The Steel Guitar Forum

Jerry Douglas is featured on tonights( Sept 21/07) "Transatlantic Sessions" tv program on BBC 4. This is great acoustic roots show. I hope it also gets aired in the States.

Thanks for the heads-up, I will try to catch that...

It's a shame it's so rare to see steel guitar on TV(or anywhere!) in the UK. Occasionally maybe on that Jools Holland show...

Mind you, you get to hear some nice stuff...
That "River cottage" food programme had some beautiful rootsy bluesy acoustic background/incidental music, sounded like a Weissenborn. I'd like to find out who that was.

Here is Jerry's opener from Friday's show:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gukFvG8VbK4

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Does he play mostly in Dobro G tuning? Looks like few if any slants in that tuning.

Hi Gary,

I could be wrong but it sounds like "D" tuning in the clip and Jerry plays a lot of Dobro "G" also.

In D do Dobro players use slants?

Yeah -that's in D. On every tour with Alison Krauss & Union Station, Jerry has a solo spot. This medley was the one he typically played on the tour that recently finished.

He plays in G probably 2/3 of the time, and mot of the rest of the time in D, except for an odd tune now and then with a different tuning.

For instance, when they do their version of "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow," with Dan Tyminski on lead vocal, which was made famous in the film "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Jerry keeps a dobro on stage tuned to F, for just that song.

Dobro players use slants in D and G, but on some of the machine gun speed bluegrass-oriented stuff, its tough to do slants and be accurate, so they seem to have fallen out of favor. On the slower, bluesier stuff slants are still used fairly regularly - Rob Ickes is a master of the art - but then Rob rarely plays tunings besides G.

Thanks for the tip off Frank. It was a great program all round, with superb vocals and musicianship from all concerned. It ought to be put out on DVD.

There are clips on you-tube from the first two series. Don't know why it took them so long to do the third.
Hopefully, all three series will be available on dvd.

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