Herb Steiner, I think I owe you money!

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 26 Aug 2004 5:01 am

I remember one night in Dallas TX in the mid 70's, my best buddy says "C'mon we're going to go hear Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys". I had never heard of the band, so I ask him, "what kinda stuff is it?"
"Western swing" he replied
"I'm in, lets go!" I said.
So we get there and the band starts playing. I thought I had died and gone to Texas Swing Heaven. This music was some of the coolest stuff I had ever heard. This was before I started playing steel guitar. I remember brother Rick Crow playing the dickens out of that old tele that night.....BUT there was this curly haired dude wearing glasses that was doing stuff on a steel guitar that I had never heard before. I was mesmerized by that dang steel, couldn't take my eyes off it. Then, the boys played a song called "Nyquil Blues" It was the cooleset song I had ever heard. We laughed our butts off at that tune. Me and my buddy later started a band and Nyquil Blues was the first tune we worked up! I have now played that song for almost 30 years. I have also tried to emulate Herb Steiner's playing on some of those tunes. Never could do it like Herb, but I keep trying.

So Herb, I guess I owe you royalty money for playing Nyquil Blues all these years, and a few $$$ for steel lessons, since I have tried to copy your licks for so long.

Hopefully "THANKS for 30 years of great music" will work for now!!

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BMI S-10
Peavey Session 500

"Do Right, and Fear No Man"
Ronald Reagan

JB Arnold · Post by **JB Arnold** » 26 Aug 2004 8:09 am

Herb would only blow it all on fancy wine, cheap women, and steel guitars anyway.

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

JB

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Fulawka D-10 9&5
Fessenden D-10 8&8
"All in all, looking back, I'd have to say the best advice anyone ever gave me was 'Hands Up, Don't Move!"
www.johnbarnold.com/pedalsteel
www.buddycage.net

http://www.nrpsmusic.com/index.html

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 26 Aug 2004 8:28 am

So Mark, as I understand it you walked innocently into some Dallas bar, were exposed to the Herbster, and because of that "Damascus Road" experience you have spent thirty years in the kind of bars we've all spent too much time in playing "Nyquil Blues". Imagine how rich and successful you would have been in life had you never encountered Herb that night! Herb better just hope y'all don't go out and hire one of those high-flying Texas lawyers I hear about (anyone got Racehorse Hayne's phone number?).

I had the pleasure of hearing Herb doing Nyquil Blues with the Cornell Hurd band at Jovita's a few years back. But too late in life for me to blame the Herbster for all those honkytonk nights my liver and I endured!

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 26 Aug 2004 8:31 am

HA!
Yep, I wa on my way to becoming a Doctor, or a high powered Texas lawyer, now I'm just a lazy a$$ firemen that is playing clubs on the weekends with visions of grandeur. I even went and got me curly perm and glasses so I could look like him. A couple of club owners once thought I was him and they promptly threw me out of the place!

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 26 Aug 2004 8:35 am

There you go - now you have something to do while in your state of horizontal readiness at the ol' firehall - you can lie there blaming Herb for everything!

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 26 Aug 2004 10:50 am

Mark, I thank you for the kind words. Trust me, you wouldn't have been happy as either a doctor or an attorney.

And yes, you do owe me money. I also wrote Nyquil Blues. I accept PayPal.

JB, before I was married it was cheap wine, cheap women, and expensive steel guitars. Now it's steel guitars, no women except the Mrs., and someone else's liquor (see ya at the hotel, Wayne

).

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Rich Young · Post by **Rich Young** » 26 Aug 2004 11:02 am

I heard Nyquil Blues on the way to work this morning on the radio.
One of the advantages of living in Austin.

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 26 Aug 2004 11:03 am

"Gimme a roll of duct tape and a case of Nyquil please!"

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 26 Aug 2004 2:08 pm

Hmm. I wonder if Herb owes any money to Vicks?

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Lee, from South Texas
Down On The Rio Grande

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 26 Aug 2004 2:25 pm

Better not go there...

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 26 Aug 2004 2:51 pm

The late John Paul Jones and I once shared an e-mail subject about Vick's inhalers. I told him I used one to try and get a Buck Trent banjo sound. He replied that he had never heard of such a thing.

He said he always put his into some hot coffee and used it that way !!

Regards, Paul

Fred Shannon · Post by **Fred Shannon** » 27 Aug 2004 5:54 am

Awright Herb, I've already paid the royalty for hearing the story of "Nyquil Blues". ($2.00) Remember???? Now you tell the folks the story of it's inception.....

fred

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The spirit be with you!
If it aint got a steel, it aint real

C. Brattain · Post by **C. Brattain** » 27 Aug 2004 6:32 am

Herb, I know all about wine, women, and song after 72 years. It is not the wine or the women, it's those dad burn songs that get to ya.

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 27 Aug 2004 6:36 am

Yeah Herb, what was the inspiration for Nyquil Blues?

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BMI S-10
Peavey Session 500

"Do Right, and Fear No Man"
Ronald Reagan

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 27 Aug 2004 6:46 am

The inspiration for Nyquil Blues was my dear friend Roger Crabtree, ("ahh, the Nyquil Man himself"} who played harmonica with Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys.

Since Roger tragically died of a drug overdose last year, I no longer find the story of my writing the song amusing, so I'll refrain from telling the whole tale and just say that the song is a chronicle of youthful folly.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 27 Aug 2004 7:26 am

Herb, I'm very sorry to hear about Roger. I enjoyed listening to him play harp for many years. Sorry you lost a good friend.

On a lighter note, we're gonna be playing at the Midnight Rodeo on 9/2/04. Opening for our buddy Radney Foster. Come on out and hear some crappy steel playing! I've got a hat I want you to autograph.

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BMI S-10
Peavey Session 500

"Do Right, and Fear No Man"
Ronald Reagan

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 27 Aug 2004 7:47 am

Mark
I'd love to attend your show at the MR, but I'll be in St. Louis on that date for the ISGC. I'll catch you further on down the road, as Jody Sanders would say.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 27 Aug 2004 8:18 am

Yep, we'll see you down the road. If you come to Dallas any time soon, let me know.