Instrumental Tabs?

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 21 Jul 2004 8:42 am

Back when Leon McAuliff, Herb Remington, Noel Boggs, J. Murphy, J. Byrd, Speedy West and others were in the BIG TIME.......steel guitar instrumentals were the big thing.

Is there any interest today in steel guitar solo's? Or, is that a thing of the past?

Is there anywhere one might be able to get tabs on any of those fine old instrumentals? What costs is one looking at?

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 21 Jul 2004 9:03 am

Is there any interest today in steel guitar solo's? Or, is that a thing of the past?

Ray, when you say "interest", among whom do you mean? The general, CD-buying (or downloading) public? In that case, I'd say interest declined a long time ago in steel instrumentals, but may hit a resurgence thanks to Robert Randolph.

Other than that, steel guitar instrumentals are very much alive and well at steel guitar shows all over the world (but I guess that's preachin' to the choir...)

As for where to get tab of the older solos... probably Pete Burak will chime in on that one...

[This message was edited by Jim Cohen on 21 July 2004 at 10:53 AM.]

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 21 Jul 2004 9:39 am

I'm guessing you can either find or get (for little to no cost) most all the most famous steel solos/instrumentals, tabbed out, on either this Forums "Tablature" catagory, or on the Rebel & Ricky site: http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 21 Jul 2004 10:55 am

Yes Ray,

Instrumentals died a long time ago. Much to my sadness. So did just plain country band music. Or any kind of just plain music.

I believe I may know the answer, Jesus told us there would come a time when man would worhsip man insead of God. When I look at how worshiped many many singers are to the deference of everyone else on the recordings, I do believe we may be in that time.

I watched in amazement the first time (and the last time) I saw Reba McEntyre appear in person. Billy Ray Cyrus opened the show; then Vince Gil and John Hughey appeared. Then intermission. During the intermission, I saw very busy crews peparing for the "goddess" to come on stage.

She only dissapointed two people (as far as I could tell) in the audience. After about a half hour of transforming every semblance of a plain stage that Billy and Vince used, into an arena with all the trimmings for a queen, smoke began to rise from that abyss and got higher than a human.

Then after what appeared to be an interminable time, this person appeared in a gown truly emulating a queen. I kid you not, I watched that goddess simply stand their moving to the left then to the right in slow deliberate sequences while the fans went out of their minds.

I have never seen such a spectacle in my life. I just looked around and hung my head. And thought, "forgive them Lord for they not not what they do".

There is NO musician playing a musical instumental ever going to emulate that horrible blasphemy in anyone's life time.

Come to think about it, Thank JESUS!

Again, sad

carl

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 21 Jul 2004 11:33 am

The 'big thing' among WHOM? Never was for my parents who are now in their 80's. Not everyone listened to Wills and Spade. Most of my parents' friends listened to only Big Band Swing and didn't hardly know western swing (or steel guitar, for that matter) existed. And they have lived all their lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

I disagree that instrumental music is dead -- either in a recorded or live performance situation. I'm sure there are acts that don't do instrumentals, but the bands I most recently worked with ended every set with an instrumental and often featured me on another instrumental during the set. Some steel players aren't comfortable playing instrumentals and that may be one reason why you don't see it as often today, but whenever I've suggested working up an instrumental or two to use as a break song, the whole band has been very receptive. I guess it depends on where you look for it.

One of those bands did a tribute CD to Harlan Howard a couple of years ago and one of the tunes was my instrumental arrangement of 'I Fall to Pieces'. In the past year, I'm aware of at least a dozen steel guitar CD's being issued.

I think it depends entirely on the whim of the bandleader or whoever determines the set list for live gigs, but there are bands who still play a 'break song' (synonym for instrumental in my book) after every set. We would often get requests for them.

I agree with Jimbeaux that the general public doesn't show much interest in instrumentals, as far as I'm aware, but among those who follow a particular band that plays them, I've seen a lot of interest. I've never played in a band that wouldn't let me do an instrumental if I asked them to.

I think the question about tab being available has been adequately addressed, but
I wonder how much tab there was back in the day when Remington and Joaquin and Co. were playing and recording all those instrumentals. None, I suspect. Not sure tab had even been invented in the 40's (or before). Once it was invented and becoming popular, I suspect that the folks who tabbed songs for others' education were trying to keep up with the Emmons and Day stuff and didn't have time to worry about Joaquin and Speedy.

We can still learn those solos and instrumentals by wearin' the grooves off the record, just like folks did back then. I've always learned stuff better if I had to figure it out myself anyway.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps
[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 21 July 2004 at 07:08 PM.]

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 21 Jul 2004 11:40 am

I used to play a lot of instrumentals and break songs when I lived in New England. In Texas though, most people seem to want to hear fiddle tunes. Because of that, I've forgotten most of the instrumentals I used to do, except for the occasional "Steel Guitar Rag" and "Last Date".

My day job usually keeps me busy, so most of my practicing is done on stage. This is also one of the reasons I don't play at steel shows anymore.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 21 Jul 2004 12:10 pm

Seems that steel instrumentals are only of interest to those that know how awful hard they can be to do. Like the previous post, it's preaching to the choir.

Bill Brummett · Post by **Bill Brummett** » 21 Jul 2004 1:09 pm

Ray Montee....

Actually there's quite a bit of tab out there for a lot of the old stuff. In fact Herb Remington has a booklet of a number of the old Western Swing standards he calls "Fun Tab" as I recall. It's for 8 string non-pedal and for A6 and C6 mostly.
I think it's available on his website www.remingtonsteelguitars.com

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 21 Jul 2004 2:08 pm

Yes, as Larry Bell so eloquently, has said. There was NO Tab in the old days. We had to learn from records , if there was any in those days.

Some songs could be learned from reading piano sheet music. That was popular in those days. We had to pay .35 for a song.That was a lot of money, so we learned the songs without it whenever we could.

But we learned a lot of songs by just hearing it and playing it.

I learned from Alvino Rey's stuff, "On the Alamo", "Hindustan"."St.Louis Blues."."Tiger Rag","My Buddy" off his records.

But I played Instumentals solos every night in bars on a 6 string supro.Pop Songs that are now Old standards, Waltzes, Hawaiian,Polkas, Rhumbas,hillbilly, country, gospel....etc....ah ..memories...al

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

Charles Curtis · Post by **Charles Curtis** » 21 Jul 2004 2:28 pm

I think that a good psg musician who really knows where "it's at", can and does attract most people's interest; I believe it just shines through. Maybe from a cursory observation, many may not appreciate the difficulty in playing the psg, but I've noticed the intense attention of a large audience when one of the "big guys" cuts loose and gains the sudden burst of applause.

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 21 Jul 2004 4:46 pm

Appreciate the comments of each of you. Many thanks to all.

Gary Goodman · Post by **Gary Goodman** » 21 Jul 2004 9:22 pm

I get to play quite a few instrumentals as does Harley Morris (Great Fiddle man) we even get request for them Some of the ones I do are Cold Cold Heart, Sleepwalk, Last Date, Bells of ST Marys, Harbor Lights, Born to Lose. and a few others. Harley and I team up on Mansion on the Hill, Maidens Prayer, Faded love, and Harley does Peach blossoms, Orange Blossom Spec. and a lot of others.

Ah.... Aint music fun.

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Sho-Bud LDG, Evans Fet 500, Nashvill 400, Hilton volume pedal[This message was edited by Gary Goodman on 21 July 2004 at 10:23 PM.]