Steel Guitar Abuses

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 15 Jun 2002 11:51 pm

Just had my first chance to view some videos the wife purchased over the telephone from some high pressure sales type that wouldn't take NO for an answer. These videos were supposedly copied from "ORIGINAL" film taken at the Grand Ole Opry. What I've seen thus far is "pathetic"!!!
Tonight, we watched "SECOND FIDDLE to a STEEL GUITAR".......a movie. Some dude was mimicking some red neck playing a hang around the neck steel guitar. It turns out this "guitar" was a prewar Rickenbacker Bakelite. When his wife enters the room looking for him, this moran slams the guitar onto the floor and shoves it under the daveno or whatever it was. Almost made me cry!
Another Rick was on eBay recently and it too appeared to have been badly abused. How can this happen? Is it a trend?

Damir Besic · Post by **Damir Besic** » 16 Jun 2002 6:32 am

That is one of the resons why I can`t stand Garth Brooks.He may be a nice guy,but he is an idiot to me.
Damir

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http://hometown.aol.com/damirzanne/damirzanne1.html

Jim West · Post by **Jim West** » 16 Jun 2002 1:06 pm

Damir, I agree with you. I have never, for the life of me, understood why Garth is so popular. He sounds like he is doing someone else's songs, especially when he did, "I'm Shamus"

Terry Wendt · Post by **Terry Wendt** » 16 Jun 2002 1:42 pm

"Saneless" by Garth was someone else's song originally too!

'ts what I heard -

2pT

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TheEarlyDays.com

and appearing regularly...
Jimmy Crawford/Russ Hicks... and Buddy Emmons on Bass! aLotOfSpace.com

Post by **Joey Ace** » 17 Jun 2002 6:42 am

"Shameless" is a Billy Joel song.

Garth is a product of mass-marketing, circa 1989.
It worked, can't deny the sucess.
If it wasn't him it would have been another.

The suits will try forever to duplicate this "commerical-sucess". Very much like they're still trying for the next Beatles.

Sorry for the topic-drift.
I'll go abuse my Steel now.

Allen Peterson · Post by **Allen Peterson** » 17 Jun 2002 8:46 am

Garth Brooks, "Who" does he think he is anyway? Not the first one to smash a guitar on stage, probably won't be the last unfortunately.

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 17 Jun 2002 11:37 am

Here we go again with the Garth bashing. I guess y'all are just jealous of what ol' Garth has accomplished. I personally think he's got a lot of talent, a very good voice, and is one helluva an entertainer. Just 'cause he's got all the money in the world ain't no reason to hate him. He's had some great songs in his career. A whole lot more people like him than don't like him as his career will attest to. I liked the way he did the old Fleetwoods tune "Mister Blue" and made a western swing song out of it. And also to his credit he uses a whole lot more steel guitar than a lot of them out there do. Let's quit bashing ol' Garth and give him credit for what he's done. I love to play steel on "Shameless" "The Dance", "Beaches of Cheyenne" and any number of Garth songs. The boy's got it, don't you get it?

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Livin' in the Past and the Future with a 12 string Mooney tuning.

Allen Peterson · Post by **Allen Peterson** » 17 Jun 2002 12:12 pm

I personally like Garth Brooks and think he is a good singer with a lot of talent. As far as being a good entertainer goes, supposing smashing a perfectly good Takamine guitar on stage qualifies as entertainment, so be it. I think this is what today's Garth bashing on the forum is all about. Think of all the poor starving musicans that would just love to have the guitar he smashed. Sorry, I'm not amused or entertained.

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 17 Jun 2002 12:13 pm

I agree, Jerry
You certainly call it like I see it.

It's fine to be passionate about a certain style of music, but one can miss a lot of good music by excluding everything else. And, I have it on good authority that Garth Brooks is really NOT the Antichrist.

What about sacrificing a car or an entire building while making some sensationalistic violence-laden movie?
I never really liked Takamine guitars anyway.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 17 June 2002 at 01:19 PM.]

Allen Peterson · Post by **Allen Peterson** » 17 Jun 2002 12:39 pm

Larry,

I guess if you really wanted to entertain the folks you could saw your 2000 Fessenden in half on stage. I have to admit I would probably pay to see that, but I would need a box of Kleenex to wipe the tears away. Back when I was 18 in 1969 I saw Jimi Hendrix smash his Strat after he had already torched it. Then he proceeded to run a drumstick through the speakers on his Marshall stack. After that for the final touch he pushed the drum kit off the stage. Now that's entertainment at its best.

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 17 Jun 2002 12:49 pm

That kind of personal conduct.....used to be called immaturity...by a spoiled, out of control brat; mental disease or defect. Today, it's called entertainment?? Gee's!

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 17 Jun 2002 1:24 pm

I agree, Garth Brooks is not the anti-Christ. But I have it on good authority that he is the anti-Hank.

Mark Herrick · Post by **Mark Herrick** » 17 Jun 2002 2:25 pm

As I recall Hendrix's act, at least the one I saw, before he did the "destruction" routine he switched from his signature white strat to a different guitar. May not have been a strat at all. Don't know if anyone was making cheap strat copies at the time, but then again, a strat at that particular time probably cost less than $200!

Also, the extension speaker cabinet that he "destroyed" had noticeable wear in the areas where he had whacked it in previous shows. He was careful to only hit those particular areas. Who knows, the speakers he destroyed could have been non-functioning to begin with.[This message was edited by Mark Herrick on 17 June 2002 at 03:26 PM.]

Post by **Joey Ace** » 17 Jun 2002 3:09 pm

Joe Wright has claimed to be the "Anti-Price".

I once saw a Garth interview where he apologised for smashing the Guitars.
He said fans complained that it was insensitive to folks who can't afford guitars. He said it realized it "wasn't cool" and he won't be doing it again.

And Jerry, I agree with your post.

Garth has also made PSG more visible to the mainstream. I don't understand why this forum tends to bash folks who do that.

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 17 Jun 2002 3:10 pm

And Jimi never, EVER, sounded like Mr. Haney!
Move Over, Rover!!

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 17 Jun 2002 5:27 pm

Who is/are Garths steeler/s (Stage/Studio) and what kind of steels do they play?

[This message was edited by Pete Burak on 17 June 2002 at 06:28 PM.]

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 17 Jun 2002 6:10 pm

I believe that Bruce Bouton plays on most of his sessions. Steve McClure was his road player last time I saw them on TV where credits were shown. He played a D-10 Sierra.

On the OTHER topic, we come from a heritage of gladiators, the WWF, violent movies, and demolition derby. Why does it strike some of us so strange that someone might trash a guitar on stage? Is it just that it's a guitar?

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 17 Jun 2002 6:34 pm

I have to be included in the group of guys that like Garth Brooks, and I've had many conversations with Justin Trevino and Johnny Bush about this topic... of course, they hold the opposite opinion to mine.

I think he's had some great songs: "If Tomorrow Never Comes," "No One Gets Off in this Town," "Friends in Low Places," "The Thunder Rolls" among them.

Justin says that for every "Tomorrow," there's a "Rodeo." Hmmm... I'll have to do a recount.

Show biz is show biz when smashing a guitar onstage, but how many forumites would secretly love to be able to get up onstage with Garth, read him the Riot Act about ruining country music, then grab the guitar away from him, and smash it themselves!!??!!??

Lots of y'all? I thought so!

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Steven Knapper · Post by **Steven Knapper** » 17 Jun 2002 6:58 pm

I was going to add my 2 cents about Brooks high fiveing 2 Takamine's on stage, but what's the point when he's not doing it anymore. It made me mad cuz at the time I would have given my left n-t to have one of those. Who was it that wrote the song "Who do they think they are, smashing a perfectly good guitar"??? 'bout say's it all for me.

Rick Aiello · Post by **Rick Aiello** » 17 Jun 2002 9:03 pm

John Hiatt

Steve Stallings · Post by **Steve Stallings** » 18 Jun 2002 9:07 am

A perfectly good guitar and Takamine is an oxymoron

ahem..... just kiddin ya know. I can't help it if I'm partial to Martins.

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Steve Stallings
Bremond, Texas

Jim West · Post by **Jim West** » 18 Jun 2002 9:10 am

I have never said I hated Garth. I don't even know the guy. I just said I have never understood his popularity. His songs, to me, sound shallow. They then take these songs and boost them with a pop production values and then tell the record buying public that this is what country music is. It was mentioned that he does use a lot of steel guitar in his songs. My take on that is whenever the suits want to make a song "country" they simply add a steel or a fiddle sawing in the background and voila! a country song. Garth's people have done a good job of taking, for the most part, shallow pop songs and selling them as country music.

Garth is a product of slick marketing and packaging. I've seen him interviewed and he seems like a real nice guy but from the artistic standpoint he's all sizzle and no steak.

Allen Peterson · Post by **Allen Peterson** » 18 Jun 2002 9:58 am

Steve,
You've got a good point, although I'd take a Taylor over a Martin these days, unless it was an old Martin of course. Two of the guys in my band have these anniversary 2000 and 2001 Takamines that sound pretty good.

Bruce Bouton · Post by **Bruce Bouton** » 19 Jun 2002 7:46 pm

I can't believe I let myself get sucked in to this BS once again but since I've played on every Garth Record I can probably speak with a bit of authority. I won't render an opinion on peoples taste in music cause that's what makes the world go round.However, for someone to call Garth Brooks records big pop productions they must not be listening to the rest of pro-tooled country radio. All of the Garth records were recorded on 24 track analogue tape and mixed on a Quad Eight board without automation. Most of the time the songs were charted as we listened to Garth play them on an acoustic guitar. Many times the records you heard on the radio were the actual recording, vocal and all , that happened on the take. Now for the guys that recorded in the sixties and seventies that was the status Quo.Back to the truth. Also Garth never used any vocal tuning on his records. You can actually hear flat and sharp notes on some of the performances. Try finding that on any on todays records. Also most of the reverbs came from an actual chamber.We never recorded with a clicktrack because Garth and Alan felt like it took away the feel.Basically everything we did was so under produced that it made Garths records sound different than anything else on the radio.There were alot of parts I wished I'd played different or better but in retrospect it didn't matter.
As far as Garth's success being the resul;t of slick marketing well.... I guess if working three hundred dates a year and never charging over fifteen dollars a ticket(While the average ticket was forty bucks)and doing free concerts in each market during the day for the sick and handicaped was slick marketing then more power to him.I'm obviously biased in favor of the man and I can't believe I'm wasting my time with this rant but I feel like I need to shed a little light on things.Garth Brooks takes nothing for granted and he's one of the nicest and most loyal people I have ever met.
BB

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 19 Jun 2002 8:06 pm

Tell 'em, Bruce. Your loyalty is admirable and I, for one, appreciate your attitude as well as I appreciate your consummate musicianship, all 'leg humping' aside.

I certainly have no stake in this debate, but I've seen Garth take time from TV appearances to personally accept every gift from every fan and that is RARE. I have seen nothing phony or pretentious from him and his leagues of fans are among the most loyal in the business. You don't get where he's at by biting the hand that feeds you. I guess his cardinal sin is that every song isn't a clone of 'Pick Me Up on Your Way Down'.

Garth Brooks has put the steel guitar before more fans in ten years than Ray Price has in his entire career. Although perhaps happenstance, I thank him for that and respect the way he has conducted himself whenever I've seen him in performances or interviews. He has won my respect. Granted, there are some of his songs that aren't my favorite, but the Ray Price 'string period' didn't set my heart a'flutter either.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro