The Steel Guitar Forum

I've been hooked on good old country music since the day I was born. Hee Haw was big when I was little (I was born in '74.) When I was learning to talk, I told my folks I wanted to see "Stonalellabody." For a solid week no one knew what I was talking about until Hee Haw signed off with cast yelling, "So-long-everybody!" I grew up on REAL country music--Ray Price, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Bob Wills, Buck Owens, etc. My dad is a fiddle player; he started learning when I was about five or six. That's how I learned to play guitar--Daddy would teach me to play rhythm to whatever new fiddle tune he was trying to learn. BTW, it is sort of my dream/goal to help bring the country back.

The steel guitar! Also, the phrase "there is beauty in simplicity" certainly describes most classic country music. It is honest, uncluttered, and easily understood and related to. Listen...really listen...to Tubb's "When Two World's Collide", or to George Strait's "The Chair", or to Price's "Unloved, Unwanted", and you'll see what I mean!

Hello Jack,On old radio stations, Guess what my favorite was..?? "CLEAR CHANNEL WSM" on saturday night.
Take care....Frank

Plumb forgot about WJJD, but seem to recall
"THE OLD DOMINION BARN DANCE" but can`t seem to recall the station call sign.

I was born to like both kinds of music, Country AND Western, moreso than anyone else in my entire family. I cut my musical teeth listening to the Grand Ole Opry, Wheeling Jamboree, Renfro Valley, and all the other country and western music programs I could find on our old AM tube radio back when I was a small boy. I strung a longwire antenna in our upstairs hall so I could pull in the clear channel stations at night. I did play some rock and roll guitar as a teenager, but by the time I was 18 I was playing take-off lead guitar in country bands on a steady basis. Had to sneak out of the house to do it when I lived at home because my parents were sure that as a musician I was on the road to hell. I've been a dedicated fan of the steel guitar since 1965 or before, so I guess you could say that steel guitar helped draw me in as well. I have been playing steel in bands since the mid-to-late 1980's and not just country and western music, but C & W is my calling.

Tim R.

Frank, The Old Dominion Barndance was WRVA in Richmond Va. One of the names I remember from that show is "Sunshine Sue".

Well for me , as I was playing guitar for at least 10 years before turning into a Steel junkie, I was favoring Buffalo Springfield, and then POCO with Rusty Young, Pure Prairie League with I believe John Call. I started listening to "HAG" as well, Then , I heard Emmons !!!That was pretty much the defining moment , that was in '71. I ran out and bought a Maverick, and then within a six month period I spent another 1500 bucks on a Sho-Bud with a bunch of pedals and knees and two necks,
( seemed to me two necks were better than one ) then spent the next 30 years trying figure this thing out..

I'll probably need a little more time ....

TP
Now I have two D10's to help figure it out, 4 necks gotta be better than two...

Saturdays in Scappoose, Oregon as a little boy, I would marvel at my Grandfathers fiddle playing. Dad and Uncle Wayford played flat top, Uncle Chester played a homemade upright bass, and Uncle Bowden whatever he could get his hands on. Sundays were a different singing at a tiny pentecostal church. This got me interested in music and playing guitar. In the mid sixties, my step dad was playing in a honky tonk band around the Seattle area. They used to practice in our living room. The steel player was a guy named Larry, from the Tacoma area. The first time I heard him play, I was hooked and became a closet Buck Owens fan. Mind you, it wasn't cool to like country as a teenager in the mid to late sixties in the Seattle area.
I loved it when the Byrds, Poco,PPL,et al came along. It brought the steel guitar to a much wider audience, whom would not have been caught dead listening to a Price shuffle. The steel was the hook that got me.

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Steve Stallings
Bremond, Texas

I played old standards , pop, and big band for 20 years until 1966.

Then I heard RAY PRICE with Jimmy Day, and Buddy Emmons. That did it for me.

I liked Hank Thompson with Curly Chalker too.

I got a D10 push pull Emmons E9 and C6 and worked with country bands from then on. In those days , there was plenty of work.

Now I'm back to Single neck playing the old standards, big band, etc.on E6 again, right back where I started.........al <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Al Marcus on 16 November 2001 at 08:09 AM.]</p></FONT>

And there I was trying to put the make on princess Ramona and Sunday Mornings listening to the Squeaking Deacon On Kfox.Drinking straight Whiskey with Lee Ross at the old Shamrock on the PCH..Or trying to Pick fire on the strings like Joe Maphis or Larry Collins (man I wish I still Had my Mose-rite)Or town hall Party with Cliffie Stone. Or working for Leonard at the old Hitching post on Western Ave.Or Sundays at the Huntington Park Ball room when it was safe to drive into Compton (as long as you got out before dark).And watching Sammy Masters open up the Cals Corral show on KCOP Channel 13 when there were only thirteen channels in LA...Buddy Cagle,Jimmy Snyder (Rag Doll),Gene Davis (Palomino),Skeets Mcdonald,Wynn Stewart,Jerry Inman,Shorty Bacon and Billy Bacon and Brother ED who were no ham and eggers.Johnny Davis Great Lead Guitar and Steel.,Speaking of steel try Carl West,Blackie Taylor,Red Rhodes.And a Little Girl by the name Of Barbara, I forgot her last name probably never made it in the business at least I got an echo plex off of her father Erby..Lucille Starr and Phil Regan, and John and Joanie Mosby.Lous Blue Fox,City Of Commerce, Georges Roundup in Long Beach..Man it was easy to like Country music and it was fun. I could go on for a week and miss someone unintentionly. Now that was my main reason and motivation and I'm sure hunderds of others.NOw,,Do you want to know the real reason I love Country Music?

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CJC

Thanks for the replies everyone. Found all comments very interesting.
Dennis

Room for one more reply? What got me into country music.......The steel guitar sounds of Jerry Byrd and Don Helms. The guitar work of Grady Martin and Hank Garland also helped! Then along came Emmons and Buddy C and Leon R. The rest is history!

Bob Dylan > Johnny Cash > Kris Kristofferson > Waylon > Willie....

An add in a magazine for Waylon Jennings indicating "he's no cotton-candy gentleman"; that and listening to an 8-track tape of Red Simpson singin' "I'm a Truck"....'talk about stacked, why, they're both chrome!

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Little Roy Wiggins and Don Helms

Tom Brumley with Buck Owens really started me on the country music road and it's cost me a fortune. I told Tom this and he laughed and said "yeah that's what I told Jerry Byrd."