The Steel Guitar Forum

I didn't realize JB's guit-steel was on a stand, I thought he wore it around his neck.

Gurf Morlix told me that in the early days JB tried wearing it on a strap and used to have to get down on one knee and lay it across the other knee when he played the steel neck - and I've seen a picture of that. That wasn't working for him however so he started putting it on a regular music stand turned around backwards and tilted at about a 30 degree angle so the steel neck would at least not be totally vertical.That sucker's heavy too. He's been doing it like that ever since. In the studio he plays it flat - lap sytle BTW.

Nothing to do with his guit/steel, but Junior's one heck of a vocalist...if you like a powerful uncompromising country baritone. I personally do!

There are a couple Melobar Skreemer doubleneck steel & guitar combos on eBay right now.
Here's the other.

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Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

Gee Brad....these things look really good.

Ron

Though I have never played one, friends tell me the angle is wrong and it just kills your wrist.

I have seen one of JB's steels up close several years ago and the tuner pan said "Fender" on it. I thought all parts were also from a Fender.
As you see on the site you can send the stringmaster parts and save $500.00. (wow)

I would never buy one for just that reason alone. If someone has to chop a Fender to make it that is just wrong.

Hey Jon,
No problem! I was happy to see that anyone rememberd that thing. I still play it alot, and it still turns heads when I haul her out.
But I can see why Junior uses a stand with his. After 3-4 songs, I'm looking for a place to set her down. And I think that mine is lighter than Juniors.
-andy-

I've never understood dual neck guitars (except for console steels, that is.) Just put a lap steel on a stand and then when you want to play it sling your regular guitar to one side. The extra necks just get in the way.

That's exactly what I used to do. Then we were booked for 4 shows in a row, where there was no room for a steel on legs. I used my Fender Custom T8, or my National D8, or a Supro S8, depending on the stage size, but these stages were just too small.

The double neck did 2 things:
1) Freed up stage room.
2) Generated MUCH larger interest in steel.
People come up close to watch and take pictures when I play that thing. That never happened with the the other steels.
-andy-

The original Guit-Steel, "Old Yeller," were pieces from a Fender Deluxe Guitar, and a Fender Bullet that JB had been playing before he got the idea of the GuitSteel in a dream. Stevens was living in Austin at the time as I recall, before he moved to Alpine. Junior's idea was to glue them together but Michael said "no, we'll do it the right way." The parts for Yeller are all Fender.

"Big Red," the second model, has pickups from a D-8 Sho-Bud that JB bought at South Austin Music. Those are the white pickups. I wasn't around when Big Red was built, other than Jr. told me where he got the pickups. I had kind of wanted that Sho-Bud before he nabbed it and dismantled it.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association