The Steel Guitar Forum

<SMALL>Sometimes I drool.</SMALL>

That's a good thing, Bobby. Casner can use you for a stage-leveling tool.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Any time I'm ask to play "What A Friend We Have In Jesus". Can't do it dry eyed . . . . because I know He is right there with me.
John Buffington

I cry often when I play. Certain tunes especially evoke emotion. My wife passed away 8 months ago. We were married for 31 years. She was my biggest supporter in the 1970's when I was learning steel. She even put up with me being on the road for 10 years or so through the 1980's. Often when I play I imagine she is in the audience cheering me on. Then I remember she is gone and tears will fill my eyes. Playing steel keeps me close to her. What a life!!<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ron Sodos on 01 June 2004 at 09:22 AM.]</p></FONT>

In August 95 one Fri. afternoon I was stringing my steel as my son and one of his teen friends were playing their Teles and Flying V, they were working on a Rock and Roll riff that I thought could played with an octave and a part,so I demonstrated this technique using the Waltz of the Angels,they were impressed!With the parts only,waltzs were not my son's bag...He was able to kinda recreate the parts I had shown them and asked for more saying that the technique could be mighty good in R&R if they could play them fast enough,I had to work the Grand Ole Opry that night so I agreed to show him more on the following Sunday afternoon. I received news of his death before leaving the Opry that night.
The following Jan we cut a tribute to Shot Jackson,"Picking on Shot"and I cut "Waltz of the Angels" as it was among Shot's favorites also...Johnny Cox was kind enough to loan me a profex so I was traveling light, just a steel and a seat in the studio.Just trying to see frets accurately through tears is difficult,I made one pass and then asked Jimmy Day to please bring my guitar and seat as I had to leave the studio...not to return.
I am often asked to play this song and I often have to veiw the neck through a veil of tears and I don't dread the song as some might think, I just play...and remember...

Robert and Terry, your mention of nursing homes caused me to think of maybe playing one soon,I am a regular visitor but I have not played one since 1982, However my friend, Rufus Thibodeaux, one of the fiddle player greats is now a resident of a nursing home here in Nashville.When I visit I can tell that these people are so glad to have visitors,even if the visitors are there to see someone else,I sometimes take my dog which seems to excite most of them,now I think next time I will take a fiddle and try to get Rufus to entertain us...even the dog will enjoy that!!!<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Lynn Owsley on 01 June 2004 at 10:04 AM.]</p></FONT>

Lynn
You wont regret doing it ! I was moved by an old gent !
When we come in the room , he was asleep in a big chair
with a base fiddle ! the neck laying on his scolder , he never opened his eyes the whole time we set up ! from the first note we played , he garbed the neck a plucked the strings as though he had played every one of our tunes [ in time and on key ] every song ! but in between them he was asleep - some one there told me he had played in an orchestras all his life !
and now all he had was the likes of us . that will bring a tear !!

I sure have. When i heard "In The Garden" by Tommy White I did, and when I played it myself I teared up pretty good. Gospel songs do it everytime.

Carl West

Then on the other side of the coin, my pick'in causes lots to cry for mistreatment of an great instrument.

Carl West

YES.
Almost always!! After all of the years that I've been trying to play..and for a while I thought I could...I cry..either to my self..or where others see me.'cause I'm not better..Someday I'll get it right!!
Grouchy

No, but I have both slept and swept while playing.

Yes,for me Beyond The Sunset is a very emotional tune.

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The Lone Prairie Steeler Pat

Being the sentimental FOOOL I am, i tend to choke up all too often when I hear something real purty.
I can't recall playing anything that made me cry for the above reason. I HAVE seen people cry when I play, and I'd like to think it was because they were touched by it, and not for the same reason dogs howl (my playing has had THAT response, too).
It's when they start LAUGHING that you gotta
worry about!

~Facetious Freddy

No, but I've sweated a lot...

Actually, when I first sat down to work out an arrangement to "Tara's Theme" (aka "Gone With the Wind") for my first CD, I finished, not weeping, but trembling and shaken. Because this song has so much personal history to it for me, being the theme song that was used for the TV movie series, "Million Dollar Movie" when I was a small boy. I would sit hour after hour all day Saturday and Sunday, with my legs crossed on the floor in front of our black and white TV set and watch the movie of the week, often Godzilla, Mighty Joe Young, etc. and at every station break or commercial break they would lead in (and out) with the opening strains of Tara's Theme. So that song immediately transports me back to a simpler time, before all the troubles of life crept up on me, before Bin Laden and terrorism, before war... lost land of innocence. (Sigh...)

I'm not a real emotional guy, but when Jerry Brightman was playing at the SWSGA show here in January, he asked the backround guys to sit out and played a medly of patriotic type songs that were so well done that this old boy had a few tears well up in these eyes.
So much for the "MACHO JACK" moniker.