The Steel Guitar Forum

Well, we've all heard our uninitiated friends refer to our beloved instrument as a "Steel Pedal" Guitar, and I usually correct them gently but firmly ("Uh, you mean 'Pedal Steel' Guitar").

Well! NOW, I find out that even LEO FENDER called it a "Steel Pedal" Guitar! Check out these two PATENTS!!!

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT3136198

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT3352188

What are we to make of this unwelcome news?!

Well, we could make like ostriches and simply refuse to accept its existence. I don't think this would be a big stretch.

My plan exactly!

Jim,I just did some Steel Pedal session work for a bunch of young guys in their mid-twenties and all of them,and their engineer referred to it as Cool Lap Steel or just Lap.

Boxcar Willie was doin' a show in Branson one time and he called it a Hawaiian pedal electric steel guitar.

Brett

I say these documents are forgeries, placed there by members of the international banjo conspiracy (who stole the originals which were of course, correct,) in an effort to demoralize and destroy us.

THIS IS WAR!!!

I say we retaliate by changing the letter j to a g. From now on, their instrument is spelled BANGO.

It is the duty of every pedal steel guitarist not just to use this new spelling at all times, but to retroactively change all existing written references to that instrument.

And all the times Jennings called it a "banger" I thought he was misspelling it. Guess he's just smarter then me.

Hear hear! BANGO is much more descriptive of the sound it makes when properly weilded.

Hehe - like "perfect pitch" is hitting the dumpster with the "bango" on the first throw...

"Steel Pedal" Guitar, eh? Hmm... Eh, oh well.

Frankly I don't even like talking about my instrument with the general public. It always feels like opening a can of worms that becomes too confusing and time consuming for their liking or mine.

When you play for spite, a bango is the ultimate weapon! How can you tell which steel players also
play bango? We're the ones who are working!

Would anyone know where the term [AXE]referring to an instrument come from? Could it have anything to do with [chops]?

I wanna be like Mike..
I hear Bangers repel skeeters real good!

Charles, there actually was a thread on the previous Forum server about the term "axe". You could try a search on that.

I'm with Duane ......

Well! NOW, I find out that even LEO FENDER called it a "Steel Pedal" Guitar!

That's not hard to understand, as the pedals on the original Fender 1000 and 400 were made of (die-stamped) steel!

B@njo players have no sense of humor? Last week at our local Farmer's Market I walked out to the parking lot to watch the bluegrass jams and saw a group with a B@njo in it. I said to my wife in a loud voice "Look Maw, he's playin' a snare drum with a neck on it" to which I got a very cold and icy stare from him but a lot of laughs from the others, Oh well........JH in Va.

I have had Horn men say to me "Bring your Axe" to the jam session. As Jim says.
Or some called it "Harp". ..Oh Yeah, "Long ago and far away".al.:)

at least "Steel Pedal" is a step in the right direction - what really drives me nuts is when people call it "Slide"

I always thought "chops" was a horn players' term that comes from the fact that they play with their mouths or "choppers."

Jim Cohen wrote:... LEO FENDER called it a "Steel Pedal" Guitar!

It doesn't really surprise me, considering the fact that he also had the vibrato/tremolo thing backwards.

Leo was undoubtably a genious in many fields. Musical terminology wasn't one of them. So what?

VERY respectfully,
Rainer

I'm talking to a guy in a music store, he says, "Waddya Play?"-- I say, "a few things, Pedal Steel, etc..." he says, "I love lap slide!"

Yeah, well I love 'lap slide' too, but only when I'm not busy playing music...

I was gonna say something like that, but I figured I'd toss it out and let someone else say it.............