The Steel Guitar Forum

It would have to be Jimmy Day,w/ Jim Reeves, sometime around '55 or '56,playing one of the first prototype Sho~Buds.

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The first steel I Heard as a kid was as background music at the Pub Tiki restaurant in Philly in the mid-60's. They had lots of Hawaiian steel playing. The first steeler I remember seeing was on TV ... Tom Brumley with Buck Owens. The steeler I saw live who made me want to play one was Pete Wernick of Red Knuckles & the Trail Blazers.

Thanks to Greg I now remember that was the first time for me also. I didn't know anything about Paul Frankiln but he was a kid that was just outstanding. If I rememeber right Rex Allen Jr. opened the show for Dottie West and maybe Steve Warner was in the band also. Some parts of the show are a little dim, the 5 year old didn't know how much Dad was watching Dottie. Now if Mom reads this it may be a Blue Christmas here.

I never dreamed at the time Greg would be playing a steel guitar. It was just about a year later when I started Greg on the guitar. Now that I think about it I know why he went through the Hip Shots, Parson White string benders, Schruggs tuners and Bigsby Tailpieces. He was looking for that lick from a seed that had been planted at a very early age. A steady diet of Buck Owens Ranch shows ,all the records and Hee Haw had to be a factor.

Many years later Greg took me to one of Newmans June Jams and that was the first time I got to see Tom Brumley in person as well as the heavy hitters from Nashville. Those Jams were a lot of fun and I have some great pictures from them. We were also at St. Louis when Tom Brumley was inducted into SGHOF, we definitely have had some good times due to steel guitar.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Walter Jones on 19 December 2001 at 06:49 AM.]</p></FONT>

If you narrow it down to pedals and you mean live, I'd have to say it was Bill Keith, playing with Ian & Sylvia and The Great Speckled Bird, around 1969.

When I was a kid I had the great fortune of attending the Town & Country Jamboree, hosted by Jimmy Dean and featuring folks like Roy Clark and Patsy Cline. A guy named Marvin Carroll was the steel player with Dean's group, but as I recall, he didn't play pedals.

Shortly after I saw Bill Keith, I saw the late Ed Black playing with Linda Ronstadt. Probably the first steel player that I ever actually met and talked with was Tommy Hannum, from whom I took a few lessons, way, way, back.

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Rick Richtmyer
Good News

WOW! I've slept since then. Could have been Don Warden with Porter Wagoner in Cols. Ohio in the mid 50s.Also there was Sonny Curtis on a Fender 1000 and Tom Kiley on a Fender 1000. Tom later became my teacher and played for Roy Drusky. I also saw Jimmy Crawford around then playing the fire out of a Sho-Bud. Jimmy's dad and uncle and my dad played together in the 40s.

Rick,
RE:Marvin Carroll
Don't know if he had pedals when you saw him, but,when he was on Dean's tv show out of Wash. D.C,he was playing a Gibson "Multi-Harp". A T-8,with 6 pedals on the middle neck ONLY. Coulda been a proto-type.

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Smiley,

You could be right. I fear that at the time, I was much more intrigued by Roy Clark's Gibson and Billy Grammar's Tele than I was by Marvin's steel. My foggy memory of the show tells me that it was a two or three neck instrument. I thought that he played it standing up, but once again can't be sure. They broadcast that show every Saturday night on local TV in DC. What a show it was! I feel fortunate to have been able to see something like that. A few times I actually talked my father (who had no interest in "Hillbilly" music) into taking me down to the show. As a young teenager, I met both Chet Atkins and Johnny Cash at that venue, and they were both as nice as could be!

I sure wish that videotape had existed back then. Tapes of that show would be a treasure!

Oh, and my father learned to like "Hillbilly Music" and has attended the "Steelin' for Hearts" show with me for the last two years. And he loved it! Of course, when you have guys like Jernigan, Charlton, and Wallace, it ain't all "hillbilly."

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Rick Richtmyer
Good News

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by RickRichtmyer on 19 December 2001 at 10:39 AM.]</p></FONT>

The first pedal steel player I had seen in person was Bobby Lee! That was in 1973.

To the best of my memory, the first pedal players who I saw in-person were Maurice Anderson and another player, in the Dallas area, who played for Bobby Smith at the old Western Place on Skillman Av. He has always been a favorite player of mine. I wish I could recall his name but he played at the Dallas show this year. Before the pedals, I did get to see some other Dallas players such as George McCoy (Big D Jamboree), Paul Blount, Jimmy Kelly (Dallas' Saturday Night Shindig which was held at the old band shell on the State Fair Gounds in Dallas. This is going back into the 1950's.

Smiley; I never got to see or meet Marvin in person but I saw the JD TV Show every chance I got. He was one of my early visual experiences and I liked what he did.

And I also liked that funny hot guitar player and one of his girl singers; Patsy something or other..........

Regards, Paul

These posts should be required reading for every new steel player !!!! Wow ! Rich history of the instrament and so darned interesting !! Great work everyone !!

The first real professional I saw play in person was Billy Cooper (Coop). Billy had just finished a 7 year gig with Ferlin Husky and had moved to Coos Bay, Oregon. He played a Fender 1000, barefooted, and pulled strings behind the bar. This was the first time I ever heard someone play "Bud's Bounce" using a 6th tuning. The back neck was broken and he didn't need it anyhow.

The first instrumental I heard him play was "Steelin' the Blues" and he blew away the band. Billy was the only professional in this band. He played the "Neosho Waltz" and it took the band 5 minutes to figure out the chord progressions.

Billy was an awsome player and could play any tune you could hum 3 bars of.

My first was John Hughey( I think the spellings right) with the Rhodes Show (Speck,Dusty)out of Memphis in the early 60`s

I talked to my Mom last night and she said the first steel guitarist I saw in person was Buddy Emmons. He was with Little Jimmy Dickens when he came to Brainerd in 57 or 58, she didn't remember exactly. A picture from the show is on This page. She said I watched every move he made. I don't exactly remember it, (I was around two,) but it must have made an impression.

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My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
www.buddyemmons.com

My father, Ray Kuykendall, in 1953 (I was 3)when he would jam with Sock Underwood and Cotton Collins in Fort Worth. He played a single-neck Fender tuned to an E-6th.

Jim Murphy, in Tulsa Ok in about 74 or 75 playing at the Tradewinds west with the Tommy Nelson band. Murphy was the first and only guy I ever saw use the bottom of a bottle for a slide, just a little something extra he would throw in from time to time.
Also a great sax player.

The first one I heard and fell in love with was Bobby Garrett in the early 60's. He was playing with Hank Thompson and the Brazos Valley Boys. The tone in his hands was unreal and I've never heard it matched by anyone.

Rick

Ernie, that's how I remember Buddy. I'm still trying to figure out if the steel is too small for his legs or his legs are too long for the steel.
Perry

Perry;
The guitar is too short, making his legs too long. The Emmons he used with the Everly's was an inch taller. Who knows how much taller it was than the Bigsby in the picture.

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My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
www.buddyemmons.com

Question ? Was it fairly common back in earlier times to play with the volume pedal outside the legs of the steel ? I've seen several pictures like that.

For me, it was seeing and hearing then Buckaroo steeler Jay McDonald at a Country Music extravaganza held at the Civic Auditorium in Bakersfield in 1963 to honor local TV personality Cousin Herb Henson. Jay was awesome on his Fender 1000 and was featured in the song "This Ol Heart". You can hear that one as a throw-in on the Sundazed re-issue of Buck's "Ive Got A Tiger By the Tail" LP. When I hear Jay play on some of Buck's other albums, I still get goosebumps. Mooney and Jay are the greatest IMO for the "Bakersfield Sound".

When I was a teenager I saw Poco at Carnegie Hall, but I was not close enough to the stage to get a good view of Rusty Young. He did the "chair thing" that others have alluded to, and also set the steel on fire (ala Hendrix at Monterey)!

The first steel player I got to really observe live was Curly Chalker, at one of the early (the first?) PSGA shows in New York in the early '70s. I was truly amazed.

Hi,

The first professional steel player (getting paid to play regularly vs national headliner) was Rick Mann from a group called "Baraboo". They were a good country rock group around Chicago until went to backup Tanya Tucker on tour one summer. He was also my first pedal steel instructor.

First national acts - same show - Buddy Cage with NRPS and Bobby Black with Commander Cody. After I saw them I knew what I wanted to play (and still wish I could).



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Dayton Osland
Shobud S10

Bobby Garrett with Jim Reeves and Hank Locklin 56 or 57.In fact I went and got them a six pack.

Hello...BRUCE DERR!! Great to see you on the Forum! How ya doin? Bruce Derr...was my FIRST pedal steel teacher ('75)...AND my former neighbor...2 houses away, where I grew up in NYS. Wow...what a small world!!! Please, email me...when you have the chance, okay?

Anyway...the 1st Professional Pedal Steel player, that I saw playing Live...was Buddy Cage (w/The New Riders). Hempstead, Long Island ('75). I was so impressed w/Buddy Cage's playing...that I decided THAT night, to buy a pedal steel...& become a steel player.



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David (DJ) Rupert

1995 Mullen D-10
Nashville 400 Amp
Goodrich Volume Pedal (L120).
Boss: Dual Overdrive (SD-2), Digital Delay (DD-5), Super Phaser (PH-2).

"Music. Without it, life itself...would be impossible."

Peace.

www.johnbarnold.com/rupert/index.htm