"Fooled Around and Fell In Love" - Elvin Bishop steeler?

[Ben Waligoske]

Hey SGF,

The usual "who's the steeler" question here, but looking for an old cut... Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love"...

Any ideas? Tried searching both the forum and Google but wasn't finding anything concrete. I've got the song coming up on a gig later this month and figured I'd like to know who played on the cut in the first place, it's a nice steel part...

[Jerry Overstreet]

It's a great song for pedal steel, but believe it or not, there is no steel on the recording according to an earlier forum discussion. It was another guitar player playing with a volume pedal and someone else sang the song. Oddly, Elvin Bishop himself was hardly noticeable on probably his biggest hit.

Here's a quote from an old thread that addresses the subject.

Mike,

Elvin's old drummer replied to a myspace message and this is what he says:

"dave, howdy and thanks for the kind words. actually no one played pedal steel on "fooled around...", that was
johnny v (vernazza) playing with the harmonics and a volume pedal on his 6 string .he saw chet atkins doing it the night before on the tonite show and decided he'd try it out.the rest is history. peace gary"

[Ian Worley]

TG Sheppard did a countrified version that had a prominent steel in it

[Jeff Garden]

Or you could hunt down the young lady in Rod Stewart's live version of it...at least it would be a good excuse to meet her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4RmgDa5_dI

[Joachim Kettner]

Jerry Overstreet wrote:

...It was another guitar player playing with a volume pedal and someone else sang the song.

I believe that it was Mickey Thomas.

[Bob Russell]

Johnny Vernazza played the slide parts in question; Mickey Thomas sang the lead vocal.

[Steve Hinson]

Yep,Johnny"V"Vernazza played those"steel"parts on the record in question.

Great stuff!

[Jerry Overstreet]

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... t=#1441881

In this 2009 thread about 8 posts down the page, forumite Jonathan Neher states he toured with Bishop. He may have something to add concerning adding pedal steel parts.

[Lee Warren]

Hi Ben,
If it helps, I think Mickey Adams may have done a short video on this song, with ideas of how to cover the parts.
It's pretty straight forward, tasteful stuff.
Lee

[Scott Baker]

Or you could hunt down the young lady in Rod Stewart's live version of it...at least it would be a good excuse to meet her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4RmgDa5_dI

No Picks and and a Shubb-type bar?

[Jeff Garden]

pick-y, pick-y, pick-y, Scott....I'm fully prepared to give her a LOT of slack on her musical abilities (or lack thereof):)In "Who'll Stop The Rain?", the Rod Stewart youtube video after "Fooled Around", I notice she's "playing" an acoustic guitar.

[Ian Worley]

Or you could hunt down the young lady in Rod Stewart's live version of it...at least it would be a good excuse to meet her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4RmgDa5_dI

No Picks and and a Shubb-type bar?

And playing a Maverick! It's obviously a lip-sync job but I'm with Jeff, I'd much rather watch her than some old fat bald guy with picks and a bullet bar.

[Jeff Garden]

Which is exactly why they didn't ask me to play on the video, Ian She's definitely a babe!

[Richard Sinkler]

Or you could hunt down the young lady in Rod Stewart's live version of it...at least it would be a good excuse to meet her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4RmgDa5_dI

No Picks and and a Shubb-type bar?

And playing a Maverick! It's obviously a lip-sync job but I'm with Jeff, I'd much rather watch her than some old fat bald guy with picks and a bullet bar.

[Lee Warren]

Hi again Ben,
Here's a You Tube link to Mickey Adams giving his insight into this song.
I hope it helps.
Lee
https://youtu.be/_OOPZzDLTMA

[Ben Waligoske]

Yikes - I don't know what happened to the last few days but I completely spaced checking on this thread. Great info everyone! I did find the video Mickey posted and there's some cool ideas in there - looking forward to playing this tune, and what a trip there's not actually a pedal steel on the record!? Who'd've thought???

[Fred Treece]

I was going to ask about this tune but decided to search instead and sure enough, the goods are already here.

I am not surprised it’s not pedal steel on the intro, since the volume technique is more guitar playerish than a steel player’s. It’s not slide guitar, or at least there is nothing slidey about it to my ear. The notes that finish of the lick are pretty standard bends. I just wonder if the harmonized harmonics were tracked separately or if Johnny recorded them as double-stops, which would take a considerable amount of Gatton/Atkins-level skill.

Elvin played the iconic guitar solo, so his presence is definitely present on the song.

[Dave Hopping]

See? Even the six-stringers who don't know they want to play steel....want to play steel!

[Bob Carlucci]

Or you could hunt down the young lady in Rod Stewart's live version of it...at least it would be a good excuse to meet her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4RmgDa5_dI

Can you imagine a "real" pedal steel player that looked like that?.. All those T shirt/cowboy hat wearing "modern country" posers that use no steel at all in their "music" would be FIGHTING to get a pedal steel in the band.

[Dennis Lee]

Does it count if I dated the drummers sister?

[Ken Pippus]

The young lady in question may be on to something. Not only is a Stevens bar lighter, think how much time and weight you can save by not bothering with a pedal bar!

[David Langdon]

The young lady in Rod's video is Robin Ruddy (think i spelled it right) she's a multi instrumentalist and toured with Rod. She's a good pedal steel player and I think the Maverick is only a video prop.