How did you come to play steel?

[Mick Hearn]

As a kid I used to love some of the Hawaiian sounds on the radio and from there early country music. I learned to play guitar and in 1960 joined a band and toured round a bit doing the music of the day.
In 1975 I was a full time cop and called in on a country dance where there was a beautiful twin neck ShoBud being played. Crawled on my hands and knees to look underneath and had a chat with the steel player. I was hooked from that moment, and two weeks later was sitting in with a band on a Guyatone 6 string.
I am still hooked.

[Pete Nicholls]

In the early 70's I was playing guitar for a living and loved the sound of a steel guitar so bought me one and a vinyl LP that was supposed to teach me to play it. Not getting immediate results, I soon gave up on it and went through life wishing I could play one, but resigned to the fact that I tried and failed. Then in the early 90's, I started visiting with an old buddy that I played music with in the late 60's, and he had switched from bass guitar to pedal steel. Over the years, he always challenged me to learn to play one and even offered to let me take one of his home and see what I could do with it. I always declined, then in April 2012 I had a heart attack and two stents placed and decided that it may be now or never. It was then that I accepted his offer to take one home. He loaded me up with study materials and within six months, had bought my own steel. I now play pedal steel with an 8 piece band and enjoying it so much. A huge thank you to my friend Bernie Kelley for getting me started.

[John Kwasnik]

Well, it was partly liking Jerry Byrd & Don Helms, but also all of the Hawaiian artists ... that being the roots of it all.

I just bought a Joe Morrell Pro 6-string, and am taking lessons, and grabbing books and online tabs. I want to accompany a ukulele meetup group which does a lot of Hawaiian songs, and also a folk guitar group heavy into Hank and Patsy.

[Adam Johnson]

My grandfather taught me how to play guitar, and decided he wanted to leave me his Fender deluxe 8. I finally decided to play C6 non pedal after I had it for several years. I now play E9 pedal steel and can’t get enough!

[David DeLoach]

I bought an Artie Traum book on how to play slide guitar when I was 15. It had a tear-out floppy 45 rpm record in it. I learned a few Elmore James licks from that.

When I was 17 the next step was buy a square neck stainless steel Dobro with palm trees etched on it. I ordered it new from a SMALL shop in Ft. Worth, TX and when they called me to say it had arrived, I drove there with the $350 (the total cost of the Dobro) stuffed in my sock - because I was nervous about carrying around that much cash. I still remember how when they opened the hard shell case that was lined in plush deep blue how beautiful that Dobro looked! I can still remember what it smelled like. I tuned it to open E and played Paradise by John Prine - and I was truly in Paradise.

[Frank Welsh]

Santo & Johnny's "Sleepwalk." Then I saw them on the Perry Como show and was hooked. Also the sounds of "Hawaii Calls."

[Nic Neufeld]

As a teenager I was heavy into progressive rock and Steve Howe was the first player I ever saw with a steel (Fender Stringmaster and Sho Bud D10). Loved the sound of his steel solo's on And You and I, To Be Over, and Going for the One.

Now that I think of it, this was me a bit too. Was a guitarist and bassist, a YES fanatic (a bit after their heyday, I was a teenager in the 90s), and also a bit of a gear addict, so at one point I bought a cheap Morrell lap steel just because I think I had the itch, it was cheap, and it seemed interesting (Howe's hauntingly beautiful playing on To Be Over, particularly). It sat in nonsensical EADGBE tuning for a decade until I chanced on Alfred Apaka's music. At that point, the Hawaiian sound had its hooks in me...

It was probably 7-8 years ago when I was trying to sort out which of two interesting instruments I should learn...sitar or steel guitar. I chose sitar, and did weekly lessons for years in Indian classical music. Feel a bit of shame how I've let it, errr, "slide". But my teacher had health issues so we stopped, and so then, I flipped over to steel guitar at long last.

[Norman Evans]

When I was about 10 years old, I bought a small transistor radio. The first evening I had it, I caught Wayne Raney on WCKY in Cincinatti, Ohio. The theme song was The Steel Guitar Rag. Wayne played some good country music on the show and I was listening every evening. I didn't know what the instrument playing the theme song was, but I loved the sound.

I was able to get a standard guitar and started learning to play. Fast forward 14 or so years, I met a gentleman that had played pro non-pedal steel for many years. After playing some together, I expressed that I would like to learn steel guitar. He left his Stringmaster with me to learn on and started helping me learn to play. Sadly, he passed on several years ago. Later I bought the Stringmaster from his family, it's the one in my avatar.

I moved on to pedal steel after a couple of years, but I still like to get the Fender out occasionally and have a go at it.

[Paul Honeycutt]

I grew up listening to country radio. My dad had one of the country stations set on the car radio as they also broadcast the horse races or at least the final race of the day. Papa liked to play the ponies. So the sound of steel was kind of ingrained.

My first good band had a steel player who I saw evolve through an acoustic with a raised nut played with a pan handle as a slide, to a console to a pedal steel.

I bought a National Tri-cone with a broken headstock from a friend and messed with it for a while, but let the steel player from the band mentioned above use it for a while.

Then I heard David Lindley. I was in a pawn shop in Santa Rosa, CA and there was a grey Rickenbacher on the wall. I bought it. I went through several lap steels and landed on a '47 National New Yorker.

I play underarm guitar more then steel and have a pedal steel player in my band. But I'm getting some fill in gigs on lap steel, so I stick with it. I'm restoring a National D-8, so I'll have to up my skill set to play it. I'll never be great, but I can be pretty good and as long as people don't throw things at me when I play, I figure that'll be good enough for me.

[Terry Winter]

When getting into my love for country music, my family was strongly into music, the Tom Brumley playing just blew me away....I loved it and it got me severely hooked on this instrument!

[Dom Franco]

Hawaiian Guitar Lessons were forced upon me, my parents paid good money so I was made to practice every day. I pretty much hated it but I went along with the program. Now fifty something years later I thank God every day that I learned to play this wonderful instrument.

It has enabled me to go where my standard guitar playing could never take me. (Nationwide travel, tours of Australia, Canada, Alaska... good paying gigs, studio work, radio and TV airplay etc.)