thesteelguitarist.com - We're Back and need you

[Charley Bond]

Yep... I'm definitely interested. Lets make it work...

[Joey Andrews]

Hope you the best of luck and thanks for trying to keep Pedal Steel alive! Joey

[Ned Sokol]

great news !!!! im in,looking foward to the first issue

[John Mulligan]

Good luck with this new venture...I'm looking forward to it!

[Terry VunCannon]

Yes good luck with this.

[Bob Bestor]

This is big! Can't wait to see it.

[Stefan Robertson]

Thanks for the kind wishes all of you.

The 20 Beta testers are:

Jerry Overstreet
Michael Greer
Mark Eaton
Frank Markow
Stone Preston
Charlie Hansen
Bill Sutton
Johan Forsman
DG Whitley
Joe Ribaudo
Tony Oresteen
Sam Bishop
John Dahms
Jeff Metz Jr.
Frank James Pracher
David Knutson
Bob Tuttle
Dan Kimpel
Jeff Mead
Michael James

Don't despair as you can still get involved as I will be looking for creative ideas and creative approaches/advice to getting this off the ground. so if you are really keen drop me an email.

Thanks guys.

[Nate Hofer]

Cool! Can I be 21? Or I can pay. I don't care!

[J Hollenberg]

Sounds very interesting.
All the best to you.

[Jim Williams]

Best of luck with this...this beautiful instrument needs to be kept alive and in the public eye. If there is any way I can help, let me know.

[Michael Butler]

sounds like a great idea. good luck!!

play music!

[Ben Waligoske]

Not sure how many folks replied already, but I'm down to check it out if you still need feedback!

[b0b]

I really want it to be the exact annual subscription model as it was originally. $12 a year for 12 issues.

Only 6 issues were published. I don't think it was ever offered at "$12 a year for 12 issues", but I could be wrong. The first issue (January 1979) had a cover price of $1.50.

You can still buy the original magazines directly from Tom Bradshaw or from the Steel Guitar Forum store.

[Stefan Robertson]

I really want it to be the exact annual subscription model as it was originally. $12 a year for 12 issues.

Only 6 issues were published. I don't think it was ever offered at "$12 a year for 12 issues", but I could be wrong. The first issue (January 1979) had a cover price of $1.50.

You can still buy the original magazines directly from Tom Bradshaw or from the Steel Guitar Forum store.

Sorry it was published Quarterly and each publication was listed at $1.25 plus the $5 membership rate. Back issues cost $2 each.

[Tom Bradshaw]

I applaud Stefan’s desire (as I read it) to launch an on-line “Steel Guitarist” magazine. I wish him and his e-magazine all the success possible. I use the word “possible,” since two such prior ventures failed, even during the time that I consider the “golden age” of our instrument. I was one of those failures. The other was Russell Rask.

In my case, the only thing that paid for the 6 issues I produced was the sale of items from my PSG Products mail order business. Those sales were still insufficient to sustain the magazine. During the magazines publication days, I printed 15,000 copies of each issue. As most know, among the many items I donated to this Forum (records, tapes, CD’s, instructional materials, etc.) back in about 2005, I included most of the remaining inventory of the magazines. Bob Lee and I have been trying to sell those remaining copies ever since. There are still many yet to sell, thus revealing how few new players have arose since publishing ended in 1984. I know that my accumulation of steel guitarists (around 30,000) has not increased since it reached that total in the mid-‘80s. Maybe though, all the newcomers just aren’t interested in knowing what those issues contained, even though that information is nearly as relevant to players today as when it first appeared in print. But let me move on.

My desire for the survival of such a publication was soon taken over by Russell Rask and his “Steel Guitar World” magazine. When he discussed his desire to perpetuate my effort with those of his own, I warned him not to do it, emphasizing that it would not survive and could become a financial disaster for him. He didn’t heed my advice. The outcome was as I predicted. Although well-intentioned and after making a noble effort with about 3 times the number of issues that I published, his venture actually bankrupted him.

Fortunately for us all, Bob Lee soon inaugurated the Steel Guitar Forum. In my opinion, it offers everything (if not more) than a magazine would; offering instant feed-back, but nearly devoid of advertisements.

Our instrument is in decline and has been for about 25 years. I’m aware of the many causes for this and will probably write about the reasons (and how to turn it around) at some future time. I decided that a couple of ways to stoke the interest now would be to make my old magazines a FREE download from my web site, just as I recently did with a 90+ page article on chord construction. To initiate Stefan’s similar desire for increasing that interest, I told him about my plan to have all the back issues of “Steel Guitarist” digitized and available on my web site for free downloading. He agreed to get involved. He and I realized that the amount of work would likely require a committee of volunteers to accomplish. I hope enough volunteers can be pooled to complete what Stefan and I want to accomplish: a growing interest in the steel guitar through the dissemination of entertaining and educational information. …Tom

[Jerry Overstreet]

Been 2 years. Anybody ever hear anything else about this?

[Bill McCloskey]

Stephan kind of disappeared. I notice his web site is down and he deleted his twitter account

[Roger Rettig]

Who's playing 'When Sunny Gets Blue' in the second link of the OP?

Could be Mr Jernigan? Whoever it is, it's beautiful.

[Bill Cunningham]

Who's playing 'When Sunny Gets Blue' in the second link of the OP?

Could be Mr Jernigan? Whoever it is, it's beautiful.

It's from Jernigan's "Plays Jazz Standards". All the tunes except this one and maybe one more are just Doug with Brent Mason playing rhythm on an L-5 with the occasional electric solo.

[Roger Rettig]

Thank you, Bill!

Can you believe I actually have this CD but have yet to play it?? That can happen when something arrives in the mail at a busy time and it slips one's mind.

Now to find it in my vast collection here.

[Roger Rettig]

Ooops - no I don't!

[Roger Rettig]

Bill:

Do you have a track listing for that CD, please?