The Steel Guitar Forum

Sneaky Pete "Christine's Tune". Man, that was it for me....

I can't cite song, where, when, or who, only the inimitable, incomparably smooth sound which gets me every time I hear it, and in the same way as it did the first time.

"Tired Eyes" on Neil Young's Tonights The Night. BEN KEITH!!

For me it was 1972, Neil Young's Harvest album. Ben Keith playing on Old Man and Out on the Weekend.

It was re-inforced by Rusty Young / Poco - Bad Weather.

Took me 36 years to eventually get a steel, hope it doesnt take too many be for I can actually play something well.

It wasn't a particular song for me. I went to a live show in the DC area years ago to see Conway Twitty. I sat there listening to the sounds coming from John Hughey's guitar and it seem to be coming from everywhere... and it was so pretty. From that moment I thought, I've got to learn to play that instrument.

Sad Situtions" - Tracy Nelson (Pete Drake)
Sunday In Dixie - Buddy Emmons
I'll Leave the Front Door Open - J & J Mosby (Mooney)

.....and especially: Lucky Oceans, who I got to see many Tuesday nights at the Longbranch Tavern in Berkeley CA. (early 1970's)

Ben Keith on Harvest softened me up. Neil was pretty important if you lived in Winnipeg in the early 1970s.
But the steel on the bridge of "Stella Blue" (Grateful Dead, Wake of the Flood) still sends chills up my spine.
Then someone showed me what the pedals & lever did on his 3x 1 Linkon at a jam session, I played the rest of the session on it, and the rest was obscurity.

The Lloyd Green album, "Cool Steel Man" along with BE's black album. Went to Conway concert and watched and met Hughey on a Friday night in 71' and that done it.

Hard to identify just one song that did it for me, but I can think of a few that I was totally into even before I tried playing the steel -

Bad Weather, Rusty Young with Poco
Someday Soon, Emmons with Judy Collins
Fairy Tale, Weldon with the Pointer Sisters
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Curley with Leon Russell

I loved the steel on these tunes but thought I would never be able to play like these guys. Then I bought a steel, and now I know I will never play like these guys.

Steve

"Funny How Time Slips Away" - Willie Nelson ...not sure who the steel player is on the record though...so beautiful

david houston almost persuaded

Ralph Mooney

My Dad knew Speedy West because we lived in the same neighborhood, and they both rode Harleys. The Christmas of 1951 Speedy gave my parents a 45 RPM Capitol recording of his of Steel Guitar Rag for them to give me as a Christmas present. My sister got the record player to be able to play it. She got Gene Autry’s version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I loved it and shortly thereafter ended up taking lap steel lessons. I started with an acoustic guitar until my folks saw I was serious enough for them to buy a Magnatone. After a couple of years I didn’t have as much time for it, so my parents sold it as they needed the money. I started again last year with an S-10. B/T/W, it turned out the Capitol record I was given never got released. Too bad it has gotten lost over time.

Back in 1944 I was working on a farm and a friend & I used to listen to the radio at lunch time to a country music program. He played a little guitar and when a Roy Acuff record came on with "Brother Oswalds" dobro I asked "What is that sound ?? " He thought it was a steel guitar !! Later I heard Roy Wiggins on an Eddy Arnold record and I was hooked !! Bought my first lap steel in 1945 , an Electromuse 6 stringer . Been in love ever since. Eddie "C" ( the old non-pedal geezer )

I was trying to play the steel guitar part on my Les Paul, w/slide. "TOGETHER AGAIN" & "CRYIN'TIME AGAIN"
I knew there was alot to be desired !!
Then along came CSN , NEW RIDERS,Neil Young,etc. I knew I had the right idea, but the WRONG instrument !!
Rick

CHALKER....." Together Again"
Brumley....Anything he did
JAck

For me, it was the steel players on those old syndicated country music or "Grand Ole Opry" shows on TV back in the early 60's, even before the Buck Owens Ranch shows. It's not a specific record or player, but the sound, that hooked me.

The earliest record I can recall being drawn to by the pedal steel was The Best of Buck Owens, with Mooney all over it (Foolin Around, Under Your Spell Again, Second Fiddle, etc). I recall hearing it playing loud on a HiFi at a W. T. Grants store, and begging until my parents bought it for me. My fascination began very early.

There is a house jam (not sure of the name) in the middle of an early alt. documentary by the name of Heartworn Highways that steeled the deal for me.

saw a greg leisz mention early in the thread...his video playing "nuclear" with ryan adams was a kicker, and have had the pleasure of seeing him live with watkins family hour many many times...that and seeing cindy cashdollar live with ra and the cardinals a few years back...mr. jon graboff, and accidentally tripping over lloyd green "master of the steel strings" at a record shop. raised on country music, but those were the things that made me start saving my pennies and relentlessly surfing this site!

bought a steel in september of last year from jim palenscar down at steel guitars of north county and haven't looked back since

For me it has to be Jerry Byrd and Don Helms backing up Hank williams Sr.

A Scottish steel player called Roy "The Hobo" Campbell lent me a video of Buddy Emmons playing at Gerry Hogan's Steel Festival (I think it was 1988). Gerry was playing guitar in the backing band and he actually cried when Buddy played Danny Boy. It was truly extraordinary.

That's what did it for me!

What got me into it? I think a certain amount of masochism mixed with my generally intense personality.

Seriously - there was no one player, song, or small group of songs. I have always loved the sound of a steel guitar and a band I knew needed one, so I decided to learn.

Tom Brumley's "Bud's Bounce" from Buck Owens' early 60's LP "I Don't Care".

1963 - My dad built me a 6 string and challenged me to learn to play that tune.

I had my work cut out for me...

Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Door's" album. It came out when I was 2. I had the 8 track from about '74 on. I still love that album.

Later on Whiskeytown's "Stranger's Almanac" and Blue Rodeo.

Nowadays - Kathleen Edwards

(Max Kerr:

I bet that band in the film was Barefoot Jerry doing 'Two Mile Pike' with Russ Hicks - what a track!!!)

For me it was Steely Dan's 'Pearl Of The Quarter' and 'Razor Boy' with simple but hauntingly effective steel guitar parts.

The catalyst, though, was hearing Emmons' solo on Ray Charles version of 'Wichita Lineman' - I had a ZB Student steel within days of hearing it!