Lead Guitarist Turned Steeler?

[Shorty Smith]

Glad you boys like my Tele but I think I will just hang on to it, my great grandsom might want it, hahaha

[Mike Taylor]

Here's my B-Bender and ShoBud..

[Shorty Smith]

Looking real good Mike, Shorty

[Kevin Mincke]

Accordion early years till I compound fractured my R/index playing ball, got to quit accordion! Moved on to mandolin and harp in H.S. and then came the pedal steel in the late 70's. Only later did I start playing guitar out of necessity to learn/attempt to write songs. Still have two accordions that I have fun picking up on occaision and we use in the band for Glory Days/Cherry Bomb

[Paul Wade]

yep,
been playing six string since 1958. was in surf bands
for awhile then r&r blues bands country since
1978.. here is a pix of my tele and my first mullen
d-10..
p.w

[Don Sulesky]

I started playing guitar in 1958 with my "58 Strat (wish I still had it).
Did a lot of Chet finger picking and Folk finger picking for 18 years before I started on the steel. I found the transition easy with the finger picking the strings, but the other parts of playing on pitch with the bar was another thing.
Finding and building chords was no problem at all.
But then when I took some Jeff Newman seminars he opened up a whole new world of ways to play the same chords in many places on the neck.
I still play both steel & lead guitar today as well as Dobro, Bass and Mandolin.
No matter which one I play I lean on my background of chord building from my guitar playing.
Don

[Glen Derksen]

Here's my B bender Tele and Linkon steel.

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[Jim Sliff]

OK, I give. I'll finally post some music.

I've never gotten my own website to work right, but you can hear a couple things on my MySpace page. The "Stringbender Hook" is just a short clip; Nashville West long-throw bender through a Pro Reverb, Klon, and a hint of Leslie 16. "Sacramento" is the long-throw, Klon, and a 30W, 2x10 Holland Little Jimmy dimed and Leslie 16 just on the chimed-harmonic intro; did not touch another knob or pedal the whole song (the Klon was preset to give just a little extra "push" into the front end); all the clean/dirt/sweet/nasty variations are via attack. Reverb was added in the mix - I never record with reverb; if you do, you're usually...errr..."messed up", because invariably it's too much on some parts and you can't take it away. I'll let the engineer/producer decide - sometimes I WILL use delay in the studio for specific reasons, but never reverb.

And FWIW - I am NOT singing (his vocals seem to be a love-him-or-hate-him deal; someone said he sounds like Warren Zevon meets Elvis in a Karaoke bar...). One take on the instrumental parts (low budget!!) - no punches, no splices. the only overdubs were the vocals and me going back a week later and replacing the original bass player's entire track...he wasn't told, still has no idea and is puzzled by his "own playing".... It's not the best song or session I've been on, but one of the few I even have a copy of, much less one where the guitar is out front so much.

And yes, the "bend hanging in midair by a thread and is this possibly a wrong note wait a sec I'll jump out of the corner I painted myself into....ahhh" in the slow section was completely calculated. It's weird and I like it, so there -

http://www.myspace.com/177381493

[Chuck Cusimano]

I have always had a deep apprecaition for the soul, and sound of a steel guitar. Although I'd heard a lot of music (recorded, and live) with a steel,I'll never forget the first time I sat in with a band that had a steel , and when the steel player kicked off the song, I froze! I was so knocked out I couldn't open my mouth. So I asked the band to start the song again. I guess they understood, and we had a good laugh. I wanted to learn to play steel, and even tried to build one. But when I decided I wanted my own band, I figured I needed to stand in the middle of the stage with a guitar, and front the band like the big boys did, and ended my steel playing carer.
I want to recognize the hard work of one of my closest friends who went from six string to steel, and became an excelent PSG player.
I hired Duane Brown in Lubbock Texas when I had the House Band at The Red Raider Club in 1978/79, after Bruce Brooks went on to bigger and better things.
Duane was, and is one of the most knowledgeble musicians I've ever been around, and his abaity on a six string definatly helped him on his quest to become a Great Steeler. However without his dedication to the instrument, he would have struggled a lot longer. Duane would set up all night practicing, go to sleep, get up, and set behind his steel till rehersal time, tear it down, haul it to the Red Raider, set it up, reherse, tear it down, take it home, set it up, practice till time to play the job at night, haul it to the club, set it up play the job, tear it down, take it home, and practice till he got so sleepy he had to go to bed, and start the same thing the next day. He did that for months, then he bought another steel he could leave at home, but he still practiced it everyday religiously. Hats off to those few who make it! It's not easy. I just thought his name should mentioned on this thread.

[Paddy Long]

Another Tele player here ...Tomkins B-bender custom. I started playing guitar when I was about 14, very much influenced by Chet of course so the finger picking helped my steel playing, as did the musical knowledge I already had. In fact when I first heard pedal steel on a recording I thought it was some clever dick of a guitar player with some effects box I wasn't aware of!!

[Emmett Roch]

I'm another one who made the transition from Tele to PSG.

What I learned from a lifetime on guitar did help me learn my which-a-ways on the E9 neck, dut didn't do squat when I started dabbling on C6.

[Jim Sliff]

What I learned from a lifetime on guitar did help me learn my which-a-ways on the E9 neck, dut didn't do squat when I started dabbling on C6.

That's really interesting - because I found it to be exactly the opposite. 6-string and E9 steel I found no similarities with, except for fret positions; With C6 (quickly morphed into the B6 Sneaky Pete used) I found almost instant parallels with my 6-string playing; I can play almost identical lines, since I (due to Pete's advice) play mostly single-string stuff on steel (a lot of arpeggios, scale fragments and banjo rolls). My hybrid-picking on 6-string is pretty much the same, and I use pedals either as chord-changing devices or more like a Stringbender (when NOT playing a Stringbender as faux-steel) instead of using them for moving harmonies like the traditional steel player.

With either 6th tuning (and B6 isn't a tuned-down C6 - the inversions are different) everything just sort of fell into place for me, while on E9 nothing made any sense, with 3 strings seemingly out-of-place.

I guess it boils down to a difference in styles - the approach makes a huge difference in how you "see" the neck.

[b0b]

OK, I give. I'll finally post some music.[...]

http://www.myspace.com/177381493

You sure sound country. Surprised me, Jim - I was expecting rock n roll. Nice to hear that someone remembers "Mother Nature". Good old tune.

[Jim Sliff]

hehe - b0b, it's whoever's paying the bills that calls the shots; he wanted country, so he got it but it sounded like me. If you heard me with a blues band it'd sound stylistically the same, just tailored to fit.

The trials and tribulations of a lifelong sideman who doesn't write songs or sing worth a squat.

"Mother Nature" was from the most radical band I've been in over the last 15 years or so - a husband and wife team, with him on lead and lap steel, her on rhythm (and she's a lead singer with a voice like an angel); I played bass most of the time, guitar at other times, depending on the gig. Sometimes Gil Orr and Bob Johnson of the Duo-tones (Paul wrote Mr. Moto, one of my favorite surf tunes, and they both play in the Chantays, Bel Airs and whatever "classic" surf band someone wants to hire - and also do a whole Django-style thing!) would sit in with Gil on bass, and then I'd play dueling-guitars with Paul.

The usual scenario was a set of stuff like Mother Nature with me on upright bass - old country and country/swing; set 2 was country from the 50's and 60's; set 3 (I'd switch to electric bass) 60's & 70's rock; set 4 was tear-the-house-down Led Zep, Cream, Hendrix, Blue Cheer, and anything we could blow up amps with. I cooked 2 sets of Bag end bass speakers before switching to Celestion drivers.

No set list - it was NEVER boring. Oh, and Bob Warford used to sit in often - he just tears up blues/rock tunes on bender!

It sorta collapsed when my hand problems started...who knows, we may be back.