Amos Sheehan wrote:Hey You’s! I wonder if anyone can point me in the direction of the worlds leading contemporary C6 pedal players???
Any style of music so please incude players that play D10’s
By contemporary/modern you mean "alive today" or playing or having played modern music, beyond Jazz Standards, Swing, Western Swing and "Steel-Guitar-Jazz" tunes most everybody has played in the past?
I think that one that complies with both is Paul Franklin. He can play modern music in many fields on both necks. He would be my first pick.
To mention a few more that come to mind:
Joaquin Murphey/Murphy "aka. Murph" did some often ignored ground breaking work all thru his "woking" times. Some still today eye-opening.
I feel that Maurice Anderson in the 6th tuning was and continued to be quite "modern", playing with real Jazz ensembles... sadly only heard like that mostly around Dallas thou.
Julian Tharpe was VERY modern in the 60's/70's. At times somewhat difficult to listen too and maybe too "experimental" for some. But worth while listening to.
Curly Chalker was modern and "deep" in his later times too, and very different that most others. Not "Easy Listening" but worth while digging into anyways.
Bobbe Seymore was very modern and unique and pleasant on his E9th in his heydays, doing Pop when steelers still made a solid living off Country.
King BE evidently did it all back in the times. I still feel his 1962 "Steel Guitar Jazz" album had tunes that were genuine Jazz, and Be/HardBop and a fitting answer to the new Jazz ideas set forth by Miles Davis' 1959 "Kind Of Blue" modern true Jazz album for it's time, played on a still quite basic BE-C6th-setup ShoBud... and there is not much I hear which has topped that work. BE, evidently went into Pop and pretty much everything in the 70's, but turned back to more traditional Western Swing and Standards (SOR Swing-Shift-Albums) in his later years.
Dough Jernigan, is a tremendous player and his C6th is not only fast but complex and he knows every chord and note and degree of what ever he is blazing thru. And he can do it on an 8-string Fender non-pedal too!
Gene O'Neal, while living off Nashville was in his later years very unique and modern. There is however only few glimpses in his standalone playing on youtube.
John Heinrich laid down the first "credible" version of Take Five I've heard (available on youtube)... he too roamed into "the other stuff", most other steelers did not seem to show much interest in.
Lesser known, Dan Jones (Standard Deviations... on youtube too) is one of my personal favorites to listen to. I feel his approach is modern yet pleasant while still fitting the instrument's unique capabilities.
This is NOT an EXCLUSIVE list... so, not to disregard those I have not mentioned.
BUT, one thing that unites most of these players is, that while some jammed together at the infamous meetings "at Buddy's" back when the instrument was being invented, most will mention having listened to GUITAR Jazz musician preceding them or of their times when they developed their art.
Joe Pass being mentioned OFTEN (just as an example). BE mentioned Pat Martino, PF Lenny Breau, Maurice Barney Kessel... etc.
I must say, that while I will never be in the league of the aforementioned heroes of ours, I have all but stopped listening much to steel players for influence or guidance.
I rather prefer to derive my efforts from mostly key-players (because usually they KNOW their stuff and on video they CAN show it so one can see it) and also guitar players, but not as much as I have come to listen to Jazz flute and Sax players (the latest being an hint from none less than BE). I have completely stopped any efforts of emulating other steel players. Been there - tried that. I finally had to remind myself that it was the wrong approach.
Hospitality Marketing "Guru" Tom Feltenstein, whom I worked with in his last years and whom we lost in 2020 once told me:
"Too many waste their looking at what successful people DO, instead of looking at what they DID to become successful!".
And thus a good idea, is to look at what influences they studied and make ones own modern interpretation of it.
Just a few days ago, our "LandLord" B0b just threw Steely Dan's Josie at me. NOT my musical field at all. I had heard the tune in the past, but it's not been my bag, so until B0b came up with a challenging question about the chord sequences played within, I never had given it more attention than maybe getting up and moving the radio's dial further.
I must say, I quickly came in awe for the playing behind the singing. It's full of what I lovingly call "Maurice Chords & Sequences". So, it grabbed my attention and has kept me busy for the past few days recovering from a surgery in Colombia.
Trying to answer B0b's request for ideas, has given me so many insights and new uses of chords I've been playing and things I heard elsewhere I could not quite put my finger on how to use. I even discovered a man by the name of Donald Fagen, whom's mere existence I just totally ignored... and while the music he produced is still not "my bag", I've only been learning from what I have found so far and you and Mr. Fagen can bet their "you-know-what" that I will build much this into may playing my own way.
Just thoughts and difficult to explain OPINIONS!... J-D.
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