Why did you want to play pedal steel guitar?

Brett Day · Post by **Brett Day** » 7 Nov 2011 6:06 pm

I forgot to tell about some of the videos featuring steel that I saw when I was a kid; I remember a video called "Poor Boy Blues" that Chet Atkins did with Mark Knopfler and Paul Franklin was playin' steel-I was watchin' that video at my grandma's house one day and I told my mom and dad that I wished I could play an instrument like that,I also remember seein' some videos by Canadian band Prairie Oyster featuring Dennis Delorme on steel, and then Confederate Railroad had some great videos featuring Gates Nichols on his Emmons steel. Then there was Ricochet featuring Teddy Carr on steel, and Teddy's steel playin' inspired me too.

Brett

Brett Lanier · Post by **Brett Lanier** » 7 Nov 2011 7:15 pm

Buddy Emmons "amazing steel guitar" -- it was a compilation album of a bunch of his early instrumentals along with all of "steel guitar jazz". Soon after I heard that album I traded my Les Paul for a Fender 1000.

Damien Odell · Post by **Damien Odell** » 7 Nov 2011 7:32 pm

Hearing Paul Franklin with Dire Straits.

Jack Copp · Post by **Jack Copp** » 7 Nov 2011 7:45 pm

I can very easily point out the two life changing moments that led me to PSGs. Played electric, and acoustic, guitars starting at age eight. In my fifties I saw Allison Krause, featuring Jerry Douglas. That started an almost complete change over to square neck resonators, and lap steels. Did that for years, being completely satisfied and needing no other musical instruments. Enter my neighbor (Earl) who plays PSG. He had been trying for years to get me into PSG, and I was having nothing to do with it!!! This rascal caused my second life changing moment by putting on a video of Hal Rugg & Buddy Emmons " Live at the Bell Cove". That video had the song that sent me into my current journey "Blue Jade". That is one of the best songs that I had heard two musicians play. Damn you, --- no check that, thank you Earl.

Dean Holman · Post by **Dean Holman** » 7 Nov 2011 11:19 pm

I forgot to mention when I was younger I had a cousin who gave me an album with Mike Auldridge and Jeff Newman called Slidin Smoke. That album influenced me to play steel and dobro. And when I first started playing steel, a friend of mine gave me his Paul Franklin Just Picking album.

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 8 Nov 2011 3:34 am

i started out playin' dah blues on a Gibson BR6 in 69
when i visited an Emmons dealer in Nashville to buy a good steel bar, Buddy's Black album was crankin' out that hip stuff so i copped the lp & listened to it for a long time - never steelin' to it mind you
much later on in 1981, an uncle of mine who ran a music store in Paris, laid this Sho Bud Maverick on me, tellin' me that nobody wanted to buy it - he told me that i'd probably make somethin' out of it
i got Winnie's book & learned some good basics but never really took it seriously since i was playin' guitbox & singin' regularly
back in 2001, i discovered internet, this forum & steel vendors
that's when i got my 1st real psg : a Sho Bud D10 Professional
from that day on, i buckled down & since, have thoroughly enjoyed every minute
got some gigs, made some $$$ & felt the rewards
Sooooo, i'm still at
Thanx to the Fo'bros, i got a good steel education
Buddy Emmons is the Pope in my book !
there are many great steelers nevertheless from back then to present times

Smiley Roberts · Post by **Smiley Roberts** » 8 Nov 2011 9:07 am

I started playing steel because my mother wanted me to play an Accordian.

Frederic Mabrut · Post by **Frederic Mabrut** » 8 Nov 2011 9:13 am

When I was around 15 in the seventies, I heard Don Helms playing beside hank Williams, then I discovered the stuff of Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant. I played lap steel on an very old (1910) hawaiian guitar given to me by godfather until Buddy Cage decided me to buy my first PSG (a Little Buddy) in 1986 with Winnie Winston's book.

David Hartley · Post by **David Hartley** » 8 Nov 2011 9:20 am

Hi Smiley, how are you doing?
I remember that afternoon and that photo.
It was taken at the boundary wall of the house where Johnny Cash used to live in Nashville.
So you never took up the accordion then?
Thank you so much for bringing back the memories of that afternoon, when after a nice meal, you drove myself and Fran around to see some 'very classy' houses in the Nashville area where some country music stars lived, and live still now.
Thanks for posting to my thread, there's some nice reasons why you all took up the PSG..

Keep them replies coming.

John Coffman · Post by **John Coffman** » 8 Nov 2011 9:44 am

Cause chicks dig it. LMAO Really is was the sound and endless possibilities.

Bryan Staddon · Post by **Bryan Staddon** » 8 Nov 2011 9:57 am

I've been a guitar player for 40 years and love all types of music, Buffalo Springfield and the Grateful Dead got me into country. I loved the sound of Jerry Garcias steel on his records and then the New Riders. When I read Garcia saying he was not a good steel player I began to check out some other folks, A brief move to texas in the early seventies opened my eyes, Bob Wills led to Herb Remington Herb led me to everybody else.Then i realized that steel players are like crazy geniuses. playing this nutty thing with pedals and levers and chrome and steel built like a cross between a tractor and a 57 chevy and capable of expressin and testyfyin! Finally got a sho-bud pro II when i turned 40. I love it and hate it at the same time but it humbles even the strongest and thats what the good lord wants. I'll keep playing and thank god im going to heaven cause its going to take eternity to get good.But while i know what garcia meant when he said he wasn't good, I still love his playing and thank him for putting me on the path

Mark Daniels · Post by **Mark Daniels** » 8 Nov 2011 12:10 pm

The pedal steel has a sound unlike anything else!

Ruth Iseli-Dahler · Post by **Ruth Iseli-Dahler** » 8 Nov 2011 2:54 pm

This is a interesting question; it's exiting to read the answers: no story like the other!

I was asked to play piano in a country band 2 years ago. My job: imitate all the instruments the did not have (like trumpets in "Ring of Fire")

Besides trumpets I had to imitate a certain instrument that sounded like heaven in my ears, but I have never seen one before : it was the Pedal Steel Guitar. I was pretty soon unable to cope because I could not bend the way I heard it on the recordings...
and the bendings were the best......
So I decided to learn it in real.

It was not ao easy to find a Guitar but
finally I found a abandonned LDG in a music store around here.
Since then I'm working on it, it became a passion,
(The band now has to look for another piano player)

Jake Gathright · Post by **Jake Gathright** » 8 Nov 2011 3:41 pm

Together Again. Tom Brumley. Then I discovered Dicky Overbey.

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 8 Nov 2011 5:26 pm

I did it for the money.

David Hartley · Post by **David Hartley** » 10 Nov 2011 10:43 pm

I am just giving this a bump to the top. I am really enjoying your replies and I am sure there is a few more of you who would like to add to this thread...

Wally Moyers · Post by **Wally Moyers** » 10 Nov 2011 11:09 pm

My Dad was a great steel player, I have never not know about steel guitar... I got interested in playing guitar when I was nine because of the Beatles and played my first paying gig when I was 11. Through my teenaged years I was into Hendrix, Cream etc. and made pretty good money in those days playing teen clubs around West Texas. All this time my Dad "Wally Moyers Sr." was playing steel around the same area but mainly at The Cotton Club with Tommy Hancock. In 1969 the band I was in broke up and I told my Dad I needed to get a job or find another band.. He looked at me and said, you should start playing with Tommy. I said, he plays guitar and my Dad replied, no I mean steel, I'm quitting.. I told him, I cant play steel and he said, sure you can, set down here... That was on Wednesday, that Friday at 16 years old, I played my first steel gig and after that weekend Tommy hired me... My Dad had showed me how the pedals worked and how the cords related to the guitar. He also showed me the basic licks that Tommy liked... I think steel is the most emotional instrument on the planet! I still love it!

Fred Justice · Post by **Fred Justice** » 11 Nov 2011 5:42 am

I took up steel guitar because, Picks & a Bar feel better in my hands than shovels and post hole diggers.

Alan Bidmade · Post by **Alan Bidmade** » 11 Nov 2011 8:57 am

I heard Red Rhodes on 'Sweet baby James' in 1970 and have been hooked as a listener to PSG ever since, but finally (41 years later) achieved my ambition to own one 6 weeks ago as a pre-retirement present to myself. I'm now the proud owner of a blonde Sho-Bud 3+5, no name decal opposite the Sho-Bud logo, but a beautiful guitar with a sound to die for.
Wish I could have afforded such a beauty years ago - but will soon have time to spare to catch up.
Amazed at the following for PSG in the UK and find this forum and its UK equivalent a minefield of help, info and beautiful guitars to gawp at![/i]

Jay Fagerlie · Post by **Jay Fagerlie** » 11 Nov 2011 9:45 am

For me it was one day when a guy named Dusty came over to pick up a PA amp I fixed for him and brought this whack-a-doodle guy named Chris Ivey with him.
Chris played some pedal steel for me and I was immediately hooked.
@#$%@$% Chris! ....thanks man....I'll never forget what you did....I owe you....

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 12 Nov 2011 12:17 am

Alan Bidmade wrote:I heard Red Rhodes on 'Sweet baby James' in 1970

This was definitly important for me too.

"Sugarbabe" and "Reason To Believe" from the Youngbloods' Earth Music.

"She belongs to me" from Rick Nelson Live.

Paul Frank Bloomfield · Post by **Paul Frank Bloomfield** » 12 Nov 2011 2:16 am

I suppose,like most of the guys in the early 1970's in the UK, hearing Gordon Huntley with Matthews Southern
Comfort's number one record "Woodstock" certainly turned my head in the right direction (Maidstone,Kent)
which was ZB Guitars UK, the mecca of steels in the UK.
Sadly ,Eric, the owner, is not now in the best of health and is retiring from the music business.
Frank. Corfu

Ray McCarthy · Post by **Ray McCarthy** » 12 Nov 2011 2:48 am

I was in my late 40s and I had what must be considered an "inner child experience" (remember that 60s/70s term?) I was listening to country music on the radio in my woodworking shop in the early 90s, hearing that steel and remembering how, as a kid I had become absolutely enthralled by the sound of this mysterious instrument. I had never yet even seen one, or heard the term "pedal steel guitar" at this point.
One day I realized I weren't gettin no younger and I longed to get back somehow to that kid who loved this sound, whatever it was. Long story longer--one day while helping a a guy move and talking about music (he played guitar in a band) he mentioned he had a PSG in a closet somewhere for 20 years or so. I asked if I could borrow it--it was a Fender student model w/the Winston book in the case. End of story

Ray McCarthy · Post by **Ray McCarthy** » 12 Nov 2011 2:50 am

No-actually it was the beginning of the story

Jack Francis · Post by **Jack Francis** » 12 Nov 2011 10:17 am

It's Bobby Lee's fault...he was playing steel in my band...then he quit!! Used a few others....then decided to get me one and b0b sold me his old
Sho-Bud.

I've always just used it in my bands for some songs... then back on my 6 string. Never gave it the attention that it needs to make me a GOOD steel player but I do enjoy listening to you REAL players!!

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