The Steel Guitar Forum

Lew played steel for Conway Twitty before John Huey took over in the late sixties. He was a truly interesting character who had really been around, and he was an amazing player. I met him in 1973 at the Alamo in San Diego, where he was playing with Gene Davis. I considered him the best steel player in town back then. Maybe there are some others out in Steel Guitar USA, who knew him and would like to add some memories to this thread. I'll lay out his set-up if anyone is interested. It was a D9 with no chromatics.

Lew always amazed me on how he could play so smooth without a volume pedal. He crooked a finger around the volume control on his guitar. This was when he was still with Twitty. Nice guy and great player. Jody.

Hey John, good to see you on the Forum. I'd like to see his setup for sure. Are you still playing that Fender 400? If I remember from my old SoCal days, you didn't use a volume pedal either. Hope everything's going great for you out there on the "left" coast......JH in Va. (formerly from SoCal)

I'd like to see it too.
Thanks
Dave

I knew Lew for many years, living in Kansas City, Mo. I first met Lew in eary 1974 and typical of musicians were were both working a lot and never got to visit much.

Lew and his picking style were a legend around KC, too. He worked quite a bit with lead guitar picker Lonnie Harper, who also has a unique style of fingering the guitar as he did it which his fingering hand from the top of the neck rather than the bottom of the neck.

Hey guys, thanks for the response. Lew played a stock Fender 400 through a Fender Super Reverb. I think he had some kind of fuzztone for rock stuff. He played what he called a D9 non-chromatic tuning. Strings 1-8 were F#,D,A,F#,E,D,B,G. There were the four pedals from left to right:

1) lower B to A, and lower upper D to Db
2) raise upper D to E, and raise B to C
3) raise A to B
4) raise F#'s to G

Basically you used your left foot on pedals 1+2, and your right foot on 3+4. Sometimes you could use your left foot on pedal 3.

There were no knee levers and no volume pedal. He controlled the volume with the regular knob using his right little finger. It was critical that you had a volume pot with all the taper in the beginning. Searching for this kind of pot would bring a grown man to his knees. If I went into detail about the misery I went through replacing and keeping those pots clean and non-scratchy-sounding for the 12 years I played a 400, you would take pity on me. I'm getting the vapors just thinking about those days. Anyway, this was the set up he played, and got me playing. If anyone wants to reminisce about Lew, or the San Diego scene back in the early 70's, then let 'er rip.

Are there any recommended recordings of Lew? I love simple set ups. I would love to hear his approach.

Dave

Dave, There are some cuts from a Wayne Kemp album that can be heard on youtube. Some of the steel playing you will recognize as John Huey, but there are a few others that I believe are Lew. Lew used a lot of two-string figures climbing the neck. He was limited by the lack of a D half-tone raise, and the lack of chromatics. He was highly creative and stubborn as a jackass. I'd have to say that he had a little of Ralph Mooney and John Huey in him, but the rest of it was just Lew Houston. I have seen a few Conway Twitty youtube things he was on where he sounded like he was playing lead guitar. As I recall, it was Dave Barr who provided the videos. I also have a cassette tape of him playing at a club near K.C. Come on down here and I'll take you to the Always, Patsy Cline show and you can borrow the tape. JFC

Hey John, he must have been the guy I saw on YouTube a while back. Someone posted a clip of Conway Twitty singing "Working Girl" and the steel player wasn't using a volume pedal and sounded like a "chicken pickin" Telecaster player. I'd like to see that one again.........JH in Va.

I think many players who've been at it for some time have a Lew Houston story or two. Here's mine...

I was working in Vegas at the Nashville Nevada club in 1971 with Mike Franklin's band, the 10pm-3am shift. This fellow comes up to me and asks if he could sit in. I of course say "sure! Use my Sho-Bud up there onstage." He says, "naw, I have my own guitar out in the car."

He brings in a mid-60's Fender 400, no volume pedal. You gotta be kidding! Smartass kid that I was back then, I think to myself "okay grandpa, show me what you got."

Trust me, he showed me my ass and handed it to me gift wrapped! Humbled and embarassed, I asked "man, you're incredible! Where do you work?!" He told me he worked for Conway Twitty and I asked if he was John Hughey. He said no, he worked for Twitty before and after Hughey. We sat together and shared a few drinks, then he went off into the night.

Cut to 5 years later, I'm doing a show at Panther Hall in Fort Worth, and on this huge wall filled with autographs was scrawled "Lew Houston and the Steel Drivers." No one in Alvin Crow's band had heard of him except me, and I told them what a monster he was.

Apparently he divided his time between Kansas City and the West Coast, and God knows where. But he was a monster, whereever he was. God bless Lew Houston!

I listened to a couple of Wayne Kemp's songs on Utube and this does not sound like the style of Mr. Hughey. Maybe it is him? (Love goes to hell when it dies).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvUjzExc3ZI

Joachim, Lew always played a Fender steel. They have a very thin, tinny, trebly sound. Listen to Mooney's sound on those late 50's and early 60's Buck Owens tunes. It's very similar. You can hear Lew for sure on the "Image of me" by Conway Twitty. I have the album somewhere. I'll bet he's on all of that.
Hey Herb, did you get him to sing at that Vegas gig? Lew had a voice somewhere between J.D. Sumner and Jim Reeves. He was a great vocalist, and the
only guy I ever met who did "Folsom Prison" in D.
My first wife always requested "The Blizzard" when we went to see him with Gene Davis at the Alamo.

John,
Can I say that, that particular sound comes from a lack of sustain of the guitar? Was there less aluminum and more wood in the body? What string gauges did you use?

Lew houston At steel show in Dothan Alabama in 2000 or 2001. Not sure which year.

Joachim, I think that lack of sustain was the hallmark of the primitive steel guitars. Probably every variable that could be brought into play contributed to lack of sustain. The bridge was just a pencil-thick tube of metal that eventually formed friction grooves from the strings wearing into it. I, myself finally bit the bullet and bought a Sho-Bud in 1984.
Thank you, Lamar for that more recent photo of Lew. I see he was still using the little finger for volume control. Believe it or not, it is not as hard as you might think, to control volume that way. If you have a pot with the right taper, it is pretty easy. If you don't, you will need divine intervention. And I see he got some knee levers. I wonder if one of them raised his D's a half-tone. I wish I could have heard him play and talked with him. All those years he played without an "F lever."

Lew wanted to experiment with knee levers so he asked me to put on 4 levers. each had 1 pull. RKR raised string#5 E-F. RKV raised string #3 A-C. LKR lowered string#2 D-C. LKL lowered string 3 A-G#.
I,later built a 9 string steel for him with 4 pedals and 5 levers. He passed away about 2 weeks after he received it.

Ulric, thanks for responding. Out of curiosity, what is your tuning and pedal set-up, and what kind of amp and effects do you use? When I played the 400, I just used a Fender Quad Reverb with reverb set on about 4. Thanks also to Lamar for that photo of Lew with his new steel. I see he still did not see the need for an "F" lever. I guess in Lew's case it would have been an "Eb" lever.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... ew+houston

(setup)

Lamar - Is there a pedal on the far right side of the guitar in the photo?