The Steel Guitar Forum

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ALABAMA! I don't think they ever used steel on anything. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think I am

Think of how BIG they were in the 80's. The wide crossover appeal they had. That decade seemed to be the big killer for pedal steel players and good Country music in general.

AMEN, TODD!

Moby Keith.

Who is Moby Keith? Are you kidding?

Todd Brown wrote

ALABAMA! I don't think they ever used steel on anything. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think I am Sad

Think of how BIG they were in the 80's. The wide crossover appeal they had. That decade seemed to be the big killer for pedal steel players and good Country music in general.

I really liked Alabama, more so on their first couple of albums.
Sonny Garrish played on the first album
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Home%27s_in_Alabama

The 80's also gave us George Strait, Reba McIntire, Vern Gosdin(late 70's into the 80's), Ricky Skaggs, Randy Travis, Keith Whitley, Ricky Van Shelton, Highway 101, Vince Gill, The Judds, Rodney Crowell, The Desert Rose Band, and Kathy Mattea, all used Pedal Steel Guitar, and made good country music IMO

Theresa Galbraith wrote:Who is Moby Keith? Are you kidding?

Toby Dick's cousin??

Uded to be in that old San Francisco group, Moby Grape.

One way to increase the popularity of the current "crop" of....ahem, country singers is refusing to acknowledge those who came before. Out of sight, out of mind. Less competition.
Instrument shops seldom stock PSG or LSG. Many people think Hawaiian when they hear the steel guitar sound. Was watching a You Tube video this past week and a person over hearing it remarked, "Listening to Hawaiian music?"
So, until they throw dirt on my grave will continue to learn and enjoy steel guitar.

A man once asked Gandhi what he thought of western civilization.
"I think it would be a good idea."

Frederick,

I was playing Stevie Ray Vaughan on a radio show, and a kid called up and asked when I'd be playing rock music. I guess he wanted one of those blazing Karen Carpenter drum solos.

dh

funny haha

Glad to see the folks on the SGF have a sense of humor.

Personally, I question whether pedal steel is a dead or dying instrument. The Nashville establishment has become much more diversified in their marketing and production priorities. Much of what was the highest and best in the traditional aspects Country Music has found a place in what could be considered an indie sub-genre. I am referring to the music being produced by labels like Heart of Texas Records and artists like Amber Digby, Bobby Flores, Jake Hooker, Heather Myles, Becky Hobbs, Justin Trevino etc etc et.al. And then there are the Time Jumpers.

Ray Price will always be best known for his late 50's recordings of songs like "Crazy Arms", "City Lights"," I've Got A New Heartache" and "My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You". These songs featured a shuffle drum beat and Bob Moore's 4/4 walking bass and it came to be known as the "Ray Price Sound" which was copied by many others. It was pure country honkey tonk music and dominated the jukeboxes in the post Hank Williams era.
Ray took a shot at becoming a "crooner" as did Eddie Arnold in the 60's.To country fans of that era, It was a bit laughable. I can still remember seeing Eddie Arnold trying to sound like Bing Crosby singing on the Dean Martin Show.Not a great performance from the "Tennessee Plowboy"

for the bad times.

Morgan Scoggins wrote:...I can still remember seeing Eddie Arnold trying to sound like Bing Crosby singing on the Dean Martin Show...

Ironically, both Bing Crosby and Dean Martin have recorded with steel.

Ironically it could be argued that Bing Crosby himself did more to spread the sound of the steel guitar than most country singers ever did, with his huge late 30s Hawaiian oriented hits. "Sweet Leilani" was one of several and it was a number one pop-hit for months; it's full of steel. That worldwide popularity had to have had a big influence on Hawaiian influenced electric steel guitar becoming a big part of country music in the 40s.

And Eddy Arnold, whose huge late 40s hit records so heavily featured Roy Wiggins was totally influenced by Crosby. He made it clear that his heroes from the beginning were Gene Autry and Bing Crosby:

“Those two people were it for me... I was never a real hillbilly singer of the nasal kind: I never had a twang in my voice. That’s what always puzzled me about other country singers,’ cause nobody ever came from farther back in the country than I did…"

People forget that the smoother sound of Eddy Arnold's or Red Foley's vocal styles were more in the mainstream of the country music of the late 40s, and that many people considered Hank Williams to be a throwback to an earlier country sound that was already old-fashioned; an "Acuff-style hillbilly" as one company advertised Hank back in the day.

So when Arnold later went all out with the orchestras and the tux it wasn't that much of a stretch. And though it may not have done steel guitar much good it wasn't taken as a joke by a lot of folks - he was hugely successful at it. After a long lull in his career he was again one of the biggest selling "country" singers of the mid 60s and was the first CMA entertainer of the year in 1967.

Of all those who strayed from their original country music, the first super star was Eddie Arnold, long before Ray Price.

Eddie Arnold, who should have credited a steel-guitarist named Roy Wiggins with a major input of his fame, was ignored. He tried pop stardom by recording with violins etc, but crashed with his fans.

He never recovered his previous fame afterwards.

I always found Eddy Arnold's performance to be bland to the point of boredom, even before the violins..

I always enjoyed playing Alabama's songs on steel. A good song is a good song. You don't have to play it like the record.

There was a long gap between Arnold's early period of success in the late 40s and early 50s (with Roy Wiggins central to almost all the hits) and his later pop sound.

Arnold went all-out for the orchestrated pop sound in 1965 and whether we like that music or not (I don't much myself) it still can't be denied that it worked very well for him commercially.

He had multiple number one hits each year from 1965 through 1967 (after a ten year period of having none) and of the ten best-selling country albums in 1967 three were his; more than anybody. Merle or Buck or Loretta or Conway might be the people from that era most of us steel players might prefer to listen to, but it was probably Arnold (and Sonny James) who consistently sold the most records in the mid-to-late 60s.

I guess my point is that more pop sounding "country" music coexisted with more hard-core country for years; the success of one doesn't necessarily "kill" the other.

Don't forget Jim Reeves, who started out as a disk jockey singing a few country songs, and ended up singing pop standards with full orchestra.
(They all sounded good, though, no matter what style he sang in.)

That was one of the best threads I have read in A while. Thank You. Ray

Larry Miller wrote:Todd Brown wrote

ALABAMA! I don't think they ever used steel on anything. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think I am Sad

Think of how BIG they were in the 80's. The wide crossover appeal they had. That decade seemed to be the big killer for pedal steel players and good Country music in general.

I really liked Alabama, more so on their first couple of albums.
Sonny Garrish played on the first album
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Home%27s_in_Alabama

The 80's also gave us George Strait, Reba McIntire, Vern Gosdin(late 70's into the 80's), Ricky Skaggs, Randy Travis, Keith Whitley, Ricky Van Shelton, Highway 101, Vince Gill, The Judds, Rodney Crowell, The Desert Rose Band, and Kathy Mattea, all used Pedal Steel Guitar, and made good country music IMO

I'm a huge fan of Highway 101...Both Paulette and Nikki are both great singers-John Noreen plays steel for Highway 101 now. In the late '80s, early 90s, we were hearin' steel players like Paul Franklin, Sonny Garrish, Jay Dee Manness(Desert Rose Band), Gary Morse(Highway 101, Suzy Bogguss, and many others), and we heard Bruce Bouton with Ricky Skaggs and in the studio with artists like Brooks & Dunn and others.

Brett

Richard Damron wrote:Joachim -

"Rock'n'Roll...and its' 10,000 mindless iterations."

Richard, I agree that a country- rocker like "Six Days On The Road" with me on vocals and a Tele, and a three piece band, doesn't have the depth and emotion like "A Way To Survive" played Jeff Newman style. But it's still fun for me to play, and when I do I get a good response. Maybe I'm just selfish.

Lane Gray stated "patsy Cline ( She was not on our side, she was Peggy Lee in a Nudie suit: Notice how Owen Bradley hid the fiddles and steel in "Crazy", "She's Got You" and "Sweet Dreams")

My understanding is Patsy Cline hated the three songs she is famous for: "Sweet Dreams, Crazy, and Walking after Midnight". What she liked was to dress up in cowgirl clothes and yodel.

I don't think rock and roll, as it was originally configured, did any harm to country music. In fact, I've always considered it to be a branch of country music. Unfortunately, the term "rock and roll" lost its meaning during the 1960s, and was applied to all sorts of music with no connection whatsoever to the rockabilly syncopation and three chords of its origins. I have no idea what the term "rock" now encompasses. It seems to mean nothing more than "pop" nowadays.