Johhny Paycheck / Steel Player / Apartment #9

John Palumbo · Post by **John Palumbo** » 27 Mar 2022 6:08 pm

For the real country music fans a really nice steel break on this classic (Apartment #9)
Not sure who the steel player is though?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvuTxyYzKE0

Mitch Ellis · Post by **Mitch Ellis** » 27 Mar 2022 8:28 pm

yes, that is a really nice steel break! Is that a Lashley Lagrande he's playing? I really like the tone.

Mitch

Kenny Davis · Post by **Kenny Davis** » 27 Mar 2022 8:45 pm

Could it be Leonard Bick?

Joe Krumel · Post by **Joe Krumel** » 28 Mar 2022 6:02 am

Nice post John. Man,,that tone!!

Bill Ferguson · Post by **Bill Ferguson** » 28 Mar 2022 6:11 am

I don't recognize the steeler.

But man, wouldn't you hate to be on the OPRY, cameras fixed on you and make a blunder?

Just shows we are all human.

John Palumbo · Post by **John Palumbo** » 28 Mar 2022 7:34 am

Bill Ferguson wrote:I don't recognize the steeler.

But man, wouldn't you hate to be on the OPRY, cameras fixed on you and make a blunder?

Just shows we are all human.

Ain't that the truth Bill

Chris Templeton · Post by **Chris Templeton** » 28 Mar 2022 7:45 am

When I worked for Bobbe Seymour, in the late 80s, at Steel Guitar World/Nashville/etc. , he did some roadwork for Johnny.
I wish I still had that tape he gave me.
My favorite song on it was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRLozwejDk

Mitch Ellis · Post by **Mitch Ellis** » 28 Mar 2022 11:23 am

Actually, I enjoyed the blunder. (Had I been on the seat, I'm sure that I would feel different though.)

We live in a world where so many things are not real anymore. The blunder told me that I was listening to real music, not a recording. It probably put a knot in his stomach and made him grit his teeth.

That's what it does to me.

It's all part of the fun and excitement of playing music in front of a crowd. It was a fine steel ride blunder and all. And man what a tone! I've already asked this, but can anyone tell what kind of Emmons he's playing? Is it a Lagrande?

Mitch

Bill Cunningham · Post by **Bill Cunningham** » 28 Mar 2022 3:22 pm

As blunders go those weren’t bad. The guitar player gave him a look on the first one where the notes were just wrong and the second was just a miss. Wish I could control my nerves to do that well!!! And a great tone as others have said.

Did anybody else notice the perfect doubling effect the fiddle player was using? As perfect an effect as I have heard. I kept looking for other fiddlers.

John Palumbo · Post by **John Palumbo** » 29 Mar 2022 2:18 am

Thanks all for the comments!

Kevin Mincke · Post by **Kevin Mincke** » 29 Mar 2022 11:35 am

Maybe Jay Andrews...

John Palumbo · Post by **John Palumbo** » 30 Mar 2022 6:05 am

Kevin Mincke wrote:Maybe Jay Andrews...

Kevin, I'm thinking the same. Thanks

David Mitchell · Post by **David Mitchell** » 30 Mar 2022 6:11 pm

Johnny didn't care. I've seen him so drunk on stage he couldn't even speak let alone sing. The band was dying laughing, At Cowboys. Biggest Honky Tonk in Dallas. He was just setting in. Lol!
I did that when Brad Maul was filming a band I played for for his cable TV show. For other reasons they shot the two featured songs again and I played it beautifully and quite proud of that take. I was copying what Steve Hinson had played on Crystal Sands albums. Crystal was a young good looking hard country singer that could have been the female George Strait but decided she would rather be like her friend Taylor Swift. She told the band one night she didn't want to spend the rest of her life in a honky tonk so she left Texas and went home to Baltimore. She had Texas oil millionaires backing her paying for everything. What a waste. Anyway I told Brad please air the second take because I royally screwed up the first one. Quess what? He aired the horrible one. I had to turn it off. Couldn't watch it. Here's the song I messed the steel break up on and the band followed me mistakes and all like that's the way the song went. Lol!. I don't know how Crystal knew how to come back in. Crystal wrote this song and many other good ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKz1mauh5-k

John Palumbo · Post by **John Palumbo** » 30 Mar 2022 6:51 pm

That was really nice David!

David Mitchell · Post by **David Mitchell** » 30 Mar 2022 7:10 pm

John Palumbo wrote:That was really nice David!

Thanks John! I really enjoyed working with Crystal. Still a good friend. Steve Hinson did some really nice steel and Dobro work on that album.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 31 Mar 2022 5:20 am

Lets be clear, they are not blunders or wrong notes, they are just phrases and notes for a different song

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 31 Mar 2022 10:00 am

Tony Prior wrote:Lets be clear, they are not blunders or wrong notes, they are just phrases and notes for a different song

I agree. I think it all worked out just fine. Jay Andrews is one of the most soulful players in Nashville. He's from Rhode Island originally. Last time I saw Jay was at the Midnight Jamboree when Dicky Overbey was playing. We weren't playing just spectators along with many more steel players and other musicians that came out to see Dickey. I think Jay plays a mid-70's Emmons guitar. He can sure get the tone and his playing fit Johnny so well. Here's another Opry video with a great Paycheck performance. Johnny's brother Jeff on guitar

https://youtu.be/TDFCvfh-Dj8

RC

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 31 Mar 2022 12:22 pm

It was just a little jazz line. Nothing wrong with that!

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 31 Mar 2022 3:32 pm

Really nice tone, and a nice mix too!
Shame they can't do this kind of stuff on recordings anymore.

Why? Because they've traded "capturing a sound" for re-engineering it, and re-imagining it, and it almost never turns out very well.

Pity. People are still making good music, but not a damn fool in Nashville knows how to record it.

Dale Rottacker · Post by **Dale Rottacker** » 1 Apr 2022 6:01 am

Blunder/Jazz aside the opening of that ride was KILLER. Wish the very beginning had been on camera. Gonna try to figure it out. That opening was really cool.

Chris Clem · Post by **Chris Clem** » 1 Apr 2022 6:20 am

It is worth noting when Johnny starts the video he says "we wrote this". The story I heard is Apt #9 was written by Bobby Austin and Johnny Paycheck wrote just one line and sang the harmony part on the original recording. The Bobby Austin original recording was done at Tally Records in 1966 with Ralph Mooney playing Steel.

Here is the Booby Austin original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2biYdyIgneo

John Palumbo · Post by **John Palumbo** » 1 Apr 2022 8:46 am

Wow, Thanks again all.

Great information!!

Paul Wade · Post by **Paul Wade** » 1 Apr 2022 3:59 pm

Dale Rottacker wrote:Blunder/Jazz aside the opening of that ride was KILLER. Wish the very beginning had been on camera. Gonna try to figure it out. That opening was really cool.

Dale please share would like to learn that
Riff...
Pw

Kevin Mincke · Post by **Kevin Mincke** » 2 Apr 2022 6:54 am

Dale Rottacker wrote:Blunder/Jazz aside the opening of that ride was KILLER. Wish the very beginning had been on camera. Gonna try to figure it out. That opening was really cool.

I believe the intro is similar to a riff or style Lloyd Green first used called “shotgunning” catching the same note on a diff string as you go up the neck. Did a search but couldn’t t find much, maybe someone else will jump in.

Darrell Criswell · Post by **Darrell Criswell** » 3 Sep 2022 3:38 pm

Chris Clem wrote:It is worth noting when Johnny starts the video he says "we wrote this". The story I heard is Apt #9 was written by Bobby Austin and Johnny Paycheck wrote just one line and sang the harmony part on the original recording. The Bobby Austin original recording was done at Tally Records in 1966 with Ralph Mooney playing Steel.

Here is the Booby Austin original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2biYdyIgneo

According to wikipedia: "Apartment No. 9" (also referred to as "Apartment #9") is a song written by Fern Foley, Fuzzy Owen and Johnny Paycheck.