Could you give up Steel Guitar"COLD TURKEY"???

Ed Naylor · Post by **Ed Naylor** » 15 Mar 2003 12:11 pm

Since Steel is such an integral part of our lives I wonder what could or would cause or lead you to giving up Steel Cold Turkey. I have asked myself this question many times and wonder if others have also. Possibly a Divorce, Financial problems, Physical condition etc. If this should happen what would it take or what could possibly fill this void we no doubt would have in our life.????Ed Naylor Steel Guitar Works

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 15 Mar 2003 12:38 pm

I can quit anytime I want.

I just got a couple months with semi-monthly off nights with Monty Moss, Weekends with him and Jason Snell, and some weekends inbetween with Southern Breakdown. Then there's the yearly think at the Elks Hayride and a gig in Stevenson in August, a floating New Years gig.. After that..

Yeah. Pretty much anytime I want.

I'm only a "social player" anyhow.

( ...he typed with hands shaking ever so slightly.....)

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 15 Mar 2003 12:43 pm

Ed, I can speak from actual experience. In 1970, at the age of 39, and working about as much as any sideman of that era, I realized that I had to earn some financial security for my older years. I had a day job, but I was also working 3-5 nights a week playing steel...and not doing justice to either job!

Cold, sweating, fear was my motivation to quit, realizing that in another short 26 years I would be 65 years old living on minimal social security and very likely with my health gone

Within a 24 hour period, I quit "cold-turkey" as you said, cancelling all my bookings for the coming month of December including New Years eve, storing all of my musical equipment and not opening a case or playing a single note for the next 14 years!

I started appreciating and taking care of my day job, attending college during the evening hours when I would have previously been playing steel in a band somewhere. I didn't go to clubs or concerts or even listen to the radio for fear it would lure me back into the same old music playing routine.

When my security goal had been achieved I started playing again....but only when and where I wanted to play, and without any financial need to do so.

But, what about quitting again today?..... Certainly, with no hesitation if there was a reason. It took me a lot of years to learn,but I finally realized that there are many things in life more important than playing music! www.genejones.com [This message was edited by Gene Jones on 15 March 2003 at 01:49 PM.]

Carl West · Post by **Carl West** » 15 Mar 2003 1:25 pm

Not Again . . . been there done that !

Carl West

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 15 Mar 2003 6:38 pm

Here on the Forum, many months back, I read where someone had visited with Johnny Siebert who told them he not only didn't play anymore, he actually didn't want to see a steel guitar anymore or words to that effect.

I thought to myself: Now how could that ever be ??? Impossible I thought and then it happened to me. We lost our playing job over the singer's wife arguing with the club owner for two weeks over a dollar. He threw her out, the singer went with her pushing his wheel chair as fast as he could. We had been doing everything for him ! All the heavy stuff and fixing his gear when it broke and he walked on us like we were nothing. That was the final straw....

I put it in the case and never played it again. I can't !! All those years of living like Ed said: How could I ever be without it ended in a moment. I've cleaned it up for a possible sale and that is the only time I've touched it and even then I had to make myself do it. It's honestly like an ex-wife after a nasty divorce if you know what I mean. Once you are past that point of no return it is over period...end of relationship.

I learned the same lesson Johnny was speaking about and I don't mean to say that is how it happens or even how it can happen. It's what happened to me and it is a bad time indeed. I have only been able to discuss it with a few very close friends and there was even a period of six months or so when I couldn't even stand to listen to my steel records and CDs. That has faded a bit with me trying to show my grandson, Caleb, some of the things I have loved in my life; flowers and gardens, cars and guitar music. I have no idea where the road leads to and I can only follow it.

Regrets; Paul

[This message was edited by Paul Graupp on 15 March 2003 at 06:42 PM.]

Kenny Foy · Post by **Kenny Foy** » 15 Mar 2003 7:23 pm

Paul Are you saying you haven't played in years or months? I've only been playing for about a year and up till that point it was a lifelong ambiton. It's the sound of the steel that is what I really like. Someone else's playing is what I like,definitely not mine. Don't believe I could ever give it up. No matter what. May never be any good but will never give it up. Some of you great players have a LOT of talent and need very little work and some of us have little or no talent and have to have a lot of work to make it. TALENT AS IN GOD-GIVEN. [This message was edited by Kenny Foy on 15 March 2003 at 07:34 PM.]

VERNON PRIDDY · Post by **VERNON PRIDDY** » 15 Mar 2003 8:16 pm

I'm With You Kenny.It Gets In Your Blood. SONNY.

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SONNYPRIDDY

John Cadeau · Post by **John Cadeau** » 15 Mar 2003 8:46 pm

Well I did the Gene Jones thing. Only I waited 'til I was 45. But I have a good job, with lots of benefits, and a good pension plan that will go along with my govermwnt pensions. And my medical and dental plans are with me until I'm pushin' daiseys. I stopped playing for ten years, but now I have the best of both worlds. There two bands I play with, only on weekends, but if I want a weekend off I just tell them. I'm happy and so are they. Playing music is fun again.
John

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Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 15 Mar 2003 9:47 pm

When Elvis hit the scene nearly all of the long time working local country musicians found themselves out of work.
When club owners found they could pay a dozen loud and crazy screaming kids to play R & R for half of what they'd been playing 4 or 5 accomplished musicians, the book was closed on "what used to be" here in this remote area of civilization.
Ten years went by, no one to play with and nowhere to play........ I nearly went nuts with the nothing to do on Fri/Sat.nites.
When things started perking once again, I found we had to accept only $40-$50 per night or continue not to play at all.
I discovered really soon, that the fine edge I had honed from the very beginning had been lost. I've never been able to regain that delicate factor in my playing.
I know more but "lost" so much.... Such a waste. Whether or not you ever plan to be on the OPRY or equivilant, please don't lay down your picks and bar. When you decide to again pick them up, the "luster" may well have faded. I now HATE to have to pack the gear out to the car........so much, that I can't envision having to pack it into the club when I ultimately arrive there. Then of course, there's the same program in reverse once the gig is over.
Do yourself a favor and hang-in, unless you're ready to retire FOREVER. Good luck in your decision.[This message was edited by Ray Montee on 15 March 2003 at 09:50 PM.]

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 16 Mar 2003 1:29 am

If music's in your blood, heart and mind, you should never have to "quit". But putting it on the back burners fine too.
Get your security, but keep a finger or two in also. Play for yourself, and not for "the big shot" that never happened, or the bar down round the corner.
I find playing any of my instruments is cyclical, sometimes I don't touch one for quite sometime, sometimes I can't keep it outa my hands.
If, god forbid, I was parralized I would get a Mac with an eye controled mouse and compose... I couldn't play, but the notes are still in my head.. gotta go somewhere. Quit cold, turkey no chance.

Bob Hayes · Post by **Bob Hayes** » 16 Mar 2003 2:12 am

This is a bit like a Theropy Group. Bare your soul and tell all.
I've been playing(or trying to play) steel for about 30 years. And have been working either full or part time in that endevor. I knew that I wasn't up to a certain level..but I tried to maintain. In the past 5 years or so. arthritis and other physical problems have set in. My speed and attack have dwindelled..and now I find that my attack and blocking never were very good. I've been attending many Jams/shows..and have noticed that a large number of steelers are well beyond me. And I feel and have recieved feed back...that my playing abilites are not all that Great.
The realization that I had problems came recently when I couldn't hold my bar any more.That's when I consulted an orthopedic surgeon and found that I had torn and damaged rotator cuffs in both shoulders. .One shoulder is now repaired and I am in physical theropy. And I am back practicing. It's almost like starting over..My arm srill gets tired holding the bar..but it is coming along. The right side is going to be harder..But maybe I'll get some "Hot Licks" again....I havn't had any calls to play any where in afew months...Maybe I was Too "Grouchy"!!!!!..BUT GIVE UP THE STEEL?????NO WAY!!!!!!!!
Grouchyvet[This message was edited by Bob Hayes on 16 March 2003 at 02:15 AM.]

Brian Wetzstein · Post by **Brian Wetzstein** » 16 Mar 2003 3:58 am

I hate going out of town or on vacation because I miss my guitar. I find myself wanting to bring my picks and bar "just in case" I come across a pedal steel. (and you all know how often that happens!) My greatest fear is to lose the abilty to play music. Long ago I gave up playing drums because of a bad band falling out. I began playing guitar and other instruments. There was a long period of time where I did not play drums. Now, years later I enjoy playing them again. I love the pedal steel and I will be a student of it for the rest of my life.

Craig A Davidson · Post by **Craig A Davidson** » 16 Mar 2003 4:10 am

I gave up music once, and it was the worst twenty minutes I ever spent. I always say I'll give it up when they pry the bar from my cold dead hand.

Kenny Foy · Post by **Kenny Foy** » 16 Mar 2003 7:06 am

Vernon, You are most definitely rite about it gettin in the blood. Last year was a bad year. Didn't want ot mow the yard, nor fix around the house, waiting all day long at work just to hurry and get home, nor go and do anything except make racket on the geetar. Brian also hit the nail on the head, about takin the picks with you, even on vacation. I just laid it off as newbie disease. BUTTTT when you wind up hearin someone like Emmons, Hughey, Wendt Seymore or the some of the other greats play, THENNNN you want to go home and burn yours for firewood. THENNNN you say He!! I can play like like that and pull the charred guitar out of the fire,real fast, and take off again practicing again. And the whole time wonderin if anyone else has started out this way. Learnin to play this da-n guitar is kind like women, can't live with'em and can't live without'em. Just my 2%'s worth. And ED holler when you want ot talk about fretboards for the BUD dbl 12. [This message was edited by Kenny Foy on 16 March 2003 at 07:08 AM.]

Andy Alford · Post by **Andy Alford** » 16 Mar 2003 8:08 am

I will when I am a cold dead turkey.

Bennie Hensley · Post by **Bennie Hensley** » 16 Mar 2003 8:17 am

Since I been trying to learn to play the PSG for about a year and a half, I have found it is like smoking. I have quit both playing and smoking a thousand times but I always go back. Someday I hope to never go back to smoking..Bennie

ray qualls · Post by **ray qualls** » 16 Mar 2003 9:26 am

Being a musician is like being any artist, painter, sculptor, etc. Its in the blood and a God given talent. Some of us are mediocre and some are Buddy Emmons. It really doesn't matter how good or bad you are, it the loving of the music. I quit for five years because of burn out, frustration, no place to play, no money to make, nobody caring for the type of music that I liked. Lots of excuses to quit. You never know when that feeling is going to hit you that makes you want to start playing again. It might be a certain song that you hear or going to a steel convention, but it will happen! You need to start playing again because its in the blood. We're very fortunate, our instrument has no age limits. You just need the desire and the desire will always be there as its in our God given blood.

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Ray Qualls

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 16 Mar 2003 10:11 am

Years ago there was a movie with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. It's title fits what all of us have said here.....

MAGINIFICENT OBSESSION !!

Regards, Paul

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 16 Mar 2003 11:20 am

No big pointed dissertation, I swear, but Ray, I know what you mean except I haven't experienced the "highs" that you must have, playing on TV, Radio, and with those older REAL pro bands.

Now it's "catch as catch can". Seems to have been that way for the last 20 years I've been out here in this local jungle. For better or worse, and it's no measure of my ability, I know I've played more nights here in Big Poodle than anyone I can think of here in that period. Credited to my greed and gall more than anything else. Lately it's been chrome for the old 63 Panhead. Now it's money to pay bills in this crash, ( and gas for the bike.)

I find two things about "honing".

I often, of late, play at home for 2-3 hours a day, going over drills like "Cold Rolled Steel", Buddy's therapy ( the flute part), Indian killed the woodcock, and a dozen other "speed building" or intonation building excersizes.

One thing that happens is that I go to a "low key" gig where intonation and dynamics are like a three or four way chainsaw battle, with no rythym, and home made chord changes, not mutually observed. My playing sounds and feels just like it. The load out is a temptation to throw everything but the hundred dollar bill(s) in the nearest dumpster.

On those gigs, I find that it's all wasted, and it's all I can do to even plug it in at home again. Believe me, I've gone for YEARS just fighting my way from gig to gig this way. It didn't help my playing at all.

OR.. you can possibly play with a band that IS really good. What happens to me at those gigs is that I'm miraculously able to play stuff that I've been working on. The stuff a hot young guitar player "lays on me" sparks me to try something new. Because I DID practice and drill myself, I'm able to rise to it.

I don't have a point here, but it seems that the knowledge that I can play as good as I know I should seems to be over ridden by that knowledge that I haven't been. Lack of practice at home only drives this home if I succumb.

That seems to be the pitfall of it all.

If it werent' for my overwhelming greed, which indeed does scare me, I wouldn't be in a couple positions where I feel some of my best playing, such as it is, is able to shine through.

I, for some reason, envy those that took the "right" path of playing around people that helped make ones' playing better, such as say Mr Franklin, Mr Bouten, or others like Damir, Larry Bell, etc. I am way too tempted to think ( like some kind of democrat) that they "won a cosmic lottery" and didn't fight their way through all the garbage. Way too tempted. I'll bet they did.

I remember the "better gigs" that I used to be able to do things like Troubador Stomp in twin with Kurt Radke, or Raising the Dickens with Randy Yearout. I am tempted to think that those were the "good old days". In a way. they were. I also remember having to pack a gun to those gigs for one reasonably good reason or another, and living in cars while I lived on elephant ears, curly fries, and corndogs, or sleeping at the Red Top in Spokane waiting for the hot plate to heat up the can of beanie weenies. Maybe it was the period before our "front man" got his 40 year prison sentence.

Those are the years that in my Social Security Printout are a 7 year string of goose eggs.

I really enjoyed hearing you play with Larry Jeffers and Renegade. In the years that I played with him/them, I liked being able to do what I felt I did best, and the music tha was "designed" for steel guitar. I enjoy filling in for Doug whenever his family or corporate duties take him elsewhere and you're not available to them for some reason. Also with Monty Moss, my "main" band, and Jason Snell, when he adds me for a fifth piece. I just try and force myself to keep on with it. Sometimes the gigs don't turn out perfectly, but sometimes I feel really good about them. Probably like a "vice cop" that wades through dozens of street scum collars and once in a while makes a really righteous bust.

I'll bet you are forgetting some of the "struggles" with Heck, the TV set, all the other things that maybe you are forgetting. We DO tend to forget a lot of stuff, especially the "negative".

Like I said, I don't really have a point here, except possibly rising out of my graying full head of hair. Just a couple observations.

Somebody told me the other day, when we were discussing "gun play" at the bar with some older "moose members".

"Shooting people doesn't always solve a problem. Sometimes you've got to stab them."-an Old Moose-

Dust off that old Llama.

Remember, Ronald Reagan Didn't become President till he was ..

Tired old Eric. [This message was edited by Eric West on 16 March 2003 at 03:54 PM.]

Roy Ayres · Post by **Roy Ayres** » 16 Mar 2003 12:09 pm

My full-time steelin’ days ended abruptly one fateful Saturday night at the Crossroads club in Louisville for reasons that parallel those of Gene Jones. I had started at age 13, got my first job with a broadcasting band in my home town at age 14, dropped out of school and left home for a full-time music job at age 15, and joined Pee Wee King at age 16. After 12 years in the “big leagues” a long-time friend named Arnold King had an experience that caused me to make a major change in the way my life was headed. Arnold was as good as they came on tenor sax, and his wife, Mary, sang like Chris Conner. The two of them at age 40 could no longer get a job for the price of one at any of the many clubs around Louisville, Indianapolis or Cincinnati. It was then that I finally acknowledged three things regarding the music business: (1) music is essentially a young person’s profession; (2) music pays enough to eek out a decent living, but not enough to build any kind of retirement fund; and (3) in music you may spend a major part of your life away from home. So, I bit the bullet – I set out to finish my education. I was able to find enough gigs in local nightclubs to keep my family and me in beans for 5-1/2 years while I earned BS and MS degrees in physics. That “fateful Saturday night” I mentioned in the first sentence above was the night that I finished the job and turned all of my equipment over to the guys to whom I had sold it. I consider that to qualify as “cold turkey” as I probably played not more than two-dozen gigs over the next 40 years. Yes, I missed music occasionally, but I have never regretted the choice I made. I now have a beautiful home, two late-model cars, absolutely no debts, money “in the bank” and a reasonable retirement income that started three years ago – although at age 73 I still work full time by choice. My dear wife recently bought me a nice Sierra D10 8+4 that I can plunk around on when the mood strikes me. One can quit cold turkey when he or she finally realizes the important fact Gene pointed out in his post above, “. . . there are many things in life more important than playing music!”

richard burton · Post by **richard burton** » 16 Mar 2003 12:10 pm

I have stopped gigging, due to serious illness. But even during chemotherapy, I still picked a bit on the steel. I can't imagine ever stopping playing.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 19 Mar 2003 3:11 am

Why bother? I just end up having to start up again. I have quit playing music twice for the obvious reasons said above, but I always end up sitting on the couch watching TV or some similar dumba$$ thing and say, "Where's my friggin' guitar?" I can't imagine a better hobby to have around come retirement time (about another 270 years away at this rate).

Richard Gonzales · Post by **Richard Gonzales** » 19 Mar 2003 7:25 am

My take on the subject is a little different.
I love the sound of the steel guitar in any gendre, but mainly I enjoy the challenge!! I hate to lose and if I quit playing then I would feel the guitar defeated me! There is no better feeling for me when I am improving and learning or winning the game!

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 19 Mar 2003 7:39 am

I cannot foresee the instance where I might quit suddenly (cold turkey) unless illness (my own or my family) intervened. I can see quitting by attrition....