Gordon Huntley

admin · Post by **b0b** » 13 Jan 2022 3:32 pm

Matthews Southern Comfort's arrangement of "Woodstock" has some gorgeous pedal steel by Gordon Huntley.

https://youtu.be/qIHfuihoz70

Love the vintage double-tracked vocal effect, too.

Jon Zimmerman · Post by **Jon Zimmerman** » 14 Jan 2022 8:43 pm

A really gifted, innovator-player, b0b. He is on Wikipedia, which briefly details his life, accomplishments. Another one that Cancer took, all too soon.

Dave Zirbel · Post by **Dave Zirbel** » 14 Jan 2022 9:15 pm

Here he is live in 1970. He comes in around 11 and a half minutes and gets lots of close ups until he breaks a string at around 20 minutes.
https://youtu.be/ir4ZvTDPSlM

What brand of steel is he playing?

Les Wright · Post by **Les Wright** » 15 Jan 2022 2:19 am

On that video he was playing a Denley Steel (although the one shown was labelled Rose Morris who were marketing musical wholesale distributors}. Gordon along with a partner designed and built the steels which many UK players started off with. He later moved on to ZB steels for most of his career.

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 15 Jan 2022 7:33 am

Gordon's preference for the 'Day' set-up is the reason a disproportionate number of UK-based players followed his example.

In his later years, he worked for Eric Snowball at ESE Music in Maidstone, Kent. Eric was the first volume-importer of pedal steels (mostly ZBs, but some Emmons) in the early-1970s and it was Gordon who would set them up and 'demo' them. We who were new to the instrument didn't question it, of course, and took our new guitar home 'as it was'.

The 'Day' preference may not be a factor in the UK these days but, fifty years ago and thanks to Mr. Huntley, it was. Gordon was a lovely man and a thoroughly musical player. I was fortunate to know him.

Daniel Morris · Post by **Daniel Morris** » 15 Jan 2022 5:41 pm

Odd that they have to mention the '42 year old Gordon Huntley'.

I've been a fan of MSC since that album with WOODSTOCK.
Picked up the first 2 albums, then followed Southern Comfort after Matthews left. The FROG CITY album featured a lot of Gordon, including this instrumental:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcT_aji9uzw

Also on FROG CITY, a real country tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4wpA8OT8OE

The US version, sand musician credits:
https://www.discogs.com/release/2945842 ... -Frog-City