The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey Red Rhodes Fans - Does anyone know what tuning/copedant Red Rhodes used on the records he did with Mike Nesmith? I have Winnie Winston's book, but it lists tunings for a double neck which I don't think he played with Nesmith's band.

Hey Chris, to the best of my recollection it was an Eb13th which would be like taking your E9 tuning and putting a C# string between your 4th string E and your 5th string B.........JH in Va.

My recollection of Red's Eflat tuning was that the strings were tuned to a major scale....or something along that line.

Skip, Red used a diatonic tuning at times but his main set up was as I described.......JH in Va.

Red sat down on a couple occasions and showed me his tuning and pedals and it was an Eb6th tuning. I never actually sat down and tried to play it but one thing he said was that it was enough like a standard C6th that he could play C6th no problem.He had E9 type pulls on there and like Sneaky's setup he could sound like E9 if he wanted to. He favored Eb because he said he could avoid the 7th and 12th frets in common keys which he felt were weak due to the divisions between harmonic nodes that fall on those frets. On a couple doubleneck guitars he showed me down at his shop(an MSA and a Sierra)he had his 10 string Eb6th on the back neck and an Eb diatonic 12 string on the front neck which was just a major scale. He said he needed 12 strings on that neck to get any kind of range.He played some very pretty stuff on that neck which had about 4+4 on it but I never delved into what the pedals did - he showed me one time but it was so foreign to my E9th mind it just went in one ear and out the other. I'm sure it's written down somewhere in the annals of steel guitar.Red was one of a kind and I miss him on so many levels.

Red was an electronics master. Either in the late 50s or early 60s he made me a 300 rms amp with one 15"JBL The amp was just big enough to house the speaker and the electronics were crammed in all around it. Red played through one of these and when I heard it I had to have one. It was very light in comparison to other amps due to no wasted space. I used this amp for almost 3 yrs and it was stolen off the bandstand of a sit down job. I hope whoever stole it has a place recerved in hell or is already there. CC

Jerry.. you're absolutely right. I had forgotten that Red used 2 tunings.
Do you remember his stereo pickup? The one that had every other string going Left or Right? What a cool sound that was...and what a great place to hang his shop was.

Skip,That stereo pickup was amazing wasn't it?Stu

It's no secret that Red was a serious mentor to me, and to lots of other LA steelers. And his shop on Cahuenga, just south of H'wood Blvd., was THE place to hang out in the late 60's/early 70's.

Red's Royal Amp and Service... "where you get it royally."

Somewhere in my files... I'll have to look... is a letter Red sent to me in 1966, telling me his copedent for his S-11 ZB that he'd just received.

This is the same guitar that Paycheck "bought" from Red that wound up in the San Diego pawnshop where I saw it in the summer of 1969. Red was really chapped about that one!

Oh yes Red's old shop. Lots of memories. Red used to get a big kick out of doing this to folks he hadn't played with before. On stage would be a wall of amps. Red would walk on with an amp about the size of a bread box. You could see all the scornful and questional looks Red was getting as if to say Man you might as well not play, no one will hear you.Then the fun started as Red would blow them off the stage with his amp and leave alot of envious folks behind. cc

Herb Steiner wrote:his shop on Cahuenga, just south of H'wood Blvd., was THE place to hang out in the late 60's/early 70's.

My wife worked at the Hollywood Library, less than 1/2 a block away from Red's shop, and didn't drive at the time. She usually rode her bicycle to work (we only lived 4 miles away) but often I had to drive her and would hang out with Red. He was a really great guy.

I visited Red at his house a few weeks before he died. he knew he was dying. He told me he had asbestos poisoning, which he got from working on some of those old speaker cabinets that were lined with the stuff.

What a terrible loss to us all.

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c c johnson wrote:Red was an electronics master. Either in the late 50s or early 60s he made me a 300 rms amp with one 15"JBL The amp was just big enough to house the speaker and the electronics were crammed in all around it. Red played through one of these and when I heard it I had to have one. It was very light in comparison to other amps due to no wasted space. I used this amp for almost 3 yrs and it was stolen off the bandstand of a sit down job. I hope whoever stole it has a place recerved in hell or is already there. CC

If Red built you a light amp, it's the only one!

I got two Deluxe Reverbs he built me, and they weigh sixteen tons apiece...

Marshall transformers and JBL speakers...I can't even take them out of the house any more!

100 watts!

SH

"where you get it... Royally"

I got it royally a few times...

Skip Edwards wrote:I got it royally a few times...

I think ALL the LA players of guitar or steel in the 70's and well into the 90's (when he worked for GT) got it royally. He was a professional mentor to me.

Red was LA guitar royalty, for sure.