Can you remember the first professional pedal steel player y

Mike Weirauch · Post by **Mike Weirauch** » 15 Dec 2001 8:03 am

Buddy Emmons with ET at the Opry. I'm surprised I was old enough at the time to remember it!

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 15 Dec 2001 8:33 am

Would have to be either Rusty Young (Poco) or Jerry Garcia (New Riders of the Purple Sage).

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Carter D10 9p/10k
Richard Sinkler

Darvin Willhoite · Post by **Darvin Willhoite** » 15 Dec 2001 8:45 am

It was Dave Musgrave around 1970 at the Tulsa State Fair in Tulsa, Ok. Dave and Shot Jackson were travelling around promoting Sho Bud guitars. I had heard E9 playing and liked it but when I heard Dave cut loose on C6, man I was hooked for life. Now, 31 years and thousands of dollars later, I still can't play like that, but I'm still trying.

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Darvin Willhoite
Riva Ridge Recording

Jay Ganz · Post by **Jay Ganz** » 15 Dec 2001 8:51 am

Back in the early 60's I saw some guy
playing outdoors with a band at a
stock car race track. I had never seen
a steel up until then.
10 years after that, I decided to
try & figure out how to play one.
I'm still tryin'!!!

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Marc Muller · Post by **Marc Muller** » 15 Dec 2001 8:55 am

Buddy Cage at the Capital Theater in NJ 1973.

Al Udeen · Post by **Al Udeen** » 15 Dec 2001 9:40 am

I was pumping gas at a station in El Monte, Ca. in 52 or 53, 1/2 a block from the El Monte Legion, where I went and saw Speedy West playing a Bigsby with a leather panel covering the front & the pedal rods, He was playing in Cliffie Stones Band, with Jimmy Bryant, & Tennesse Ernie Ford, Molly Bee, Joanie O'Brian, & others. At the time, I didn't know a steel from an ear of corn, Funny how I wound up playing steel & still do! au

Don Walters · Post by **Don Walters** » 15 Dec 2001 10:03 am

I think the man's name was Don Worden (sp?) with Porter Wagonner in the middle 50's. Porter's big hit at the time was Satisfied Mind and the steel man was part of the trio. He played standing up and used the "Bud Isaacs" lick through the entire performance. I can still remember the chills from hearing it live for first time!

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Don Walters
Carter D-10, 8p/6k
Session 500 with Lemay Mod

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 15 Dec 2001 10:09 am

For Jim Ashton: I heard about Anderson, but he had left just before I arrived in Okinawa and that left only me to play all those jobs seven days a week.....my main question is: did you know Randy Woods, a fine standard guitar player that came back to Okinawa to live and play music after discharge from the Army. We worked together there for about two years...if you need a memory jog there is a picture of him in the "Misc Bands" page of my website. I saw him one time after that playing in a band on television in Oregon but could never get in touch with him....hope you can help. www.genejones.com

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 15 Dec 2001 11:36 am

The summer Webb Pierce put out Slowly, Carl Smith was appearing at Himmelreiches Grove in PA near my home. Someone was playing a Bigsby with a piece of masking tape over someone elses name on the guitar. I wasn't able to catch his name but that evening, Hank Williams SR dropped by and sang a few songs himself. They were on their way back to Nashville from another show. It was surely a night to remember !!

Regards, Paul

Jim Bob Sedgwick · Post by **Jim Bob Sedgwick** » 15 Dec 2001 2:51 pm

Jimmy Day with Ray Price, El Paso texas at the Coliseum, 1959. Song 24th Hour. Been a steel addict since that time.

Bill Myrick · Post by **Bill Myrick** » 15 Dec 2001 3:37 pm

WOW !!!! Talk about interesting history-- this thread is becoming loaded with it !! Great reading !!!

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 15 Dec 2001 4:19 pm

It was Paul Carry (or Carie) in Vincennes, Indiana September 1979. Good player too.

Pat Burns · Post by **Pat Burns** » 15 Dec 2001 5:34 pm

..if memory serves me (it was the 70's afterall!) it was a twofer..a free concert in New York's Central Park in 1972 where I saw both Buddy Cage with The New Riders of The Purple Sage and Bobby Black with Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen...then when I got back from the Army in Germany, it was Rusty Young with Poco at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, N.J, that would've been in the spring of '75....good stuff back in those days..

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 15 Dec 2001 6:04 pm

They didn't have pedals when I saw my first live steel guitarist.....

however, Bob Meadows.....toured thro' this isolated, culturally lacking region with the Tex Ritter contingent. He was playing a Bigsby at the time and did a knock-out job.
Enjoyed his fine MERLE TRAVIS.....work.

Gary Morrison · Post by **Gary Morrison** » 15 Dec 2001 6:16 pm

Let's see....Bill....here's another one with Buddy Emmons. This would be about 1962. I was eleven years old. My dad took me to the Emmons Guitar Factory in Graham, NC and Buddy and the guys from Ray Price's band were jammin' in the front showroom. I was eleven years old then. Ronald Lashley was there. I'll never forget it.

Mel Culbreath · Post by **Mel Culbreath** » 15 Dec 2001 6:40 pm

This will really date me, but the first pro I ever saw live was "Little" Roy Wiggins with Eddy Arnold at the Victory Theater in Tampa, FL in the late 1940's.

Mel(older than dirt)Culbreath

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 15 Dec 2001 6:53 pm

I mentioned the first "pedal" steel I saw. But if we are talking steel players, period. The first live steel player I saw was Leonard Zinn and the 101 Ranch Boys.

George Rozak · Post by **George Rozak** » 15 Dec 2001 7:55 pm

Although there were others earlier, Pete Drake - circa 1965 - on a package show at the Arie Crown Theater in Chicago is the first that I can actually remember, probably because he was given a couple of solo spots on the show.

Roger Shackelton · Post by **Roger Shackelton** » 15 Dec 2001 8:26 pm

In May 1963 I was in the Army, stationed at Fort Chaffee, Ark. I went to Nashville to see the Grand Ole Opry, prior to going overseas. I saw Pete Drake on the Opry and also later at the Earnest Tubb Record Shop on The Midnight Jamboree.

I actually saw a steel player with Kitty Wells in Nov. 1960 at a Grand Ole Opry road show in Montevideo, Minnesota. I don't have any idea who it was.
Johnny & Jack, Bill Phillips and Marvin Rainwater were on the show with Kitty.

Roger

Merv Dawson · Post by **Merv Dawson** » 15 Dec 2001 8:37 pm

Bobby Garrett. Mint Club in Gladewater, Texas in 1952 with the Gene Wortham band.

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 15 Dec 2001 11:26 pm

I might be dating myself, but the first steel player I saw in person was Alvino Rey in 1939 playing his Gibson Console Grande double 9 string.

He had a couple of wires on the side which he was already experimenting with pedals.

That really turned me on to Steel, I had to get one but mine had 8 strings on each neck. I missed that low E , he had.

Then in 1941 I saw him play his new Gibson 6 pedal Electra-Harp, and that turned me on to have to get one of those.He had E6 tuning with E as no 1, and a Low E, as 9nth string.Mine came with 8.......al

Dyke Corson · Post by **Dyke Corson** » 15 Dec 2001 11:48 pm

Julian Tharpe at Demons Den mid 70s Playing his 14 String Sho-Bud. I bought the Jet Age album from him at the gig. Got my first steel not long after that.

slick · Post by **slick** » 16 Dec 2001 11:12 am

Julian Tharpe,Birmingham Alabama in the 70s.

Wayne

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 16 Dec 2001 11:20 am

I'd have to say it was either Speedy West with Cliffie Stone in the early 50's or Bob White with Hank Thompson. I can't remember which I saw first. I was visiting my grandmother in Kansas one summer and they had a concert which they called the Battle of the Bands. It featured Lefty Frizzell and his band and Hank Thompson and the Brazos Valley Boys. I remember that Lefty's steel man was standing up with no pedals while Hank's (Bob W) was sitting down at his Bigsby. A year or two later I saw Ralph Mooney and he changed my life.

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Have a good 'un! JH U-12

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 16 Dec 2001 11:47 am

Buddy Charleton and our own illustrious Smiley Roberts. I think Charleton was first, but I don't remember for sure.

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My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
www.buddyemmons.com