Your unsung heroes?

[Alvin Blaine]

Steve and he and his brother Mike, were a big influence on me and one of the reasons I chose music as a full time career.

Steve and who and his brother Mike?

Sorry, bad editing on my part.

[Barry Blackwood]

It's OK, Alvin, I wasn't pickin' on you, honest ….

[David Griffin]

Junior Knight,Gary Hogue,Ron Stafford & Gary Carpenter

[Richard Sinkler]

Whoa, hey, where's Rusty Rhoads?

All right Barry, back to your room.

But seriously, 3 of the local guys (well, 35 - 40 years ago they were local) are Carlos Claveria (Carco Clave), Greg Lasser, and of course, Barry Blackwood. All were a great help to me.

[Barry Blackwood]

You're killin' me, Rich. Wasn't it more like 25 - 30 years ago? (Maybe not!)
Thanks for the mention, anyway.

[Jody Cameron]

Jody Sanders. He got me started on steel. I love him like a father. jc

[Richard Sinkler]

Barry, you're right. It was the early to mid 80's at Cowtown (Sam's). I go back farther with Greg and Carlos (before I turned 21, which was in '75.

[Tharon Caraway]

Lloyd Maines
Hank DeVito
Steve Fishell
John McFee
Paul Franklin
Bruce Bouton
Rusty Young
Dan Dugmore

[Mike Neer]

Tom Morrell. The man did not get nearly the attention that his music deserves. RIP.

[Marc Jenkins]

Ben Keith is still my favorite.

Greg Leisz, John Neff (w/Japancakes)and Jon Graboff (w/Ryan Adams) are quite important to me as well.

[Roger Rettig]

Paul Franklin an 'unsung hero'?????

Hmmmm!

[Roger Rettig]

Surely this thread is about players who don't perhaps get the universal recognition that they deserve?

I'd like to add the intimidatingly gifted Steve Palousek to my very short list.

(For the record, my favourite players are Buddy E., Tommy White, Doug Jernigan, Bill Stafford, Buck Reid, Paul Franklin and Randy Reinhardt (sp?), but they're all pretty famous anyway.)

Edited @ 3.35 for clumsy typos!!!

[Steve English]

Chuck Back!

He plays guitar in the band I play in. He can play circles around me on steel...blindfolded and with one arm tied behind his back.

Not only is he an inspiration, but very generous and giving with his knowledge and encouragement.

An incredibly talented musician, and a genuinely good person to be around.

I'm very fortunate!

[Jerry Hedge]

CHUCK RICH!!!




















1

[Scott Henderson]

Buck Reid
Vance Terry
Danny Sneed
Buzz Evans
Anyone else who gave it all to this instrument and business...

[Brint Hannay]

Hard to define "unsung".

Sonny Garrish played wonderful, creative, perfectly apt steel on a ton of hit records by major artists, but seldom seems to get mentioned among the greats, i.e. Buddy E., Lloyd, Paul, etc.

[Chip Fossa]

Great unsung steelers, in my little corner of the world;

Sam Gibson
Doug Beaumier
Paul Lambert
John Macy
Jim Smith
Jim Cohen

They all showed me as much as I could understand; and stand. God bless them all. I'm indebited to these wonderful steelers.

Thanks guys.

[Bent Romnes]

Dave Seddon -England, Underplayed, underrated player with lots of taste

Pete Heywood - England, A unique player with a superb touch and tone. Follows nobody's rules but his own

Danny Sneed - Arizona. As with Pete, he separates himself from the masses with his style, sound and unique tunings. A kind person and a great musician.

[Dave Harmonson]

From my neck of the woods:
Jim Webb (not the song writer) still plays his '67 Emmons D10 he bought brand new.
Butch Cornwall (In San Antonio now I hear)
Randy Menack (In Boise, ID these days)
Learned alot from them.

[Tony Glassman]

Big Jim Murphy
Gregg Lasser
Joe Goldmark
Lucky Oceans
Dicky Overby
Steve Palousek
Randy Rheinhart
Tommy Detamore
Carco Clave
....................and "Friendly Little" Eric West

[Dave Mudgett]

Of course, who can argue with the great players already mentioned?

My unsung hero is a jazz guitar player - Dave Klein, currently residing in Butler, PA. He is as fine a jazz guitar player as exists on this planet, and is shamefully under-recognized, and I have heard many, many fine guitar players. Music is music, the instrument is a tool, not an end, and Dave has spent his entire life as a conduit for the expression of amazing music.

Chip - long ago, I saw and met Paul Lambert, back in my Amherst days, up at the Rusty Nail in Sunderland. Great player, totally blew me away. The first "Clean Living" LP is on my turntable as we speak. "Charles Street in the Morning" still resonates to this old Boston boy.

Of course, I cannot let this go by without gratefully acknowledging Mike Sweeney (who is not exactly unsung, but not exactly a household name, as he should be) and Jay Andrews, whose work with Johnny Paycheck has blown me away from day 1. There are so many more - we are very lucky in the steel guitar world to get to meet and know so many of our favorite players.

[Bill Lowe]

Larry Sasser
Terry Crisp

[Shane Glover]

Joe Rogers & Lloyd Maines & Mickey Adams in no particular order.


Shane

[Johnny Cox]

Just a few in no particular order,
Julian Tharpe
Robby Turner
Dicky Overby
Tommy White
Tom Morrell
Bud Carter
Terry Bethel
Billy Braddy
Shot Jackson

[Chip Fossa]

Dave,

"Clean Living" playing away as you type-on. Doesn't get much better than that.

"Charles Street In The Morning" was one of many fine songs penned by "Clean Living" lead singer, Norm Schell. Another of my favorite Schell tunes was "Shenandoah" [not the classic].

I lived in Alaska for a couple of years '83-'85, and a couple of curious things happened upon me while living up there.

The first was a trip to a liquor store just outside of Anchorage. There it was, amongst all the other brands of beer. SCHAEFER.
I hadn't seen Schaefer beer ever since I left the East Coast back in '76. You could not find it. It disappeared. So almost 10 years later, here's a bunch of Schaefer 6-packs in an outpost-type of liquor store in the heart of Alaska, of all places. I bought a case.

Me and a friend then took a trip furthur into the bush with Schaefers by our side and eventually came upon a really stand-alone bar out, literally, in the middle of nowhere. My buddy Tom [a native Alaskan], of course, knew that the place was there.

So we plowed in and started ordering rounds. The place had one other customer besides us. It was nice. It was quiet and really laid back.

After about a 1/2 hour or so I noticed a juke box. So now I decide that it's getting just a little too quiet for me and went over to the juke and started checking out the songs. It was definitely a + country juker.

All of a sudden, down in either the left or right corner [can't remember exactly], there it was. A typical yellowed-out jukebox standard music card. It said "Shenandoah" by Clean Living. I was stunned. I immediately played it, went back to where Tom was sitting, didn't say much at first, then asked him if he liked that song I just played. Of course, 'Country Tom', did like it.

Then I told him the truth and whole story behind the song. He was blown away, too. We continued playing it over and over, until even the bartender had had enough of Clean Living, me, and Country Tom.

What an eye-opening day that was. Imagine that. Clean Living hardly got any air-play around Western Mass when they were riding the wave, yet somehow managed to touch people all the way to Alaska. How did they ever get on that jukebox way out in the boonies?

BTW, Paul never played with knee levers. He had a double-neck Emmons, I think, and had either 6 or 8 pedals. Just a great player with much taste. Played mostly E9, I believe.