The Steel Guitar Forum

Maybe he has a pedal on his guitar, I don't know, but he don't play like a pedal player!!

I am never ceased to be amazed at these two. They were perfect for each other!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVYLpckjv8Q

Speedy and myself were active in the So. Calif. era starting about 1945. We were good freinds. Speedy never used pedals for melody lines, he used them to expand his tunings to play true Diminishes, Augmenteds, Major 7ths, etc. Speedy became quite sucessful with his special effects many of which were picked up from Alvino Rey, Curly Cochran and Noel Boggs. In his collaborations with Jimmy Bryant, Jimmy was the heavy hitter with his Jazz rides. Speedy was the "Showman" and not really a Jazz player.

I am lucky to own the Guitar Spectacular record by Speedy West. There are some beautiful slow numbers on it like Lazy Summer Evening, Afternoon Of A Swan, where I believe he uses pedals. Here is a link: http://www.sundazed.com/audio/9008-3.mp but one has to go to country/ rockabilly to hear a short sample of Lazy Summer Evening.

What a pair! My Mom bought me a couple of their Eps back in the 50's because I loved guitar music so. I'd never heard of them. Man, I about wore those two records out! One of the songs was "Blue Bonnet Rag". I loved Speedy's playing on that song. He played the verses pretty straight and would really get with it on the choruses. I'd never heard anything like it! Great memories.

Charlie:
Blue Bonnet Rag was a Bob Wills instrumental from the late 30's or early 40's. I'm pretty Sure Leon McCauliffe was playing Steel. Another from that era you might like was "Little Girl Go Ask Your Momma" which was entirely instrumental. Leon made great strides in his Steel playing in the early years but after he left Bob and started his own band he concentrated on Band Arrangements and Singing. His Steel playing IMHO never progressed even though he was quite capable. He realized that just being a "Sideman" was never going to earn nig money.

Billy Tonnesen wrote:Charlie:
Blue Bonnet Rag was a Bob Wills instrumental from the late 30's or early 40's. I'm pretty Sure Leon McCauliffe was playing Steel. Another from that era you might like was "Little Girl Go Ask Your Momma" which was entirely instrumental. Leon made great strides in his Steel playing in the early years but after he left Bob and started his own band he concentrated on Band Arrangements and Singing. His Steel playing IMHO never progressed even though he was quite capable. He realized that just being a "Sideman" was never going to earn nig money.

Thanks Billy, I love Leon's playing. I'm a non-pedaler and Leon along with Little Roy,and Don are great favorites of mine. I recall trying to learn "Blue Bonnett Rag" off of Jimmy and Speedy's recording. I could do okay with the verse but Lord knows what he was doing on the bridge! It was pure "Speedy"! lol

Billy,

Yes, Leon wrote "Blue Bonnet Rag", but Jimmy and Speedy had a wonderful recording of it, too. Lots of great crashbar and shivering tremelo effect!

Bill Hatcher,

Speedy had a triple eight Bigsby guitar with four pedals. The main pedal he used was similar to the fifth pedal on a modern C6 pedal setup, dropping the five in the chord by half a step to provide a deminished chord. Speedy played E13 on that neck, so his B went to B flat.

Another interesting thing about this tuning: This was Bigsby's first pedal guitar and he hadn't figured out how to lower strings yet, so Speedy's tuning had the B flat in the straight tuning with the pedal RAISING it to B.

Chris Scruggs

Charley:

The bridge to Blue Bonnet Rag as plyed by Leon was relatively simple. I haven't heard Speedy's & Jimmy's version but I'm sure they decided to expand it and do their own improvisions. As great as Speedy's special effects became, there was a lot of repetition with the various Artists he recorded with. I'm not trying to take anything away from Speedy but there is only so much you can do with certain types of Special Effects.

Billy
What you say about Speedy's limitations is for the most part true, but one fact remains: the man wrote and recorded some of the finest instrumental music ever recorded. I get tremendous pleasure out of listening to it and playing it. I still think Guitar Spectacular is one of the finest records I've ever heard, and that was Speedy sans Jimmy. His compositions are wonderful on that record. I thank Guitar Player magazine for first exposing me to Speedy--I've never been the same since.

The one thing that Speedy brought to the countless recording sessions he did--tricks and all--is complete joy. That's certainly no easy accomplishment.

If i remember the name of the song right,one of the first instrumentals i learned when starting on steel was Busting Throuh by Speedy West.I was learning on the C6th.
It had very rapid complex chord changes and the bridge went into a different key.IMHO the man could play.I could hear chords as i had a background in studying music and piano amd a few years under my belt playing fiddle.
I can't take credit for it as i was born with an ear for music and could hear a song one time and never forget the melody.I never gave this any thought until years later when i had some of the best C6th players show me something they had to only show me one time.
Took me a while to learn some of them through with out stumbling.
A steel player showed me how to play the Little Rock Get Away.He had to only show me once but i almost gave up as I always fumbled the single string ride going into the bridge.Think after working on it about 500 times was when i could finally do it.
I only bring this up so maybe some of the ones just starting on steel will not gave up.As Lloyd Green once said,they all had to start at some time.

I heared some early radio shows with Hank Penny and Speedy plays great on that. Single string stuff and beautifull chords. This recording was before he started to record for Capitol and is without all the gimmicks. If Hank Penny didn't introduce him ypu wouldn't believe it was Speedy West!