The Steel Guitar Forum

I was in the Army at the time and my first paying gig was at the EM Club at Wiley Barracks in Neu Ulm, Germany. The time would have been in the early part of 1959 and I was 19 years old. The band was called "Doc Warner & The Confederates".. It was a five piece group and we played every Wednesday at the club for over a year for $25.......That's $25 for the whole band. Just think, for that 5 bucks apiece we made, you could buy two cartons of cigarettes and still have a little left over!...JH in Va.

When I was 16 I had a quartet that played a bunch of nutty self composed music that got hired by mistake to play a frat party. They hated us so we traded instruments around so we were playing instruments we didn't know how to play and played rock music for them. We played Louie Louie, Satisfaction, Wooly Bully and stuff like that. I played nothing but quarter notes on every drum I could hit for the rest of the night. They loved it and we had a ball. I learned allot that night.

I was 12 years old, and playing Square Dance's for 40 bucks a night... I had an old single neck clark with 3 pedals and one knee.... and i thought i was on the opry, never really thinking that someday i would really be playing on it!... But The Lord has blessed me in many ways!

I was 16, in 1964, played rhythm guitar in a rock band at night and worked in a yeast factory, for $1.90/hr during the day. I made enough to buy a '58 Chevy convertible, for $350. It did wonders for my social life.

My 1st paying gig - 1983 (I was 19) at the "last call lounge" where I live (Springfeld IL). I was learning how to play an acoustic guitar (had it for about 3 months) and a buddy called, "hey, a friend of mine band needs a guitar player - they are paying - wanna do it"?
I cant believe that I did it. It was actually a bass position. I got the gig and played with the band (were a house band - 5 nights a week) for for over a year. Mostly on bass, but played a few nights on lead/rhythm and also a night or 2 on drums. It was a knife & gun club. I made 35.00 per night.
The place is a gas station / convenience store today!

I was about 16 when my buddies and I formed a rock band - two guitars, bass and a drummer. We later added an organ player so we could do the "Hammond" sound. We played Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, all the pop tunes of the day. I too remember Wolly Bully, Satisfaction, Stepping Stone, etc.
When we started out, we were too young to drive at night, and our parents drove us around to gigs (mostly high school dances) in two station wagons. We were "The Mustangs!" We made $25 each for playing a 3 hour dance, big money for kids in those days...
Did I mention we met a lot of GIRLS!!!
Larry J.

I first played in a bar for money at 16...two years too young to be in the place legally. My cousin was playing lead guitar in a weekend band and when he had a serious chainsaw accident I filled in for him for a few months. I don't remember too much about the music but I remember this old fella who used to get drunked up and dance solo in black stovepipe boots. It was a very seedy place and the pay wasn't much.

I was 15, my best friend and I had a 3 piece band got paid $15 to play a sock hop. Word eventually got around school that we had a band, two guitars and a drummer no bass. Drummers mom drove us to the gigs as we had no drivers license. Eventually got a bass. The lead player passed on about 10 years ago and the drummer and I are still picking 46 years later.

You mean that you can get payed for playing the STEEL????????Larry B.

I was 12, I joined the union and got paid scale $8. I played a six string fender with the Rainbow Rangers in eastern Iowa. The drummer had to drive to get me until I was 14 and could drive my dad's jeep over back roads to meet the band. Dale

13 years old, but I was a banjo player back then.

I was 17 at the time.
Played guitar and sang back then with the band.
We played mostly Grange clubs as they were called up in New England in the 50's.
Also did several School dances for the Boston Radio Disc Jockeys.
Small pay, but it covered our gas money.

Don

The summer of 1965 I was not yet 14 and learning to play the drums listening to everything Sandy Nelson had out. Let There Be Drums was the fatal song that got me going! Our first band was The Vibratones with lead and rythm guitars, lead singer, bass and me on drums. We played sock hops and once played on TV in Louisville (hometown) on a show called Teen Beat. I'd love to see that old show now and we won a spot at the Battle of The Bands at Freedon Hall to play on an album with nine of the other bands that won that day. I think we were tenth! We played Day Tripper as it was our best song for vocals but Walk Don't Run was the best we could do as an instrumental. The bass and rythm player played through the same Ampeg amp, the kind that turns upside down and the head goes into the speaker cabinet. The lead player had a Sears amp, the Twin Twelve. We had a 50 watt Bogen head and a Premier reverb system along with some homemade speakers cabinets and six 10's or 12's in each one. Imagine going out to play today with a 50 watt PA!

I was 9 years old, got a job playing an singing on a local Radio station, they paid me 6 dollars a show in 1955. It was the best thing to happen for me because I met a lot of older good musicians, later on when my voice changed I still was playing guitar, good enough to play with other bands.

Jerry

I was either 9 or 10 and living in Mishawaka IN. Itwas either 1927 0r 28 and a group of guys took me to Cal City IL. We played for 5 hrs with one 30 min break. I was paid $12.

In 1943, at 14 years old, my Hawaiian teacher got a call from a Saturday night band leader looking for anyone that could play Steeel Guitar. I was sent out, along with my Parents to check it. They said go ahead and try it. It was Dance Hall in Compton, Ca. called the "Lighthouse". (in later years remodeled into "Townhall Party"). It was from 8:00PM to 12:00 midnight with one intermession at 10:00 PM and paid $4.00 During war at this time So.Calif. was under a "Brownout" and on a foggy Sat. night it was hard to even find the place. I was thrown into a 7-piece band with horns playing some music I never heard of. It was swim or sink. The Bar was separate from the Dance Hall and I would get there early and listen to Bob Wills on the Juke Box. That's when I learned Steel Guitar Rag. Fortunately I always had a good ear and started learning fast.

Played my first payed gig around 1956 on a banjo in a trad jazz band.
I had only been mucking around with 4 strings on a G banjo tuned as
a tenor, when a friend who already played bass with this outfit heard
me playing around on it and said ' hey, we need a banjo player- come
and join us' . So I did and earned the princely sum of 5 shillings (stirling)
at the ripe ol' age of 13 (big money then). I think my first payed steel gig
was around 1965 ( I should have actually paid them!)
Hello Roger (Rettig) from Uk long time no see ! We must have started
on the music trail around the same time in the UK.

MCI D10/ Roland Cubes/ Evans/ and enough guitars,banjos, dobros
etc to start a music shop.

I was 15 in January 1972 when I first started learning the chords on the guitar. I practiced until my finders bled, and then kept on playing. I turned 16 that year and in July I was playing rhythm guitar with my friend that taught me, at "The Fort Tavern" in Hoskins Oregon, for tips out of the hat. By September I was playing bass in a four piece band Fridays and Saturdays for $25 a night at The Eagles Lodge in Corvallis.

It was 1961, and I was 17. Our little 3 piece band got invited to play an actual barn dance. Our stage was some boards lined up on rows of hay bales. Our lead singer had learned a lot of square dance tunes by watching the old timers around the area, and we did those along with all we'd learned from Faron Young, Buck Owens. Hank Thompson, ect. We put a milk pail down on the edge of the make shift stage, and by the end of the night, we'd made about 8 bucks a man or there abouts. I was using the Gretch strings with the fuzzy stuff on the ends too. I don't believe they meant them to be stuffed through the tail piece of a Fender Jazz Master. It was them or Black Diamond back then, and I was always a big Chet Atkins fan, so I thought Gretch strings would make me play better. John

I was 15. An older guy, who was helping me learn the fiddle, asked me to go play at a square dance with his band. We rode about 100 miles to a two room school out in the middle of nowhere Alabama. These folks would dance to the same song for 20 minutes or so. When Mr. Jackson got hot, tired, needed a drink, He'd get me to play "Bile the Cabbage Down", as it was maybe the only square dance tune I could do good enough that they could dance to it. We got home real late, and split $68 five ways. I had a blast. I had been waiting for this day all my life, and I'd finally arrived. The older guys accepted me as a musician, I'd got paid, and there was no looking back. We played quite a few of those dances, for not much more money, but man was that fun. I have played a lot of better paying high profile gigs, that were not near as much fun. I'd go back again in a heartbeat.

Spring '59,at the Wompatuck Club in Hingham,Mass.We split $12 4 ways for playing about an hour of 3 chord rock and roll(can't remember any of the tunes now).I was 15.

14. Momma had to drive us to the gig. Bowling alley opening. Got paid but not much. We were so excited.

Ron

14. With my guitarteacher at a nightclub, me on bass. I looked older

I was 62! It was this past summer at a big hospital benefit. ($75.00) I've always been a late starter

I was 15 in 1952 and we had a three piece band. Piano , sax and drums.We played every Sat night in a bar,( dance hall seprate ) for round dancing and square dance .We made the princely sum of $15. $5 dollars a piece.I played sax back then.