The Steel Guitar Forum

"He sounds no different than a great wild rock/blues 6-string guitar player."

I don't agree, having BEEN a rock/blues 6-string guitar player (I don't understand the term "wild" in that context). It's a totally different sound and totally different approach.

"Bastardizing the instrument"?? What does it matter to what capacity he uses the "parts" of the instrument? He plays a firmly established, fairly popular (and rising) style that uses pedal steel. It doesn't use the instrument the way some players do, but that doesn't invalidate it or somehow lower its musical value. he uses its capacity the way he intends to. That's "style".

IMO he gets (as do Chuck Campbell and others) great subtleties out of the instrument. They are just not the subtleties some players of other styles might hear, being unfamiliar with blues, or distorted tones, or the overall sacred steel...or blues/rock..sounds.

If I got those great RR subtleties out of my steel during my gigging career, I would have been thrown off the bandstand

This day and time with those "subtleties" you might have gotten to gig with Eric Clapton or be on Letterman. HMmmmm......

I hear a lot of Speedy West & Rusty Young when I lsten to him.Good Stuff.Anyone know what he uses for overdrive?

R.R. seems to be an intelligent young man who is genuinely interested in being the best steel player he possibly can. I’m sure that if all of you who think he’s doing it wrong were to write to him and offer him a tab to “A Way To Survive” he will see the error of his ways and start playing the “right” way, give up his gazllion dollar career and start playing in VFW halls.

Heck, he might even do the Michael Jackson thing and change his skin color.


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Warning: I have a telecaster and I'm not afraid to use it.
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My web site


<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Mike Perlowin on 16 December 2006 at 09:27 AM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Mike Perlowin on 16 December 2006 at 10:17 AM.]</p></FONT>

His overdrive is a Tubescreamer.

Lord have Mercy,
i'm glad some of us here dig this young man even if it ain't our bag
Robert's out there promotin' his pedal contraption & doin' alot better & more than most of us grouchies

God Bless Robert Randolph

Mike, I just spit a mouthful of coffe all over my screen.

That was a Hall o' Fame post.

I LOVED IT!

http://www.onewaymagazine.com/coverstory_23-1088.html

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<font size=1>“Back then, everything was different, and you only saw it once; now everything’s the same and you see it over and over again"
-Peter Case
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As Frank Zappa said "Shut up and play your guitar". RR got my foot tapping and my feet dancing, complete with the "white man overbite." I'd like to know what Mr. Randolph's setup is. Great playing, whatever you call it! He may be the Jerry Garcia of pedal steel. Oh, wait, we already had one of them.
Duncan

"White man overbite"..........I love it! Great name for a band.

RR must have something going on...........he's had more threads about him on this forum than any other professional steel player.

Some people are jealous of fame.

<SMALL>I’m sure that if all of you who think he’s doing it wrong were to write to him and offer him a tab to "A Way To Survive" he will see the error of his ways and start playing the "right" way, give up his gazllion dollar career and start playing in VFW halls.</SMALL>

Good one Mike!!

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<font size=-1>My Site - Instruction <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Doug Beaumier on 16 December 2006 at 04:26 PM.]</p></FONT>

I thought he sounded great.I hadn't heard him in awhile. I was very impressed with how full his tone has become. Sonically very legitimate to say the least.
BB

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>why bother playing that style of music on a very HARMONIC instrument,
when most of the time you're just wailing away on single note runs and glisses?</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Man, you're on a slippery slope there! Most 6-string guitarists and pianists, including great ones, don't get anywhere near the harmonic capability of their instruments. For the matter, most steel players do not get close to the full harmonic capability of their instrument. In fact, to my ears, the majority of C6 players, including the greatest ones, are far more into single string playing then realizing the full harmonic capability of that tuning. So, I wouldn't agree with that standard as far as determining a player's worth.


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Jeff's Jazz

In RR's case it is the ability to have
harmonically related notes nearby,
rather than long jumps that seems to matter.

Sure he does do jumps, but it has a wide range of notes at any key center,
and depending on the song, uses them in different ways,
much as we do, but in different ways.

Many of the greatest jazz guitarists rarely play more than 4 voices,
Ah, but how fast they can move them,
and alter their harmonic relationships, that's the thing.

RR seems to have full control of his instrument.
He plays clean with a dirty sound,
and I find that harder.
And he is having fun and being succesful doing it.
So he doesn't do things like Speedy West, Sol Ho'o'oi'i, or Lloyd Green.
So what.

IMHO, if we don't support him whole-heartedly,
we only shoot ourselves in the AB pedal foot.

"IMHO, if we don't support him whole-heartedly,
we only shoot ourselves in the AB pedal foot."

Well said David!

Wow... I'm from the 60's psycho-delic era too. And this really took me back to Jimi Hendrix and Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels (Devil With A Blue Dress) happenings. Now, If someone will be kind enough to tab this out and post it so I can dazzle my band members at the Senior Dance this weekend... Maybe just a bit slower though.... maybe even 3/4 time (I need another waltz).<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Rick Nicklas on 16 December 2006 at 09:24 PM.]</p></FONT>

<SMALL>If we don't support him whole-heartedly, we only shoot ourselves in the AB pedal foot.</SMALL>

Is it O.K if I "support him whole-heartedly" without actually having to listen to him, or buy any of his "Up-With-People" soul albums or anything? If only his band would learn to play a second chord... sigh... if only his songs were about something, besides "putting your hands together" and "feeling the love"....

Q: Would you be such a big RR fan, if he was playing the exact same music, only NOT on a pedal steel? Buy his albums, go to his concerts (like you do now), tube him up on the internets? Has there ever, indeed, been ANY bad music ever played on a pedal steel, or does it automatically confer a state of grace upon every little noise that comes squeaking out of it? I sure hope so, cause then I've got it made...

P.S.(Dee Snider is really proud of the fact that the words to "Come All Ye Faithful" fit so exactly into "We're Not Gonna Take It" - it's nice to know you rank with the great composers, I guess.)<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David Mason on 17 December 2006 at 03:35 AM.]</p></FONT>

Yes, I would go see and listen to RR if he was playing a bottleneck 6 string. I'm an Allman Brothers Band lifer and RR has some good Duane Allman licks. I hear alot of different influences in RR & The Family Band. I will go see him again just like I would Little Feat, The Dead (even without Jerry), Ray Price, Brad Paisley, The Players, George Benson, Tommy Emmanuel...because it's GOOD music to me, with a super groove.

Continued success to RR. He's made it pretty big in a very difficult business. I'll buy his tickets and CD's!

So we have permission to like RR now? Cool!!

I fall in the camp that his exposure is
good (but not essential) for steel guitar.
I'm curious, how many of you get requests for RR stuff at your gigs, kind of like if
you have a piano on stage, you're gonna get asked for "Last Date". In anticipation of
this, I learned a little of one of his
melodies at the beginning of a song, and
jamming on the I chord is old hat from my
Southern Rock days.

Never happened, nobody ever even asked.
How about y'all.

Playing with a blues band in the city (Wilmington Del), we get all types of folks in the audience. A few have mentioned RR's name, not to request one of his tunes, but to give "props" (compliments) to the steel player and make comparisons.

"Would you be such a big RR fan, if he was playing the exact same music, only NOT on a pedal steel?"

Yep. It's not about a second chord, or the AABAB song structure that's all too common. It IS about love, celebration, feelings. It's emotion and spirituality channeled into music.

It's a groove. It's a "feel".

It's clapping on 2 and 4 instead of 2 and 3. If you don't understand what I mean by that, I guarantee your natural tendancy is to clap on 1 and 3.

One of those rare players/styles where you listen and then have a groove in your head for some time afterwards...at least it seems that way with a lot of people.

I still don't understand what is controversial about RR. I realize sacred steel isn't exactly blues, but to insist that he exploit the "full harmonic potential" of the PSG, in a manner similar to people like Buddy Emmons or John Hughey, is sort of like insisting that Albert King exploit the "full harmonic potential" of the guitar, similar to somebody like Johnny Smith or Wes Montgomery. They're both valid styles, and not mutually exclusive - I like them both. To me, each approach adds something to the lexicon of each instrument. I understand that not everybody feels this way - but most jazz guitar players I know or listen to have respect for what the great blues guitar players do, and many are fine blues players themselves.

Nobody has come up and asked me to play a RR tune at a gig. I have mostly played pedal steel in bands that lean to Americana, folk-rock, and country-rock in the late-60s, early-70s sense. But I've also played blues on guitar and slide guitar since the 60s, and we almost always do some blues tunes. Patrons and other musicians often ask me about RR's influence on pedal steel, and the general sentiment is very positive. I think it opens up the more country-based styles to a different audience. When they hear the same exact instrument pushing out a blues and a country tune in sequence, I think it makes an impression.

I often get the impression that many steel players - and no doubt some guitar players - think it's pretty easy to play single-string approaches like used in electric blues. Sure, from a music theory view, it's not hard to play a note that fits, but to really do it well is extremely non-trivial. All IMO, of course.