Lead Guitarist Turned Steeler?

[Jim Walker]

How many of you played lead guitar before you learned to play Pedal Steel?

Did knowing what you knew help you to make the transition?

Has learning Pedal Steel Helped your guitar playing?

JW

2003


2008

[Mike Perlowin]

Me, and probably 90% of the people here. And yes to both questions.

[Dick Sexton]

What Mr. Perlowin said. I started finger style six string guitar at 12/1956, took up steel and fiddle at the same time in 1979. Dabbled in bass and harp along the way, all mostly self taught. An accident at work damaged my index finger on my left hand(limited movement). Now it's steel only with a smattering of bass. I use a computer term, "Hack in, Hack out", to describe my playing, but it all relates. I think finger style guitar made the right hand transition to steel easier. I recommend playing more then one instrument and usually not steel first. JMO

[Larry Lorows]

I played lead guitar for 25 years before I took up steel and because I had learned my theory, I feel my steel playing ability has been expanded 1000%. What I'm thinking of when I say that is, I can substitute chords when I'm learning a new song. A flat 9th is also a diminished chord. Things like this make it interesting to me. Larry

[Bill Fulbright]

Yes. Me 2. Playing both has helped. It has to because you are applying new skills and brain wiring but using a lot of stored information! The tough part is making the steel come up to speed with the 45 yrs of guitar playing. Laying out for 3 years doesn't help

Hope to get started back soon, after I move back to Kerrville, TX in the HILL COUNTRY.......next month!!

[Ernie Pollock]

I think Mike has hit it pretty close, I started on guitar, then played bass guitar in rock bands in the 60's, then back to lead guitar in a country band, but that steel just drove me crazy, I loved the sound so much that in '75 I got myself a shobud crossover [Baldwin]. Most of the stuff I learned from steel playing has really helped me as a guitar player. I also dabbled with the tenor sax, that did nothing for guitar or steel!!

I have had a lot of fun doing both, but I still love the steel guitar the best.

Ernie

[Terry Wood]

Hi Jim,

Me too! Started on the geetar at age 8 and started the transition to steel at age 19 after hearing that guy, what was his name oh yeah Mr. Lloyd Green.

There must be something in the water down there in Alabama, ya'll sure had some heavy weight steelers: Lloyd Green, Julian Tharpe, Don Helms, James Clayton alias Jimmy Day, Harold Lee Chalker alias Curly Chalker, that Owsley boy, Lynn Owsley. Just great people and super great steel guitarists all of them! My favorites from your state.

I still love guitar and good guitar players. However, I don't like thumpers on a regular guitar though and the world's full of them.

Playing both steel and regular 6 string will really help you buddy.

Goodluck and GOD bless!

Terry Wood

[Donny Hinson]

I started playing lead guitar (surf music) in the early '60s, then switched to British music in '64, and went on to play Motown and soul. In the early '70s, I gave up guitar completely - and never regretted it. I had been trying to play both steel and lead almost since I'd started, but I finally realized that pursuing both would probably mean I wouldn't get really good at either. Besides, steel players were a rarity (and still are), while lead players have been like blades of grass in the park for the past half-century.

[Howard Tate]

Lead guitar for many years and yes it helped the change to steel. However my guitar playing has really suffered in the last few years, I must start practicing it again.

[James Morehead]

Not me. I played country bass, which really helped me with timing and song structure. I DO own an acoustic, and can play a couple of bluegrass tunes. And I own a nice US-of-A Tele, and can play a couple simple tunes on it. So really, I couldn't squeese lead out of my tele with 3 hands and a Rand McNally. But I AM connecting with my shobud. I really need to learn someday, how to play 6 string. I'll do it in my spare time i don't have.

[Bob Simons]

Lead guitar for 40 years! It has been great having different notes "fall under my fingers" on a steel guitar. I felt stale before and now I am constantly excited about expression and improvisation. My note choices on guitar are now more interesting, but my technique is way off cause all I ever want to play is steel guitar!

I spend alot of time with lap steel which is an easier transition for guitar players, I believe...

[John Billings]

Started out on 5-string in '62. Then went to guitar a couple years later. I've never used a flatpick. Always been a fingerpicker. Took up steel in '72. I think my 20 years of experience as a fingerpicker really helped me learn quickly. Three lessons and I was giggin'.

[Dick Sexton]

Three hands and a Rand Mc Nally, James you kill me.
I'm gunna use that one, fits me perfectly.

[Jonathan Cullifer]

Piano here for 6 years, then on to steel. Didn't learn to play guitar until 3 or 4 years after I took up steel.

[Dick Wood]

I started playing 6 string at 14 then switched to bass guitar at 22 then steel at 27 so steel was more understanding pedal/lever relationships since I already had a background with respect to chords scales etc.

After years of playing only steel I recently started playing guitar in my band and it has been fun so far.

[Drew Howard]

Twelve years ago I remember having a pocket full of money and literally choosing between the new Fender Clarence White Tele and single-neck Fessy. Went with the latter, less money and more pulls

Playing pedal and non along with some other things has helped keep my career going and brought more opportunity.

Everyone plays six-string. Not everyone plays steel guitar. You gotta have more tricks in your bag these days.

I wouldn't be playing steel guitar w/o playing six-string first. I don't play pedal-steel bends on six-string but I enjoy emulating chords and phrasing.

[Jerry Hayes]

I messed with a little Dobro when I was a kid but nothing to serious. When I was in the Army I got really into lead guitar, especially the Scotty Moore stuff. While in Korea I was involved in a Special Services show in which we did a variety of music, pop, rock, polka, country or whatever to make the show work. In one segment they needed a steel guitar but no one to play it. They had a double six Rickenbacker I believe and I tuned one neck to open E and learned to play "Steel Guitar Rag" on it for the country segment and "Sleepwalk" for the pop segment.

When I got out of the Army in '63 I was in SoCal and went to work playing lead guitar, after about a year I bought a MultiKord which I had for six or eight months before I sold it. Later I traded a bass amp for a Fender 400 which I later traded in on a Fender 1000. I was still playing lead guitar and maybe a few tunes a night on steel as most of the work was trio gigs then. Around '71 I bought my first "real" steel, by that I mean more than 8 strings. It was an S-10 Blanton which I got from Blackie Taylor's store. Blackie fashioned two knee levers for it, one which lowered the second string to D and the other lowered the E's. After a while we converted it to an eleven string. After a couple of years of "doubling" on steel I wound up trading it for a 1958 Volkswagen.

I didn't own another steel till the end of '77 or so and I was playing guitar six nights a week at the Swizzle Stik in Huntington Beach, California. I bought an S-12 ShoBud to which I later added an Emmons pickup. Art Sanchez was playing steel for us at the SS and I was getting some good pointers from him and I'd take it to the gig on Sunday nights for the jam session and play it for a set if a lead guitar player showed up. After a while Art went on the road and was replaced by a sucession of steel players. Finally we hired Forumite Stephen Silver who stayed about a year and did a wonderful job. Steve eventually left to go on the road with Mary Kay Place & Barbi Benton so we were without a steeler again. A couple of band members suggested that I go on steel so we hired another lead player and there I was, finally a full time steel guitarist?

After I left the Swizzle Stik to work with some old friends on lead and steel I found out that the Foothill Club was looking for a steel player so worked with them one night as an "audition" and was hired. The rest is "history"?.......

I've found that playing steel has definately helped my guitar playing, especially in musical theory and terminology. It seems that I can look at a steel fretboard and tell which scale position each string occupies easier than I can on guitar.

As far as my copendant and setup, it's by no means standard! My setup has evolved to where I feel I can do most of the things on steel that I do on guitar, especially instrumentals. I've been playing steel a long time now but I still have the mindset of a guitarist playing steel, that's why I prefer a 12 string, I couldn't live without that low E string! I think they both go hand in hand......

I'm lucky enough to be gigging 5 nights a week, two as a steel guitarist, one on bass guitar, and two doubling on lead and steel....Life is good!...JH in Va.

[Billy McCoy]

Yep,

Playing guitar first helped me out a little...mostly being in bands and LISTENING to the steeler and remembering how it is supposed to SOUND was the most important factor for me.

Started playing guitar at age 12...Bass guitar followed, Picked up Pedal Steel, Banjo and Mandolin
in 2003.

I get booked more on Pedal Steel these days than I do electric guitar! Must be doing something right!

b

[Pete Burak]

The thing Pedal Steel has taught me about guitar playing is...
Guitar playing is so incredibly easy!
The level of difficulty of guitar is soooo loooow compared to pedal/non-pedal steel.
I focused on PSG exclusivley from '95-'05, and now coming from Pedal Steel, it's like 95% of the guitar playing I've ever heard is now easy for me to figure out and play fluently.
Very Cool!

[Mike Perlowin]

Piano here for 6 years, then on to steel.

Sorry Johnathan, playing piano first is against the rules.

We're sending the steel guitar police to your house tomorrow morning to confiscate your picks and bar.

[b0b]

I could never get the hang of lead guitar. I tried. My left hand just doesn't work that way.

[Dave Mudgett]

Classical piano for 6 years, then guitar (regular and slide) for 30 years, with b@njo along the way (sorry b0b), and then finally pedal steel came into the mix.

I think slide guitar and b@njo were the most helpful in approaching pedal steel, but everything helps. I definitely think pedal steel has helped my guitar playing. The ability to voice chords on pedal steel opened up some things I wanted to do on guitar but didn't exactly see how to do. Music is music, regardless of instrument, but sometimes a different instrument can help you see something new. For me, just the experience of me physically playing something on one instrument somehow causes me to be able to find it easier on another.

[Paul E. Brennan]

I played guitar for 15 years before I started on steel. It was a very humbling experience to go from arrogant lead player to complete novice. It just made me all the more determined to make progress. Playing steel has actually helped my guitar playing a lot.

[Jim Walker]

People often ask how I learned to play steel and I reply, "I started out as a front man and worked my way up from there."


JW

[Jim Walker]

I played guitar for 15 years before I started on steel. It was a very humbling experience to go from arrogant lead player to complete novice. It just made me all the more determined to make progress. Playing steel has actually helped my guitar playing a lot.

Paul, Have you been reading my mail? That's pretty much my story too.

JW