Impact of the Sacred Steel

Paul Crawford · Post by **Paul Crawford** » 23 Aug 2001 11:26 am

We've had some very interesting threads around here lately about Robert Randolph and the others in the Sacred Steel community. A lot of folks are going, "WOW" and few are going "yawn". In one of the other threads, some asked a very legitimate question, to paraphrase, "What effect is all the hype over Robert going to have on me?" Well, we could speculate of how many more calls we might get from kids looking to add that sound and style to their band, or how much the blues based style might infiltrate country music and Nashville. I personally think that either of those cases will be minimal. But I do think that the emergence of the Sacred Steel style in pop music will dramatically open up and give some freedom of expression to all steel guitar players, regardless of preferred style.

We've had endless threads about the Steel is stereo typed in the publics, and producers' mind. "Hit the chord and mash those A/B pedals, now that's Country!" "That long slow slide, that's what a steel guitar is all about!" Or worse yet, "It's just another guitar and good players make it sound like one." Geesh! If that's all there is to it, I wonder why we all still play, much less why anyone wants to hear it. Yet at the same time, we are one of the very few instruments that can do the same thing that makes the violin arguably the most accepted and versatile of instruments, we can emulate the human voice. If this is not the essence of the Sacred Steel Style, then it certainly a major part. On The Word album, the intro to the second song is a perfect example. Simple, pure steel with a heart felt sound that can bring a tear to your eye.

We've know forever that it was "possible" to master this technique. What I still consider the greatest single live performance in history was Emmons at the '77 convention where his guitar sang to world with an ebow. I was talking about that very cut with one of the Sacred Steelers this weekend, and he immediately reached down and pulled out HIS ebow. Having the steel guitar played with the freedom of the human voice is the master science of their art. And it's THAT component of Robert's playing that I think will set us free. The world is being shown not only how hot and fast the guitar can play, or how it can lead an instrumental mix, but how it sets itself apart from all other instruments. We have a greater tonal range than the violin, yet we can easily duplicate the expression of feelings. We've spent years "crying" with the steel, now we see a player "uplift" with his instrument's voice. That capability, long known by the players, may now be called for by the general public.

it's the single note solo style, "singing" with the guitar, that I think all steel players will need to know in the future. The Master Players have been capable of it for years, and perhaps now the producers will call on that talent. It's a new freedom from the stereotype, and I find it a welcome, exciting relief.

Robert Todd · Post by **Robert Todd** » 23 Aug 2001 12:31 pm

For one ting I think we're about to see the breakout of whole new genre of steelers. This music is much closer to Beele street in roots than Music Row.

I am happy for Robert Randloph but after listening to the sacred steel CDs, I've come to realize that he's one of many very good steel players that play with the fire of Albert King coupled with the soul of Clapton or Duane Allman.

The music on the CDs goes from a toe tapping boogie to another song which features screaming wailing glissandos and sustain that brings chills to my spine and goose bumps to my forearms and then I realized I was listening to Amazing Grace like I've never heard it before.

These players will reach an audience that most Country players won't get to and in time people will begin to blend the styles and many more people will know the Steel.

I see this as a potential watershed moment when a different musical branch adds a second wave of momentum. Coupled with lower cost entry level steels from Carter and others we may begin to see the Steel on TV a lot more often than we've been used to lately.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 23 Aug 2001 5:28 pm

If this "new style" of playing steel actually crosses over into the pop world, we will see a lot of young people taking up the instrument. That would be a very good thing, I think.

I've been playing the E7th tuning for the past few weeks and I have to say that it's a LOT easier to learn than E9th. It is closely related to the open E bottleneck tuning, and the arrangement of the low notes makes it easy to follow a chord progression by just grabbing a handful of strings and using two pedals (the "7th" pedal and the "minor" pedal).

You can play wonderful music on it, but it also reduces the learning curve for getting started. I think that most musically-inclined teens could be playing reasonable rock music on it (rhythm, anyway) in a month or two. This is a Very Good Thing, in my opinion. I sure hope it catches on.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
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Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 23 Aug 2001 6:40 pm

That's a really good point, b0b. A few weeks ago Chuck sat down and showed me a couple of basics in terms of pedals 2, 3 and 4 on that tuning, and in about a minute I could play a basic blues/rock and roll rhythm part, with voicings that sounded big and 'right'. With no finger picks. John Fabian is my witness, I did this in real time with him on the phone so I could show him how accessible this tuning is for a guitar player.

This is a really well thought out tuning, I've just begun to spend some time with it....

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Harry Hess · Post by **Harry Hess** » 23 Aug 2001 8:42 pm

I saw R.R. on Conan a couple of weeks ago. Basically he seemed to be playing slide guitar type of riffs using some kind of distortion device.

Why is this style of playing being called "Sacred" steel?

Is there some kind of religious connection here? If so, what is the connection?

I don't get it. Why didn't they call it that 25 years ago when David Lindley did it with Jackson Brown?

Since non-pedal guys have been using distortion and playing bluesy, slide guitar type of riffs on 6 string lap steels for 25 years or so, why does R.R. need a 12 string PSG with pedals and knee levers to do the same thing?

Is it because a full blown PSG looks more impressive than a little six string plank on a guy's lap?

What I heard from R.R. was all distorted hard rock/ blues rock slide riffs. I heard nothing that sounded like the use of a pedal or knee lever.

Since distortion doesn't usually allow the player to play any two notes together unless they are 4th's or 5th's, why would anybody use pedals or knee levers to get these riffs? Especially since these single note pentatonic lines are so much easier and more natural to play using bar movement alone.

If you hold your first two pedals down, you have several of the notes of the "open A" slide guitar tuning. If you use fuzz or distortion, you get that hard rock/ blues rock, slide guitar sound. Typically a slide guitarist in that tuning will pick the second string (tuned to the 3rd, C#) two frets below and slide it up 2 frets and then play the 1st string. If a guitar player learns how to do that on the 5th & 4th string of a PSG by rocking on the 1st pedal, does that make him a pedal steel guitarist?

Is this supposed to be an exciting prospect of the future for a real pedal steel guitarist?

If I take a violin and lay it face down on my lap and tap out bongo rhythms on the back of the upper and lower bout of the hollow body, does this make me a violinist? Or a would be bongo player?

What am I missing here?

Are we supposed to be excited about the prospect of playing a PSG that cost us thousands of dollars thru an amp designed to handle the broad range of frequencies the PSG produces without breaking up, only to distort the sound to imitate a rock guitarist's tone, which in turn does not allow us to play the harmonies our instrument is known for because 3rd's, 7th's, 6th's, 9th's, etc. sound like pulsating dissonance when played through distortion?

What is the appeal here?

Why not just play that stuff on a lap steel or an actual guitar anyway? That's what Duane Allman did. Why carry around a PSG rig just to do that? Because a PSG looks cooler?

Go figure.

Regards,
HH

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 23 Aug 2001 10:35 pm

Along with the expanding of our vocabulary with tunings, rhythmic phrasing, technique and all that there is an approach to performance that might be the real key to how the Sacred Steel guys could help bring the steel into a new level.

Bob[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 24 August 2001 at 12:46 AM.]

Mark Tomeo · Post by **Mark Tomeo** » 24 Aug 2001 4:23 am

b0b, could you please post the sacred E7 copedent on the Tunings page?
Thanks,
MT

Jay Jessup · Post by **Jay Jessup** » 24 Aug 2001 9:07 am

Well Harry I think what you are missing is listening to their music. I agree 100% with you that the stuff some of the sacred steelers play sounds like it could all be done on a lap with a overdriven amp, but there are others (and most of my personal favorites do play a lap steel) who sound like they are singing, so simple but yet so well done that I find it very moving. I think that when you add that to the spirit and emotion of the music that is typically being played in their church's (don't know what they might have done on Gonad's show??)and you can begin to see why some of us feel that this style has the potential to bring the steel to a new audience in the future.
Jay

Bob Bowden · Post by **Bob Bowden** » 24 Aug 2001 11:13 am

Harry, Take a look and listen to the Robert Randolph feature on NPR for a little more insight on him and his music.
http://www.npr.org/....robertrandolph.html [This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 24 August 2001 at 01:05 PM.]

Post by **Joey Ace** » 24 Aug 2001 3:19 pm

There's a good article on RR in the Sept issue of Esquire mag.

Not worth buying the mag, IMO, but I enjoyed reading it at the bookstore. About 3 pages, including a photo of RR and PSG.

Esquire is pretty mainstream coverage,
this has gotta be good for the instrument.

-j0e-

Harry Hess · Post by **Harry Hess** » 24 Aug 2001 3:47 pm

Having gone to the attached web address that Mike P. sent to me and read the contents, I concede that there might be something going on that I'm not aware of.

I'd buy a "Sacred Steel" CD to check it out, but I'm a little tight right now and would hate to purchase one and find it to be all distorted slide guitar rehash.

My questions would be thus:

Does all of this "Sacred Steel" music involve distorted slide guitar type of stuff?

Are any of these players under this label playing clean pedal steel, using the pedals and knee levers and the kind of chord melody and traditional tone that most of us PSGuitarists are into?

Regards,
HH

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 24 Aug 2001 4:46 pm

Mark, I just did a page about it, but it's not in the index yet. Try this link:

http://b0b.com/tunings/sacredsteel.html

Harry, you should not buy a Sacred Steel CD. You obviously don't like blues. One man's distortion is another man's true singing voice. If Robert Johnson, Elmore James and B.B. King didn't turn you on, you're not going to like Sacred Steel music.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (E7, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 24 August 2001 at 06:16 PM.]

Larry Miller · Post by **Larry Miller** » 24 Aug 2001 5:09 pm

Harry, Think Stevie Ray Vaughn or Jimi Hendrix, I may be missing the boat, but basically that's what I hear. It is not the pick a note and slide style of David Lindley, but more of, when he gets crankin', a fast single string riff style comparable to SRV. Just my observation

Larry

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Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 24 Aug 2001 5:42 pm

Harry asked: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Does all of this "Sacred Steel" music involve distorted slide guitar type of stuff?

Are any of these players under this label playing clean pedal steel, using the pedals and knee levers and the kind of chord melody and traditional tone that most of us PSGuitarists are into?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I don't remember hearing any "distortion devices" at the Campbell Brothers concert I went to. Chuck did use a wah pedal, though.

The bright "twangy" tone sometimes associated with the instrument was never heard. Some aspects of the "traditional tone that most of us PSGuitarists are into" just don't fit this kind of music.

There were plenty of minors, 7ths, ninths, diminisheds, etc. coming from Chuck's instrument. They didn't break up. His use of pedals was subtle, but I noticed that his foot sometimes went from one end of the rack to the other without missing a beat. He definitely knows his pedals.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (E7, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 24 August 2001 at 06:45 PM.]

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 25 Aug 2001 4:33 am

Here is the web address I sent Harry.

Click Here

It's an article about the sacred Steel tradition that appeared in a newspaper. The link was sent to me by Wade Medlock, whom some of you may know. [This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 25 August 2001 at 09:14 AM.]

Harry Hess · Post by **Harry Hess** » 25 Aug 2001 5:19 pm

b0b,

I have ALWAYS been a major blues fan. I started playing slide guitar in 1964. I have always kept a Tele strung with heavy strings and high action. I mastered Muddy Waters and Elmore James styles in the mid 60's. I have a huge blues collection. I played slide on a 1936 National steel in the late 60's through late 70's. At that time I was playing all of the Robert Johnson, Son House, Bukka White style stuff. (Did let the country style fall away out of my repetiore over the years though.)

I've been able to realistically nail every phrase or line Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Earl Hooker ever played for well over 30 years now (never did it using fuzz... just a cranked Fender amp).

If you wanna hear the baddest of the bad slide players, check out John Lee Hookers cousin, Earl Hooker (just don't buy his mid 70's Arhoolie recordings, he was experimenting with wah wah). So I know the blues and have loved it and played it for many, many years. Any implication to the contrary I take as a major insult.

On the other hand, I love the pedal steel guitar as a completely seperate entity. Perhaps it is because of my long and deep involvement in the blues that I don't feel the pedal steel is used appropriately in blues when played through a fuzz box immitating a hard rock guitar players tone.

However, I think you could sit a player like Buddy Emmons or any of the other legendary players down on stage with a blues band and they could play cool, hip, clean & innovative C6 lines that would fit the music and smoke. That impresses me more than fuzzed out slide guitar stuff. But that takes a really sophisticated player.

Precisely because I have been so deeply into blues & slide guitar for so many years, I personally consider the slide guitar style, when played on a fuzzed out PSG, to be a pale immitation of the real thing. Much the same as I feel about Pat Boone's Little Richard covers.

But since apparantly those recordings sold, 'cause there must have been people who though ole Pat was "really swingin, man!".... I guess there will be those who will think this fuzzed out PSG stuff somehow is as hip as Muddy & Elmore.

I have people who call me for guitar lessons who say that they want to learn how to play blues guitar. I ask them who their favorite blues guitarist is, I'm always dissapointed when they say "Jimmy Paige". I set about trying to get them hip to the likes of Muddy, T-Bone, Guitar Slim, Gatemouth, Freddy King, Magic Sam, Hubert Sumlin, Albert Collins, Fenton Robinson, Johnny Little John, J.B. Hutto, B.B., John Lee Hooker and JIMMY Vaughan, not to mention more sophisticated blues players like Wes Montgomery, Herb Ellis and Grant Green. If they reach that point, they tend to ammend their view of Jimmy Paige as a "blues guitarist".

For me, I love the pedal steel for other reasons..... always have and always will.

Regards,
HH[This message was edited by Harry Hess on 25 August 2001 at 07:27 PM.]

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 25 Aug 2001 6:27 pm

I've never heard any "fuzzed out" Sacred Steel playing. There is a fair amount a wah pedal use, though. I think that a lot of them use a wah pedal instead of a volume pedal.

Harry Hess · Post by **Harry Hess** » 25 Aug 2001 6:46 pm

b0b,

Guess you missed R.R. on Conan then.

I do find your message about the Cambell Bros to be of interest. I have heard of them before and wondered what the were doing.

Having attended backwoods black Gospel services in the deep south in the early 70's (and having been graciously welcomed and invited back as the only white guy to have ever attended their service), I have often felt the pedal steel guitar would make a wonderful addition to a real black Gospel church service.

It just would never have occured to me to whip out the fuzz and go for the heavy metal sound. I would tend to try to achieve what Weldon Myrick achieved on "Life's Railway To Heaven". Or what Buddy Emmons achieved on "The Night That Christ Was Born" from his Christmas CD.

If the church got to clappin' and rockin' as they are known to do, I think cool, hip Be-Bopish or swing blues lines like Buddy and the true greats are capable of would knock 'em off their feet. It would cook and be of a more sophisticated nature than the heavy metal/blues sound... at least for me.

Regards,
HH

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 25 Aug 2001 7:24 pm

I've never heard Robert Randolph. I ordered his CD the other day, though.

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 26 Aug 2001 9:53 pm

Harry, I assure you that the Sacred Steel style has nothing to do with pedal steel players trying to emulate Elmore James or Duane Allman. The Sacred Steel players never listened to those guys (they listened to Buddy Emmons a whole lot more than Duane Allman). If they were to listen to Elmore James, their response very well might be, 'well that's ok, but the dude needs to learn to play in tune and get some control of his axe'. Not to take away from Elmore James, but the Sacred Steel style is a completely different branch of the musical tree.

I'd suggest getting the Sacred Steel live CD, on Arhoolie.

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