The Steel Guitar Forum

"Silver Meteor"on Sierra records(1980),it contains 4 songs Clarence recorded while he was working on his unfinished first solo album.
Also,Clarence with the Everly Brothers on"on my way back home"wich is a gem and according to the record one of the best-kept secrets in the history of Country-Rock.Clarence's opening licks sounds like a steel guitar.
There are also some songs of The Blue velvet Band with Bill Keith excellent steel playing.I don't know if it's availble on cd.

Steve, as Dave said early on he used Twins, but shortly after joining the Byrds he switched (mainly) to a Dual Showman Reverb. He added a Super Reverb that drove his Vibratone, and also used that at places like the Ash Grove. Back at the time of the Nashville West album he was using a Vibrolux Reverb.

If you listen to the Sweetheat, younger Than Yesterday, Nashville West and other pre-Byrds-member stuff he's using a Tele now owned by Bob Warford (who put the second shoulder-strap bender on it - totally different from Clarence's with a really short throw). That white one was his favorite; he got it from Buck Owens and it has a Strat neck with a cut-down headstock, and still has the frets on it from when Clarence got it from Buck (they are almost flat but Bob'd never had them dressed...supposedly they are some weird alloy and help give that guitar an extremely bright sound). The original bender guitar, the sunburst, was his backup and originally (you can see it in some early pics of him with the Byrds) it was set up as an Esquire! Still a much mellower tone than the white one.

But even that on changed, as you can hear comparing Live at the Fillmore and Untitled and later stuff. Red Rhodes had installed the dual-coil Velvet Hammer bridge pickup, rewound Strat pickup, and a wacky wiring harness. He'd essentially get "overdrive" by playing with the bridge's primary coil (actually a tap) which had very low output while his amps were dimed - then he'd flip the switch and it'd have full output (the DC resistance of the "main" coil is around 3.65k, while the full-output measures around 9K+ ). Those bridge pickups are considered by many as the holy grail of Tele pickups and sell for $4-500.

Clarence was always tinkering though....and after he'd been killed and Marty Stuart bought the guitar along with a Strat Clarence had) the bridge pickup had been changed to a rewound, but fairly stock Tele pickup and the phase switch wired normally. To Clarence fans, the one thing most would cut off a leg to find is THAT Velvet Hammer bridge pickup - it disappeared.

There are 40-some "clones" unofficially called the Nashvill West that were made by Mike Nihen with Red's pickups. He stopped building when the pickup supply ran out. I have the prototype:

Steve Feldman wrote:A little off-topic, but the tone that Clarence was getting on 'Untitled' and other recordings was just unbelievable. I can listen to 'Lover of the Bayou' and still get chills up my spine. Anyone know what he was playing through? I saw them in ~1971, but this wasn't on my radar back then...

I saw him play three times. All those times he was using a Fender Dual Showman as an amp.
I am surprised to see the number of responses and happy that his memory lives on.

I am so glad all of you hold Clarence in such high regard. I hope his memory never fades. I remember seeing him with the Byrds in his white suit and stoic pose. Mostly I remember listening to the Live Kentucky Colonels album (64?)with Clarence and the fiddle "devil" Scotty Stoneman with some of the best picking ever recorded.The MC who introduced them was a young banjo picker named Jerry Garcia. Clarence's flatpicking and timing were pure genius. I bought this flatpicking Clarence White book by Russ Barenberg ( a Clarence disciple flatpicker) and he tried to tab out some of Clarence's killer flatpicking solos like Soldiers Joy. Russ said the syncopations were very hard to grasp and tab. And as Russ said, when you play along with Clarence, he would beat anyone to the finish line everytime! You want to learn about guitar phrasing, just study Clarence!Its a thrill to read the posts from people that met and knew him!Thank you!

I had the unique opportunity to play Clarence's tele @ a Marty Stuart rehearsal...Marty put a push down high 'E' string bender on it. (Like Buck Trent's banjo pedals)..I thought that was a tragedy

i think it says alot for marty that he's playing that guitar instead of letting it rot in a closet like a greedy collector. i played it once also opening for marty. he's a very cool, hot picker with more talent and historical knowledge than most of us. he deserves to hot rod a hot rod guitar if he wants! i think clarence would be proud!

As well as others mentioned here, a couple of my favorite recordings with Clarence are Freddy Weller, Games People Play album with Freeborn Man, and Birmingham featuring Clarence and Red Rhodes together, and Arlo Guthrie Running Down The Road album with a bunch of great Clarence White licks. There is also a recent issue of various sessions Clarence played on between '66 and '68 all pre bender. Another of my favorites not mentioned yet is the Gene Parsons solo album, Kindling. Clarence does some fine electric and acoustic playing on it.

Dan Schafer wrote:I had the unique opportunity to play Clarence's tele @ a Marty Stuart rehearsal...Marty put a push down high 'E' string bender on it. (Like Buck Trent's banjo pedals)..I thought that was a tragedy

this is what I used to think too, until I heard Ralph Mooney had a hand in adding that bender.

I really enjoyed reading this thread. I saw him too with the Byrds in Central Park, NYC. One of my favorites is the beautiful understated guitar solo in the Byrds' cover of Woody Guthrie's "Deportee". Thanks to you forumites for your anecdotes.

I knew Clarence somewhat in the old days of my SoCal "career". I first met him at a local Sunday music show which was held at the Southgate, California Eagles Hall and hosted by a KFOX deejay called "The Sqeakin' Deacon".

I used to play there with a local yokel named Jimmy Cee who's only claim to fame was a song he wrote which Rose Maddox recorded called "Stand Up Fool".

Clarence and the Kentucky Colonels used to play there on occasion and on one Sunday I was in the parking lot with my acoustic going over a song with another band member and the Colonels were out there at the same time. Clarence liked the tone of my acoustic and I handed it to him to try. He had one of the all time greatest right hands in the history of guitar. On an acoustic he could do lighting fast flurries of notes at almost no volume and then become loud at will. Probably the best control of a flatpick I've ever seen!

The last time I ever saw him was at the Nashville West with Gib Gilbeau and the group. He was playing electric then and doing some wonderful things.

Jim Sliff, that white Telecaster you're talking about that Bob Warford has now. Are you sure he got it from Buck Owens? I remember one day in the sixties at Blackie Taylor's old store out on Lincoln Ave, the store he had before the Hawaiian Gardens location. Blackie showed me a white Telecaster that he said that Clarence had bought. I always though it was the same one that Bob had. Next time you see Blackie can you ask him about that? thanks, JH in Va..........

Jerry - I head two versions; the first was that Clarence got it directly Buck, the second was that it was Buck's guitar but was sold through Blackie on consignment. I did ask Blackie once - he didn't remember, saying there were so many instruments sold to guys who were (or became) "name" players then it's hard to remember. Bob seems to think it was direct from Buck (and in case anyone cares, Bob traded a Roy Noble acoustic to Clarence for it, which along with a rare Mark Whitebook was one of the two acoustics Clarence played off-and-on the last year or so before his death, except for an occasional D-28 on stage - this was after the Byrds Ovation contract ended)

Jim, I got a chance to get a feel of the White tele.
Bob was picking, with my buddy Dave Gleason up at Pappy & Harriet's.
In the break, I asked hey Mr, how come you got a Fender 400 changer on your guitar.
He was pretty tickled, and told me about some White/Burton guitar meltdowns he had witnessed.
Bob, needs to write this stuff down before its lost.
Jim, as you probably know He is a total bad ass too.
I agree with Jason's comment regarding his sessions with Wynn Stewart. I believe there are about 11 tunes from 68.
Clarence's interplay with Mooney is transcendental. its like there sharing a brain.
Lee

I remember the first time I saw Clarence. I went to see the Byrds at a small community college, I was about nineteen. I had played guitar for about seven years. A band called Red Eye opened up. They had one tune that got some airplay, "Games". It was the first professional show I had ever gone to. I was wondering how the Byrds were going to come on and sound better than the opening band. I thought I was going to see the Byrds of Turn Turn Turn etc. I wasn't quite ready for Skip Batten, Gene Parsons, Clarence White and Roger. Clarence just blew me away. I have seen some pretty heavy hitters since that time but none of them could come close to Clarence.

Jim, as you probably know He is a total bad ass too.

Only too well! We were in a band together playing local gigs around Orange County for fun a few years ago. Warford goes unrecognized by the public and by many guitar players, but most of the heavy-hitters know how truly scary he is. He was the second guy with a bender and has his own totally distinct style - somewhat like Clarence but with his own signature tone that NEVER changes.

He's used the same guitar, the same effect (an EH LPB-1 plugged into his amp), the same Vibrolux Reverb (modded by Red Rhodes) and as I recall TWO guitar cables his entire career! He's consistent - that's for sure. If he had not been born with an IQ off-the chart (he went to med school finishing everything but his boards...then switched to law WHILE playing with Ronstadt and the Everlys - he's a medical malpractice defense lawyer) he would be as well-known as ALbert Lee or anyone of that caliber

While Clarence died well before I was born he is no doubt a musical influence of mine. Hell of a picker with a killer Tele tone.

Great to see such recognition for one of my all-time favourite players!

It's all been said, but I'd add a plug for his work on the Everly's album, 'Stories We Could Tell'.

His playing on their 'I'm On My Way Back Home Again' (a single release from '68 or '69) just floored me when I heard it.

An emphatic 'nod' for the great Bob Warford, too.

these were taken at the Schaefer Beer music fest in Central Park N.Y.when the "Untitled" album came out 1970 by my friend Larry Cameola cover charge was $1.50

Clarence piqued my interest in guitar after I found old Byrds albums, mainly Untitled. His whole career still fascinates me, but my interest in flatpicking has grown after studying his work in that realm.

Some of my favorite shows that have survived on tape are the reformed Kentucky Colonels and White Brothers shows from the early 70s. They weren't as progressive as Muleskinner but sort of a link between traditional and progressive bluegrass of the time.

Clarence would have been the first to say he wasn't
a 'great' vocalist, but I've always loved to hear his voice in harmony or solo.
"Truck Stop Girl," "My Destiny," "Jamaica Say You Will."
Just further extensions of his soul, and how it came through.

Joe,I agree Clarence was a very soulful singer.

Yes I know very well who Clarence White was. One of the three or four guitarists I sought to emulate immensely when I began playing. Very much missed- & a great life cut short in its prime.

This is a great thread to read. Clarence was one of the best!

most great artists are consistent in their sound. having gotten to play with albert lee several times now, his sound is seemingly the same no matter what two amps we can score for him!

Like Mike P., I took guitar lessons from Clarence, and mando lessons from Roland; their dad was a really cool old guy too, loved his sons like none other.

When I first saw them play, around 1962, they were still The Country Boys, and Roland was still in the Army. They had Leroy Mack on dobro, Billy Ray on banjo, Roger on bass, and Clarence. Sometimes Skip Conover from the Golden State Boys would play dobro as well. When Roland got civilianized, they became the KY Colonels. Leroy left around that time.

In 64 or 65, the Stoneman Family came through town, and Scotty and Van were BIG-TIME drinkers. When they left town, Scotty stayed and played with the Colonels. He moved in with Richard Greene who got Scott off of the booze and on to marijuana, which was a definite improvement for Scott. I saw him play with the band numerous, numerous times. Scotty was one of the greatest fiddlers I'd ever seen, and still is. And a great guy when stoned, not so much when he was drumk. The Cols. had been using Bobby Slone, but he was more of a Tommy Jackson fiddler at that time; he later went with J.D. Crowe and became a solid 'grass fiddler, but he was no Scott Stoneman. Few were, Benny Martin maybe...

Clarence had a dark voice, kinda foreboding. On the duets he sang lead, Roland sang tenor. When it was a trio, Roland sang lead, Billy sang tenor, and Clarence sang the baritone part.

I still have a tape somewheres of a lesson I recorded with Roland. He showed me "Raw Hide," "Wheel Hoss," "Salt Creek," and "Black Mtn. Rag" that day.

Funny what you remember when the cobwebs get shook out.

what??!!..musicians drinking and smoking pot?? i'm appalled!! what ever happened to the true spiritual approach to music?