Buddy Cage's style

Michael Johnstone · Post by **Michael Johnstone** » 21 Apr 2007 12:58 am

Listen to the solos on "She's No Angel" on their live album "Home,Home on the Road" He just doesn't care if he crashes and burns and mostly he doesn't - and I like that. It's good art.

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 21 Apr 2007 3:33 am

"Its good art".. Thats the ticket right there!,, It IS good art.. Thats what real musicians do.. Lay it out there, and if it flys,terrific,.. if it crashes and burns,Oh Well!!! ,We'll get em next time... We desperately need more of that mindset in modern "country", rock, and pop music these days..

I kind of like what the alt country guys are doing, a little more "raw" ....Lord, I LONG to hear an honest slightly out of tune chord, or a malaprop note somewhere somehow....bob

Johan Jansen · Post by **Johan Jansen** » 21 Apr 2007 5:16 am

http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/n ... nslidin.rmHere you can here him!!!!!!!!
Johan

Jeff Lampert · Post by **Jeff Lampert** » 21 Apr 2007 6:16 am

I never really heard anything that knocked me out

Different strokes for different folks. Years later, I am still kncoked out by the studio solo to Hello Mary Lou and some of the greasy chord fills he plays using the second string.

To me, it's just a really well composed solo, and the silly chromatic run creates the tension that is resolved by the lick on the high fret over the V chord. Just good composition.

Frankly, I heard a lot of solos back then from many great steelers. But HIS is one of the few that still stand outs decades later.

To me, it's sort of like the solo to Rainy Day Woman. A lot of players can do a reasonable fascimile, but it still stands the test of time because of the creativity and uniqueness of it.

I hope no one flames me for daring to compare the two solos.

Larry Robbins · Post by **Larry Robbins** » 21 Apr 2007 6:46 am

All this talk about Buddy Cage!! You guys just made dig out the "powerglide" album!
...still makes me smile!

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 21 Apr 2007 7:47 am

Jeffs thoughts were on the money... The only disagreement I have, is I liked his solo better on the Live version of Hello Mary Lou..

I have always understood the fact the because I could copy Buddy's playing, I could NOT have thought it up... he originated his unique style...

I always liked players that I could understand..

in other words, I could listen and envision what postions,pedals,changes etc, were going on.. I could always understand what Buddy was doing and loved it..
The "upper echelon" steel players are so advanced that I could not even begin to imagine what they are doing... I tend to go with what I can easily understand,,,Same with Rusty Young,, I can get a grip on what he plays,[sometimes!] and think it through and adapt it to my own playing... Geez I wish I could do that with all steel players... bob

Post by **Joey Ace** » 21 Apr 2007 9:01 am

and the guys on the "Sweetheart" album, whose names I didn't remember at the time since that was the only thing I ever saw their names on.

That would be Lloyd Green and JayDee Maness.

Bob Knetzger · Post by **Bob Knetzger** » 21 Apr 2007 10:25 am

All this talk about Buddy Cage’s signature licks got me in the mood to try some out on the bandstand.

My band played a casual last night and I thought I’d “do different.” On one solo I played that rising “palm blocked/single note” chromatic lick ala “Mary Lou” but with just one bar’s worth of it and ending more musically on the IV, then followed with some Hal Rugg-ish chordal stuff but also with that 2nd string dissonance. All of it pretty “classic E9” and “understandable” to me (as Bob Carlucci would say). Got BIG thumbs up from the band leader!

After words the bandleader said he really liked that winged solo…I asked ”You mean that Buddy Cage rising lick?” to which he replied “Naw, all you steel players like to play THAT one, I guess that part was okay…but rest of it was really great!”

So much for THAT one….ha.

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 21 Apr 2007 11:01 am

Joey - I know who they are now, and have for years. I was just leaving the names out in the post to make the point about who was "on the radar" and who wasn't for rockers (or me and many of my old cohorts at least...) in the early 70's. We didn't know the "country guys". We did see names show up on things like Sweetheart and Suite Steel, but other than that we stumbled onto steel playing on Linda Ronstadt albums in addition to the NRPS, FFB, Poco, and Mike Nesmith stuff (I can't believe I left Red Rhodes off the list of guys I was aware of - probably because I was in his shop so much).

Not knowing anything about where steel was used other than Country-Rock, I bought a few things - a Lloyd Green patriotic album and an instrumental record by Merle Haggard's band, among a few others - and wondered what happened to the sound. All I heard was country stuff and high whining steel, with no rock backbeat and no effects. It wasn't my bag, so I stuck with recordings I could find with Cage, Sneaky, and Rusty Young and Al Perkins mostly.

I want to clarify that I don't dislike Cage's playing - there are a just a few things that I don't care for (as mentioned before, the trebly tone and that...to me...overused chromatic lick). Some of the odd note choices don't work for me, but the experimentation with it does. He definitely was not playing in the typical country style I heard on country radio stations.

Olaf van Roggen · Post by **Olaf van Roggen** » 22 Apr 2007 12:21 pm

I once heard a song:"Red hot women and ice cold beer" by an Arizona based group"Chuck wagon and the Wheels" with Neil Harry on sho bud steel,copying the Buddy Cage chromatic solo,first to the last note.

tom anderson · Post by **tom anderson** » 22 Apr 2007 3:31 pm

I loved the NRPS back in the 70's & bought every record-saw them once & Buddy just tore it up-much better than the rest of the band-however, by the 5th or 6th album (about when Skip Batton joined the group), his playing vanished on the albums. At the time I assumed he took too many drugs-no knowledge of this, just noticed the playing wasn't out front anymore, and ever since, I have not heard anything by him that moved me as much as his playing on the first 4 or 5 albums. The post above that directed us to the new recording is just another example in my opinion. I'd like to see or hear a bootleg of the band now & I could tell you in about 2 seconds if he is the same old horse.

chuck lemasters · Post by **chuck lemasters** » 22 Apr 2007 5:10 pm

I haven't listened to NRPS for quite some time....not sure if I would like it as well as I did back then...but Buddy Cage and Rusty Young are the reason I attempted to play the steel guitar.... also Jerry Garcia on Teach Your Children and Workingman's Dead .....Yeah....go ahead....say it...I can take it.....

William Matthews · Post by **William Matthews** » 22 Apr 2007 5:35 pm

I'm with you Chuck..

Dave Petranek · Post by **Dave Petranek** » 22 Apr 2007 7:20 pm

It's not elegant, but I make contact with "Contact" (Powerglide) almost weekly. Still, I hear a unique style that I need to conquer

Mark Lind-Hanson · Post by **Mark Lind-Hanson** » 30 Apr 2007 3:39 pm

I call what Buddy does "rock and roll pedal steel." It's exactly where the instrument should have gone and
fits exactly where it ought to fit- I know hardly anyone else but myabe three or four guys (Sneaky Pete, Maness, Al Perkins & Rusty Young) who are in the same ballpark in terms of widely known & available to learn off of. And from "that generation."
Now, as for why punks just didn;t dig the Dead, well,
let me see-
"""---The twirling chicks in little house on the prairie dresses, tye-dyes, etc etc. and the whole panhandling "I need a miracle" thing.
-overblown stage productions, elaborate light shows, thirty foot walking skeletons etc.
-the hypocracy of everyone dressing and acting exactly alike while at the same time loudly proclaimin themselves to be anti-conformists. we hated this, (even tho we did pretty much the exact same thing)
-the whole trustafarian thing (rich kids with trust funds following the dead from town to town)even Don Henly (whom we also hated) seemed to be irked by it...haha..."The other day I saw a Deadhead sticker on a cadillac, a voice inside my head said you can never look back"- from Boys of Summer by Don Henly
-the pure and brazen capitalism at the dead shows. People in the parking lot selling apples for $3 each, etc. ----"""
---MAN, I CAN TOTALLY DIG IT!!! And I grew UP around the Dead and that scene, and yet- totally agree with about 90 percent of that criticism myself! Which is why you don't find ME in the RatDog parking lot crowd these days, & is why I am busy following my own star, rather than cop off any of that action.
Too many talented people these days are all too willing to play "cover act" to the Dead and NRPS et al rather than get a load of original music together and go out at the world that way... it's sad, to me, since there was only ever gonna be ONE Jerry Garcia, ever, and there's still really only one Buddy Cage.
maybe because there's this gi-normous MARKET (easy pickin's) for it still, and some people would rather take the easy way out than have anything of their OWN to say, I don't know. But I have turned down playing with a couple Dead cover bands for exactly these reasons- even though I could probably cut it all just as well as any of them-
"got my own world to live in & I ain't gonna copy you"
as the man once said...

Jeremy Threlfall · Post by **Jeremy Threlfall** » 30 Apr 2007 7:59 pm

I love the man.

I am a newbie (12 months or so) who finally committed to learning the PS after listening to the Great Speckled Bird album - although I've been a fan of JDM/Al P/LG/Sneaky and pedal steel generally through my love of all types of country/rock music for years. BC is my number 1.

(AP is 2, Sneaky 3, LG and JDM share 4th - although JDMs solo in Submarine band's 'Strong Boy' beats most in my book)

So, would someone please bang on about this "chromatic run down" thing a bit more? I think I know what you mean - does he often start solos this way? Its something I'd like to learn a bit more about.

I'm a bit ignorant of the chromatic strings and their proper uses. Did the person who invented them use them alot? Did anyone ever tell him that he got them in the wrong order?

John Cadeau · Post by **John Cadeau** » 30 Apr 2007 8:44 pm

Buddy Cage can play some pretty nice country stuff too. He's worked with Ann Murray, George Hamilton the IV, and many other country acts. His main influence as far as country steel players was Buddy Charleton. I knew when Buddy was learning to play steel he was going to take it in a new and different direction. Olaf that song "Ice Cold Beer and Red Hot Women" was written by Ed Leclair an excellent guitar player and singer. He plays in a band with me here in Canada. He gave me a copy of the song as recorded by a fellow named Phil West. This version has some pretty hot steel pickin', by Sonny Garrish.
John.

Randy Phelps · Post by **Randy Phelps** » 1 May 2007 3:56 pm

I dig Buddy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAln2Fs61vA

Ronnie Green · Post by **Ronnie Green** » 3 May 2007 8:18 pm

Buddy is in his own world. He don't try to play, sound, look, phrase, copy, or buy a steel like so and so has. He just don't care about being a Jones or Smith. Way to go Buddy!!

Ben Jones · Post by **Ben Jones** » 4 May 2007 6:04 am

He just don't care about being a Jones or Smith.

-Hey!

Herbie Meeks · Post by **Herbie Meeks** » 4 May 2007 7:35 am

country music

Musical style that originated among whites in rural areas of the southern and western U.S. The term country and western music was adopted by the music industry in 1949 to replace the derogatory hillbilly music. Its roots lie in the music of the European settlers of the Appalachians and other areas. In the early 1920s the genre began to be commercially recorded; Fiddlin' John Carson recorded its first hit. Radio programs such as Nashville's Grand Ole Opry and Chicago's National Barn Dance fueled its growth, and growing numbers of musicians, such as the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, began performing on radio and in recording studios. With the migration of Southern whites to industrial cities in the 1930s and '40s, country music was exposed to new influences, such as blues and gospel music. Its nostalgic bias, with its lyrics about poverty, heartbreak, and homesickness, held special appeal during a time of great population shifts. In the 1930s "singing cowboy" film stars, such as Gene Autry, altered country lyrics to produce a synthetic "western" music. Other variants include western swing (see Bob Wills) and honky-tonk (see Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams). In the 1940s there was an effort to return to country's root values (see bluegrass), but commercialization proved a stronger influence, and in the 1950s and '60s country music became a huge commercial enterprise. Popular singers often recorded songs in a Nashville style, while many country music recordings employed lush orchestral backgrounds. Country music has become increasingly acceptable to urban audiences, retaining its vitality with diverse performers such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Randy Travis, Garth Brooks, Emmylou Harris, and Lyle Lovett. Despite the influence of other styles, it has retained an unmistakable character as one of the few truly indigenous American musical styles.

Herb

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Buddy Cage's style

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not the same old horse

Buddy Cage's Style

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