Greg Leisz

Ake Banksell · Post by **Ake Banksell** » 10 Dec 2020 10:46 am

A couple of days ago I uploaded some great stuff with Greg backing up Jackson Browne on my youtube channel. Sneakey Pete Kleinow played on the original from 1973 but this sounds cleaner and better to me.
https://youtu.be/TzD09nfSYKI

Tucker Jackson · Post by **Tucker Jackson** » 10 Dec 2020 11:07 am

Agreed. It's a tricky thing to cover an iconic steel part, especially by somebody like Sneaky Pete whose feel and tone is a little unique. On a really classic song, you have to be close enough to the original to evoke it, but play something new so you're not just copying. So, yeah... keep it the same, but make it different. Liesz totally walked that fine line. Extra points for getting that phase shifter dialed in so faithfully to the original.

Fish · Post by **Fish** » 10 Dec 2020 11:25 am

Brilliant!

Kevin Fix · Post by **Kevin Fix** » 10 Dec 2020 2:47 pm

That was a breath of fresh air!!! Awesome!!!

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 10 Dec 2020 4:05 pm

"cleaner and better" than what Sneaky Pete played on the original??.. uh, no....
However it was lovely playing from one of the greats..
It reflected much of the spirit of Pete's playing, without being an outright copy.

Seems like Greg liked what Pete did in the original, and kept a good portion of it intact, to go along with his own great playing, and eloquent style... The song itself was a hybrid of Jackson's version and the Eagle version, both of which are wonderful pieces that sound as fresh today as they did 47-48 years ago.. I REALLY liked it. bob

Paul Stauskas · Post by **Paul Stauskas** » 11 Dec 2020 1:46 pm

Thanks a lot for uploading this clip!

Steve Mueller · Post by **Steve Mueller** » 12 Dec 2020 8:08 pm

I found that a while back and really loved it. Greg L nails it as he usually does. I think "For Everyman" is JB's best album.

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 13 Dec 2020 10:48 am

Me too! Greg said he used a GarageTone "Oil Can" phase shifter on that.

Tucker Jackson · Post by **Tucker Jackson** » 13 Dec 2020 3:46 pm

Good info, Jim. And thanks for being the "Greg Whisperer," since he doesn't post on the Forum. We often have questions...

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 13 Dec 2020 3:50 pm

He is a great guy and wealth of information and a bit of an historian for music from the 60's on.

Brooks Montgomery · Post by **Brooks Montgomery** » 13 Dec 2020 4:33 pm

How about that ending....really nice

Jim Pitman · Post by **Jim Pitman** » 14 Dec 2020 5:43 pm

That's Val McCallum on the right playing the blonde Tele. Yes, He's David McCallum's son...you know Ducky on NCIS, and formerly played Illya Kuryakin in the television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Val is a great singer/song writer in his own right and a wonderful humble guy. He lives here in VT. I got the chance to jam with him. He's quite the player.
...and of course Greg....wow.

Steve Knight · Post by **Steve Knight** » 15 Dec 2020 11:10 am

What a great band. Thank you for posting that.

Greg is playing with Bob Weir and Wolf Brothers on New Year's Eve. It's a streaming show, tickets required.

https://stream.fans.live/collections/20 ... -wolf-bros

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 16 Dec 2020 3:29 am

Another great group in a different genre with Greg's great ensemble work. Their CD is excellent too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMSVYi4FD5o

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 16 Dec 2020 1:07 pm

When the clip first came out in 2014, I watched it like 20 times. It wasn't part of the regular broadcast that night (I watched the show). Then for some reason CBS took it down and I couldn't find it anywhere online again until fairly recently.

The outro in particular is simply one of the most beautiful things I had heard in years. The interplay is phenomenal among the band and at the end between Greg, Val and Jackson - it almost has me in tears. Sort of reminds me of how Brian Wilson has commented in the past that the part of California Girls he is most proud of is the instrumental intro prior to the beginning of the vocals.

I loved Dave's comment at the end about how "anywhere else you'd have to pay 400 dollars for this - tonight it's on me!"

Jackson missed it because he was talking to Paul Shaffer. No doubt he got a kick out of that when he saw it later.

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 16 Dec 2020 1:27 pm

Listen to the same cut on For Everyman - they pretty much copied that on the show and it was that particular ride between the songs (Take It Easy and Our Lady of the Well)that got me started wanting to play the pedal steel in he early 70's - David Lindley, Jackson, and Sneaky Pete created a magic moment for sure.

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 16 Dec 2020 1:52 pm

Every year (except for this one due to the pandemic) I attend the massive Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. One of my all time favorite sets was Jackson and Greg as a duo at The Rooster Stage in 2016, and Shawn Colvin came out for a few songs as well. Greg switched among lap steel, weissenborn, pedal steel, and guitar. Hardly Strictly films a lot of the sets that one can view on the website archives, but they weren't shooting video at this particular stage that year.

Not great quality, but nevertheless
a nice effort from an audience member on These Days. Check out in particular Greg's take on David Lindley's lap steel break at the 1:40 mark:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nsngQAzOpWA

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 22 Jan 2021 12:28 pm

I've been fortunate to call Greg a friend and I usually put him to work when he drops by. Recently he was in and while I was working on one of his guitars I asked him to put a track or two on some songs I was messing with in conjunction with a few friends that used to get together at my shop just to play music that we liked using GarageBand as the format in that we no longer lived near each other. Some examples can be found here on songs like Let It Ride, It Ain't Over Yet, Road To Ensenada,etc.

Mike Bacciarini · Post by **Mike Bacciarini** » 24 Jan 2021 6:20 am

Gregâ€™s got such feel and chops. But I must say, Jim, the music you guys have made on the BandCamp link is some of the nicest and most enjoyable stuff Iâ€™ve heard in a long time. Nice vocals too!

https://jddj.bandcamp.com/

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 24 Jan 2021 8:33 am

Thanks Mike

Steve Cattermole · Post by **Steve Cattermole** » 24 Jan 2021 11:08 am

For sure Greg is one of the greats, but I'm knocked out by the music Pali, Dennis,and friends are making.Really clean with great steel playing by Pali and Greg, and really nice vocals also. Keep up the great work, you guys are killing it

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 24 Jan 2021 12:07 pm

I bow to your wisdom

- thx for the kind words Catt

John Larson · Post by **John Larson** » 25 Jan 2021 7:07 am

Greg's playing on Whiskytown's "Dancing With the Women at the Bar" and Bon Iver's "Beth/Rest" are two of my favorite pedal steel tracks ever.