Please help ID this steel player on Opry ca. 1959

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 15 Aug 2020 8:40 am

Can anybody ID this steel player next to Billy Byrd Opry ca. 1959? Thanks, as always, for any help.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 15 Aug 2020 10:17 am

I thought for a split second it might be Dickie Harris, but no.

Is he this guy:

Bill Fisher · Post by **Bill Fisher** » 15 Aug 2020 11:40 am

It looks like Don Warden, to me. But I've never seen him play that kind of steel.

Bill

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 15 Aug 2020 1:15 pm

Mitch, Thanks again. That's him! Can you provide where your photo is from? Maybe I can trace it from the context.

Mitch, while I have your attention, do you know this singer at the mic is? Rusty Gabbard, to his left, was back on the band 1955-1958. Thanks again

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 15 Aug 2020 3:45 pm

Can't place the guy at the mike.

How are you at reading guitar straps? Does that say "Ernest"??

You are surer of the steel player than I am.

He is ex-Hoyle Nix, ex-Benny Leaders, ex-Jerry Jericho, ex-Hank Thompson.

Dusty Stewart.

Here he is with Jericho's band in Houston.

And with Hoyle around 1964:

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 15 Aug 2020 5:44 pm

Yes - Dusty Stewart it is - and wearing the same shirt Opry and in your Jerry Jericho photo. Thanks very much. Very helpful.

re: ET guitar strap. ET would let people play his guitar on the Record Shop. There are a couple photos: Charley Walker, etc.

Great photos and info on Dusty Stewart. If I ID singer I will post it here. I've run across him before and remember he was an Rockabilly artist who released records and worked package shows. He was not an unknown which Tubb would get up, too. Thanks again.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 16 Aug 2020 3:34 am

Yeah, I guess that is Dusty---I wasn't sure, but I had totally overlooked the shirt matching.

The other guy: I neglected to look through my rockabilly folder.

80% chance it's either Bill Browning or Buck Griffin; 20% somebody else??

Browning out of Ohio; Island label ("Borned With The Blues"); Buck out of Kansas; recorded for Lin and MGM ("Meadowlark Boogie"; "Watchin' The 7:10 Roll By").

Both of them fabulous artists; wish I'da been in that room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB7RbIqgyQw

Great guitar break on the above. Who dat?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yswdS2Bzr4g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_UV8YdevL4

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 16 Aug 2020 7:21 am

10-4 on these two artists. I just did a YouTube dive on Bill Browning. He's great - great records and great guitar.

re: ID Browning is holding his left and and right hand the same: your color photo as the B&W Midnite Jamboree photo. The hair is also the same. He also released on Starday in 1959, the approx. time of the B&W Midnite Jamboree photo. Still not conclusive so agree with your 80% assessment.

I just found out, in the 50's, Wayne Moss was a membner of Browning's Echo Valley Boys and we are contacting him. Hopefully he will respond and I will update. Thanks again very much.

Norman Evans · Post by **Norman Evans** » 16 Aug 2020 2:23 pm

Could the steel player be Tony Farr?
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CH ... MuC5SLi_DM

https://music.metason.net/artistinfo?na ... l%20Guitar

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 16 Aug 2020 4:18 pm

Norman Davis, Thanks for replying and thinking of Tony Farr. Probably not a match because the Hoyle Nix (and especially the Jerry Jericho photos are an almost definite match. The Opry photo (ca. 1958) is a little before Tony Farr's time. Farr was still active when I came to town in 1981 and he had his own band for a long time. Appreciate your response.

George Duncan Sypert · Post by **George Duncan Sypert** » 16 Aug 2020 4:26 pm

I don't think the steel player is Tony Farr. I met him at the Hogan Club in Colorado Springs one night and I think he was playing with George Kent but don't remember for sure. Anyway, had him over for fried chicken dinner for a visit on one of his trips through the Springs. I have two of his Albums that he gave me. He also gave me a few tips on playing steel as I was green as a gourd and probably still am. I am sure it was in December of 1964 because while I was talking to him a fellow came up and asked if I played steel guitar. I told him no, but I owned one.

He had me come over for a little audition on the following Tuesday and hired me. I could only play Release Me. All of my solo's sounding like Release Me. I played with him on New Years Eve that year and never looked back.

Don't think it is Tony Farr.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 16 Aug 2020 4:41 pm

I don't think it's Tony either, but he had a good sound.

This is from 1957 or 1958. Beaumont I think. I guess that is him singing while playing. Twin those guitars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=469n1h63ujA

John LeMaster · Post by **John LeMaster** » 16 Aug 2020 5:22 pm

To me, the steel picker in that first photo has a resemblance to a young Walter Haynes.

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 18 Aug 2020 12:53 pm

John LeMaster, Thanks for your reply and Walter Haynes does have similar features. By 1959, the year of my photo, Haynes had been playing pedal steel for 5 or more years. Your photo is ca. 1954 when Haynes was with Dickens. Haynes quit the road in mid 1955 and, by 1959, was a Nashville session player and would have been playing a Sho-Bud. By the 60's was also appearing on WSM-TV's "Pet Milk Grand Ole Opry" and starting to produce records.

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 19 Aug 2020 11:57 am

Mitch Drumm, Wayne Moss responded re: Bill Browning: "Yes I worked with him for 2-1/2 years at WWVA in Wheeling West Virginia - others in the band were Lazy Jim Day who formerly worked with Hank seÃ±or. . ."

Regards my question if that was Bill Browning in the "Midnite Jamboree" photo, Wayne said: "I don't think so."

So this is as answer that will turn up randomly while looking for something else. Thanks to all for responding and sorry for taking up so much Forum real estate on such an obscure matter.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 19 Aug 2020 12:58 pm

Did Wayne say if he recorded with Bill...????

Particularly on "Borned With The Blues"--or can he hazard a guess?

It's likely from early 58. Wayne's tenure?

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 21 Aug 2020 11:26 am

Mitch, Wayne responded. He is not the guitar player on "Borned With The Blues."

There were countless hot country guitar players around the country that didn't make it or choose to go to Nashville. If they did - they adapted to the commercial needs of the Nashville recording business. It's all good. We can still listen to Bill Browning records and we can also study how someone like Wayne Moss or Grady Martin or Pete Wade or . . . . and hear come up with unforgettable parts on records. Sometimes these lines can be only 3 notes but they enter our DNA.

Country music seems to be an endless well of great music. I had never heard of Bill Browning.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 21 Aug 2020 3:09 pm

Thanks for that, Robert.

Yeah, itâ€™s confusingâ€¦â€¦â€¦it looks like there were 2 country artists operating out of Ohio in the mid to late 50s under the name â€œBill Browningâ€, one of them sometimes billed as Bill â€œZekieâ€ Browning.

Bill (Wilmer L. Browning, Wayne Mossâ€™ bandleader) born in 1931 in Wayne County, West Virginia. Died in West Virginia in 1977 or 1978. His band, the Echo Valley Boys, originally consisted of Art Fulks, Merl Hoaf, Jackie Wooten, Roy Barker and Marshall Looney. One of them (or Bill himself) is likely the guitarist on â€œBorned With The Bluesâ€. Apparently based in Cleveland from 1955 on.

Zekie: born 1925 in Hyden KY; died in 1998. His â€œSandy Valley Boysâ€ included future Nashville star Kenny Price, Don Boone, Nelson Young, Roy Marcum, Glen Scott, Dot Rice, and Herman Kress at various times. Based out of Cincinnati and had a 2 hour daily broadcast over WNOP in Newport, Ky circa 1959.

To add to the confusion, both Brownings recorded a song called â€œBreaking Heartsâ€, but they are different songs.

Hereâ€™s another pic of Bill;

Does he look more like your guy in the Tubb pic?

Did the young Gene Watson know he had a twin?

And Zekie:

Frank Freniere · Post by **Frank Freniere** » 22 Aug 2020 5:02 am

Mitch Drumm wrote: Hereâ€™s another pic of Bill;

Does he look more like your guy in the Tubb pic?

Did the young Gene Watson know he had a twin?

Chris Isaak, anyone?

robert kramer · Post by **robert kramer** » 22 Aug 2020 8:22 am

Mitch, Incredible photos! You know these band put on an act and sounded great. They all were moulded by early morning radio shows and appearances at radio barndances, school house concerts,car lot openings, County Fairs all the places where good rurul entertainment thrived.

"Does he look more like your guy in the Tubb pic?" He does not resemble the Midnite Jamboree singer but I'm glad I asked. Mitch, thanks again for these great photos. I'm still studying them.

The guy at the bar looks like he just got off the night shift in Houston and stopped off on his way home. He looks like he could sing about, too.

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Please help ID this steel player on Opry ca. 1959

Please help ID this steel player on Opry ca. 1959

Walter Haynes?