would like that job. ..
My six string guitar gear got stolen from my apartment in 97 and ..I thought it was the universe telling me it was time to learn steel guitar. Here I am almost 20 years later and still trying.

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